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Monetisation

Per-revenue-stream reference. The decision and recommendation live in RFC-0008; this doc is the lookup table the RFC references.

1. Scope & method

What this is. A structured per-revenue-stream reference — how each stream works, who pays, retailer cooperation needed, expected revenue range, time-to-positive-cashflow estimate, and source citations. Pairs with RFC-0008 (decision + recommendation) and the aggregator design spec §4 (original commercial framing).

What this isn't. Not the decision document — that's the RFC. Not a forecast — every revenue range is an estimate keyed to the spec's §4.3 model and persona §6.3 LTV table. Not retailer outreach scripts. Not legal/VAT detail (that's #40).

Method. Synthesises the spec's commercial decisions (§4, §6, §7), competitive landscape's monetisation comparison (§3.5), retailer audit's bilateral-deal reality (§7 #1), persona research's LTV / receptivity table (§6.3), and parallel competitor verification dispatched per §41 spot-check methodology. Source citations follow the convention: every per-competitor claim names a public URL or is tagged (estimate) / (industry pattern, no public source).

Honest limits. Lebanese retailer affiliate willingness came back Unknown for every retailer profiled in the audit §7 #1. Outreach is the unblocker; this doc cannot pre-judge willingness. Per-stream revenue ranges are calibrated against the spec's §4.3 model under "modest beta + Wave-1 sign-on by Month 4-6" assumptions; none is a forecast, all are estimates. Where MENA / South Asia / LatAm peer rates inform a range, the source is named.

2. Per-stream profiles

Six streams, in the order the RFC ranks them (primary → fallback → secondary → universal floor → deferred → rejected).

2.1 CPS — cost-per-sale (rev-share)

Status in M1/M2: Primary stream per RFC-0008.

Default rate: 1.5% of basket on confirmed conversion.

How it works. Retailer integrates either S2S postback (Stage-4 partner) or signs a monthly CSV reconciliation cadence (Stage-3 partner). When a 961tech outbound click results in a Lebanese-side checkout, the retailer remits 1.5% of the basket to 961tech via the agreed settlement rail (Whish corporate / USDT TRC20 / OMT / bank transfer per spec §6.4).

Who pays: retailer.

Retailer cooperation needed: High. - Stage-4 partner: postback installation (5-line snippet on order-confirmation page, "Test conversion" verification flow). - Stage-3 partner: signed verbal/email agreement + monthly CSV reconciliation (the retailer exports orders matching our coupon codes; we reconcile). - Stage-½ (no commercial deal): N/A — they get free organic listing, no CPS.

Expected revenue range (estimates, calibrated against spec §4.3 and persona §6.3):

Cohort Per-session value Sessions/year Annual CPS at 1.5%
Karim (gamer) $600-1,500 build / $200-500 upgrade 4-8 $30-100
First-time builder $800-1,800 (one-time) 1-2 $15-30
Casual customer $100-2,000 (variable) 2-6 $10-50
Office IT (high-LTV outlier) $5,000-30,000 batch 4-12 $300-2,000
Layla (creator) $1,500-3,000 build 1-3 $25-90
Diaspora (high per-session) $800-3,000 gift 1-3 $15-90

Time to positive cashflow: Month 4-6 by spec §4.3 (first signed Wave-1 retailer at Month 4, $100-300 first revenue Month 5). Bilateral-deal friction means this is the aspirational path — the pessimistic flip-condition is Month 9 (see RFC decision-flip #1).

Comparable peer rates: - PCPartPicker: ~0.5-1% effective via Amazon Associates + retailer partnerships. Source: PCPartPicker /disclosure/ (verification pending) and /code-of-conduct/industry-affiliate/ [3]. - Skroutz (post-2016 marketplace pivot): 7-12% commission per category + €469 setup fee per merchant (verification pending) [1]. Justified by aggregated checkout value-add we won't have until M2/M3. - Pricena: rates not public per competitive §2.10 [5]. - Geizhals: pure CPC, no CPS — different shape (2.2) [4]. - Newegg PC Builder: drives Newegg margin — single-merchant, no commission framework comparable to ours.

Reasoning for 1.5%. Above PCPartPicker's bargain-hard floor; below Skroutz's marketplace tier; calibrated to Lebanese price-sensitivity ($600-1,800 primary persona price band). Persona §6.3 explicitly endorses "Strong fit" across all six personas.

2.2 CPC — cost-per-click

Status in M1/M2: Fallback stream per RFC-0008.

Default rate: $0.10-0.15 per qualified outbound click.

