Most people arrive at this with a rough idea: you send people to a broker, you get paid something. That's right as far as it goes, but the shape of the deal matters, and the shape is what decides whether this becomes a real income stream or a few dollars a month.
The mechanism, plainly
An introducing broker — IB — introduces traders to a brokerage. When those traders trade, the broker earns from the spread and commission on each trade. A slice of that comes back to you as a rebate, calculated per lot traded.
A lot is a standard unit of trading volume. So your income isn't a percentage of what your clients deposit, and it isn't a share of their profits. It's tied to how much they trade. That distinction catches people out, so it's worth sitting with:
- A client who deposits $10,000 and trades once a month is worth very little to you.
- A client who deposits $500 and trades actively every day can be worth considerably more.
Deposit size is not the signal. Activity is the signal. Everything about how you choose an audience and how you look after them should follow from that one fact.
Where the money actually comes from
This is the question I get asked most often, usually with some suspicion attached — and fairly, because plenty of programmes are cagey about it.
The rebate is paid out of the broker's own revenue on the trade. It is not an extra charge added to your clients' costs, and your clients do not get worse pricing because they came through you. The broker is effectively paying a distribution cost: it is cheaper for them to pay partners who bring engaged traders than to buy the same traders through advertising.
That's the whole economic logic of the model. Once you see it, the rest of the structure makes sense — including why brokers care so much about whether your referrals actually stay and trade, rather than just signing up.
The division of labour
The broker handles: account opening and verification, the trading platform, deposits and withdrawals, trade execution, regulatory compliance, and paying out your rebates.
You handle: the relationship. Finding people who trust your judgment, being honest with them about risk, and staying present after they've signed up.
I handle the part in between, which is the part most partners are left to figure out alone. Setting up the deal itself and negotiating your rate. Making sure every referral is tracked and attributed to you correctly from day one. And the growth side — events on the ground, online ad campaigns, campaign funding where it's warranted.
That middle layer is the actual difference between programmes. Signing up to a broker's affiliate page is easy and takes ten minutes. What you don't get from it is anyone who picks up the phone when a client has a withdrawal problem, or who tells you honestly that the thing you're about to try won't work.
What it isn't
Some clearing-up, because the terminology in this industry is deliberately fuzzy:
It isn't money management. You are not trading for anyone, you don't hold client funds, and you don't touch their accounts. In most jurisdictions that's precisely what keeps an IB arrangement straightforward — the moment you start advising on specific trades or managing money, you're in different regulatory territory. Refer, don't manage.
It isn't a pyramid scheme. You aren't recruiting people to recruit people. Your income comes from actual trading activity by actual clients. I run one level of introductions — you can introduce another partner you rate, and that's where it stops. No downlines, no levels, no monthly quota.
It isn't passive. I'd rather say this early than have you find out in month four. The partners who do well here treat it as a relationship business: they check in, they answer questions, they help someone who's lost money think about what happened. The ones who post a link and wait tend to earn very little, and they usually conclude the model doesn't work — when what actually didn't work was the approach.
What a realistic start looks like
You apply, we talk about your audience on a short call, and we agree a rebate rate that reflects what you're bringing. You get a tracking link. Every person who signs up through it is tagged to you permanently, and your registrations, funded accounts and rebates update daily — so you can see within a week whether what you're doing is working.
From there it's rhythm. The partners who build something real are the ones still showing up in month six.
Nothing here is a promise of income — what you earn depends entirely on your audience and how actively they trade. Please read the risk disclosure, and note that trading carries risk for your clients too. That last part matters more than anything else on this page: an audience that loses money doesn't stay an audience.
Want to run some numbers? Use the rebate calculator. Ready to talk? Apply here — it takes about two minutes.