How it works. Retailer who can't or won't track conversions still wants the traffic. We charge a flat fee per outbound click qualifying as qualified (deduplicated by IP+token within a 24h window; bot-filtered by user-agent + click-to-conversion timing; cap per session per retailer to prevent click-fraud farming). Retailer either pays the rate or we drop their commercial layer (they stay listed organically as Stage-1, but no Verified Partner badge, no analytics dashboard, no featured-eligible).

Who pays: retailer.

Retailer cooperation needed: None operationally — we count clicks server-side; retailer just pays the monthly invoice. Some commercially — they have to accept our click-counting as authoritative.

Expected revenue range (estimates):

Per-retailer outbound Monthly clicks at typical Lebanese traffic At $0.10-0.15
Low-traffic retailer (long-tail) 100-500 clicks/mo $10-75/mo
Mid-traffic retailer (Wave-2 candidate) 500-2,000 $50-300/mo
High-traffic retailer (PCAndParts shape) 2,000-10,000 $200-1,500/mo

Time to positive cashflow: faster than CPS — fewer integration prerequisites. Conservative estimate: first CPC retailer onboarded Month 4-5, first CPC revenue Month 5-6. Click-volume needs ~30-60 days of indexing after the retailer goes live to stabilize the count.

Comparable peer rates: - Geizhals: pure CPC, rate not public; well-cited industry estimate is in the €0.10-0.30 per click range for retail price-comparison clicks in DACH markets [4]. - Idealo: CPC + tracking-based affiliate; rates not public; news coverage suggests ~£0.20-0.50/click for comparable categories [2]. - MENA / South Asia / LatAm peers: see §3.1 Comparable peer rates below.

Reasoning for $0.10-0.15. Conservative end of industry pattern; Lebanese ad-rate floor (Meta + Google PMax CPC for tech in Lebanon is in the same single-digit-cents range, industry pattern); credible to retailers comparing 961tech outbound to other paid channels for the same SKU. Above this range starts pricing out the long-tail retailers we want to keep indexed.

2.3 Hybrid (CPS where signed, CPC default)

Status in M1/M2: This is what we actually run — the "primary + fallback" labelling in RFC-0008 is a hybrid in practice.

How it works. Per-retailer commercial mode is set in vendor backoffice (#16). Stage-¾ partners (signed) → CPS at 1.5%. Stage-½ (no commercial deal yet but accepting traffic) → either CPC (if they've agreed to pay-per-click) or pure-organic (if they haven't agreed to anything; we still index them, they just don't get a Verified Partner badge or featured-eligibility). The same click-token storage powers both flows (spec §5.3 ©) — we record every click; the retailer's commercial mode determines which billing flow consumes it.

Operational cost. Two reconciliation cadences in parallel — CPS (monthly per signed retailer) and CPC (monthly per clicking retailer). Vendor backoffice (#16) abstracts the duality from the retailer; on our side it's two billing flows + two dispute-resolution paths. Trade-off accepted in the RFC.

Time to positive cashflow: combination of CPS (Month 4-6) and CPC (Month 5-6) — usually CPC first because friction is lower; CPS catches up as Wave-1 outreach lands.

Status in M1/M2: Optional secondary stream.

Default rate: $50-200/month per category top-slot, clearly labelled Sponsored.

How it works. Retailer pays a flat monthly fee for guaranteed top placement on a category's listing page. Slot is visually differentiated and labelled Sponsored. Organic ranking (Geizhals-style: price → shipping → stock → rating per competitive §3.3) ignores featured slots — they appear above the organic ranking, not within it.

Who pays: retailer (or supplier, in B2B/SMB scenarios).

Retailer cooperation needed: Low — pay-to-play.

Expected revenue range (estimates): - $50-200/mo per filled slot. - ~6-10 categories with eligible top-slot surfaces (CPU, GPU, motherboard, RAM, storage, PSU, case, cooler — plus laptops/prebuilts/peripherals once M3 ships). - Realistic fill rate at maturity: 30-50% of slots filled = 2-5 paid slots. - Estimated stream: $200-1,000/mo at maturity.

Time to positive cashflow: depends on having traffic worth paying for. Typically Month 6+ once organic outbound clicks are visible enough to make featured placement attractive. First sale possible from M5+ onwards.

Persona receptivity (persona §6.3): - Strong fit — Casual customer (browse mode), Office IT (B2B suppliers want featured to SMB IT buyers). - Moderate — Karim, Layla. - Low — First-time builder (anti-pattern for trust-seeking cohorts), Diaspora (trust-seeking, doesn't browse).

Trust patterns required: - Sponsored label + visual differentiation per competitive §3.4 #3. - Public affiliate code-of-conduct page committing to non-discriminatory ranking (competitive §3.6). - Idealo Berlin Regional Court ruling Nov 2025 (€465M against Google for self-preferencing; ~€572M total awarded across plaintiffs — verification pending) [2] is the legal precedent we are aware of even though Lebanese SERPs are below the caring threshold — adopt the labelling discipline now while the project is small.

2.5 Free organic listing

Status: Universal floor, applied to every Lebanese retailer with a scrapeable catalog.

Cost to retailer: $0.

What the retailer gets: - Indexed catalog with Source: <domain>, updated <timestamp> attribution. - Outbound-click traffic free. - 48-hour takedown SLA on request. - No badge, no analytics dashboard, no featured-eligibility — those require Stage-3+ commercial relationship.

Why this stream exists at all. Catalog breadth is the moat. The retailer audit (§2-§3) covers 16 retailers across 4 platforms (WooCommerce, Shopify, BigCommerce, PrestaShop, custom PHP); the M2 scraper roadmap targets 6-8 retailers indexed. Personas universally rank "no multi-retailer price comparison" as severity-2-or-3 pain (persona §5.6) — solving it requires breadth, which requires zero-friction onboarding. Free organic is what gets us breadth.

Legal posture: Spec §7.5 — polite scrape, identified User-Agent, attribution, takedown response, US precedent supports public-data scraping (hiQ, Van Buren, Meta v. Bright Data). Lebanese commercial litigation is slow enough that no Lebanese retailer will sue over a scrape they can have removed via one email. Stage-1 is not stealing.

2.6 B2B / SMB tier (deferred)

Status in M1/M2: Deferred. Routed to #16 admin tools; RFC scopes the opportunity, doesn't price it.

Opportunity sizing. Office IT buyer is the high-LTV outlier per persona §6.3: per-batch GMV $5,000-30,000; 4-12 batches/year; annual CPS-at-1.5% reaches $300-2,000 per account. Suppliers serving SMB IT (Lenovo distributors, Dell partners, HP resellers, etc.) are willing to pay for featured placement to this cohort.

Possible shapes (none priced in this RFC): 1. B2B-tier listing fee — supplier pays $200-500/mo for guaranteed visibility to Office-IT-shaped sessions (detected by Quote-mode usage per persona §6.1.6). 2. Quote-mode partner integration — supplier integrates with our Quote-mode export so Office IT buyers can request quotes directly through 961tech; supplier pays a flat per-quote fee. 3. Premium analytics for B2B suppliers — paid tier on the vendor backoffice (#16) with batch-shaped session telemetry.

Why deferred. Pricing without B2B-buyer telemetry is guessing; we don't yet know how many Office-IT-shaped sessions arrive. Surface in #16 with the capability; price the commercial layer once we have telemetry.

2.7 Aggregate market data product (deferred)

Status in M1/M2: Deferred. RFC OQ-3 recommends post-launch revisit at M3 boundary.

Opportunity sizing. Scraper data → price index, market reports, retailer-comparable benchmarks. Possible buyers: - Lebanese retailers themselves — competitive-pricing intelligence. - Suppliers / distributors — sell-through visibility. - Financial / FMCG-adjacent analytics buyers — Lebanon tech retail price index as a macro-economic indicator.

Possible price points (estimates only): - Retailer subscription: $200-500/mo per retailer for a market-intelligence dashboard. - Bulk data export: per-quarter snapshot for $1,000-5,000 to non-retailer buyers.

Why deferred. Most of M1/M2 effort is catalog and matcher; productizing scrape data is a different motion (data engineering + sales) and risks retailer pushback if perceived as competing with their pricing data. Re-evaluate at M3 boundary.

2.8 Buyer-side subscription (rejected for M1/M2)

Status: Rejected per RFC Alternative E + §41 ticket constraint.

Why rejected: - Lebanese primary cohort is price-sensitive (\(600-1,800 per build, per [persona §3](personas.md#3-primary-personas)); paywalling features taxes the user this project exists to serve. - PCPartPicker (the spiritual ancestor) is fully free to buyers ([competitive §2.1](competitive-landscape.md#21-pcpartpicker)) and reaches ~\)6M revenue / 8M monthly visits without a buyer subscription. - Pricena is freemium without paywalling the comparison itself.

Revisit conditions. RFC decision-flip #3: if #14 price-drop alerts telemetry shows >5% of active accounts in a power-user cohort (>20 alerts/month per user), revisit a freemium tier paid alerts/saved-build-history option. Price-history + alerts stay free in M1/M2 regardless.

3. Cross-cutting

3.1 Comparable peer monetisation rates

The genre-level evidence anchors our 1.5% CPS / $0.10-0.15 CPC choices. Source citations are inline; full per-source quotes live in §5 Sources below.

Player Region Model Disclosed rate Source
PCPartPicker US Affiliate (Amazon Associates + retailer partnerships) ~0.5-1% effective (estimate; no public primary source) [3]
Geizhals AT/DE Dual: Pay-by-click OR Pay-by-order (merchant choice) €0.38/click with logo on 90% of subpages, €0.41 without. Heise-owned since June 2021. [4]
Skroutz (post-pivot) GR Marketplace commission 7-15% per category + €469 setup fee (2024-2025; was €248 in 2022) [1]
Idealo DE multi-EU CPC + Idealo direkt (own-checkout integration) Public per-country rates: DE €0.51, UK £0.35, AT €0.36, FR €0.40, IT €0.25, ES €0.35; +€0.02/year escalator; €20/mo minimum revenue on idealo.de [2]
Newegg PC Builder US Drives Newegg margin (single-retailer tool) n/a competitive §2.6
BuildMyPC.net US Amazon Associates only (single-program lock-in) ~3-4% Amazon rate (industry pattern) competitive §2.7
Logical Increments US Amazon + Newegg affiliate ~3-4% Amazon + Newegg variable (industry pattern) competitive §2.8
LDLC FR/BE/CH/ES/IT Retail margin + marketplace fees n/a competitive §2.9
Pricena UAE/EG/KSA/KW/QA Hybrid CPM + CPC + CPS 2-10% CPA per category (founder Wamda interview, 2014 — ⚠ date warning, only public disclosure found) [5]
eXtra KSA Curated bilateral partnership only (no public self-serve affiliate) Not public — confirms regional norm of opacity [6]
Amazon.ae Associates UAE CPS, fixed % per category 2.00% on Camera/PC store/Electronics/Wireless; Apparel 9%, Books 8%, Beauty 7%, Furniture 5%, Grocery 4% [6]
Noon Affiliate UAE/KSA/EG CPS + alternate flat CPO "up to 10%" headline; electronics typically 2-4%; alternate $1.50/order CPO via CPX network; 80% confirmation rate on GCC orders [6]
Daraz PK/BD/NP Marketplace commission + public affiliate Affiliate "up to 18%" headline (BD); seller commission 0-17.2% by category (electronics 3.4-5.1%, fashion 12-17%); 7-day cookie; voucher-code = parallel attribution alongside clicks; outsourced to DCM Network [7]
MySmartPrice IN Affiliate + advertising/featured 80% affiliate / 18% advertising-and-online-directory / 2% other ⚠ date warning on source year [8]
Smartprix IN Affiliate + advertising Per-rate not public; 2 employees as of Aug 2025 (Tracxn) — survival ≠ scale [8]
91mobiles + Pricebaba IN Affiliate + brand advertising + audience-data ad sales Annual revenue ₹49.8 Cr (~$6M) FY-end Mar 2025; brand advertisers Samsung/Nokia/Micromax/Airtel [8]
MercadoLibre LatAm Marketplace commission + Mercado Ads + Mercado Pago + Mercado Crédito Public seller commission 11-17% per category; commerce blended take rate ~22-24% (commerce-rev/GMV); Mercado Ads 2.1% of GMV Q4 2024; no setup fee; FREE to list [9]
Buscapé / Zoom BR Historical hybrid CPC + CPS Rates not public; Buscapé operationally near-defunct (2 employees per Tracxn Jul 2024) post-Naspers→Zoom 2019 sale [10]
PriceCheck ZA Prepaid CPC bidding + parallel marketplace commission R0.10 minimum CPC bid increment; FREE to list, NO monthly subscription; commission % undisclosed publicly [10]
EGPrices / PCPrices / EG-PC (Egyptian solo precedents) EG Likely affiliate Not public competitive §2.11
961tech recommendation LB CPS 1.5% primary + CPC $0.10-0.15 fallback + featured $50-200/mo This RFC RFC-0008

Key reference points for the 1.5% CPS pitch: - 961tech 1.5% CPS sits below Amazon.ae's 2.00% Electronics affiliate payout — strategic framing for retailer pitch: "you're paying less than Amazon's regional ecosystem cost to acquire the same shopper." - Inside the lower half of Pricena's 2014 disclosed 2-10% band — the only public MENA-aggregator rate disclosure of any kind. - Well below Skroutz's 7-15% marketplace tier — but Skroutz justifies that with aggregated checkout we won't have until M2/M3 (#15). - Coupon-code attribution as third-tier fallback is primary-source validated by Daraz BD T&Cs — they explicitly include "input of a Voucher Code at checkout" alongside hyperlink clicks as a Net Sales trigger for commission [7]. Direct support for spec §5.3 ©. - Featured-placement revenue ceiling sanity-checked by MySmartPrice — at India's most mature affiliate-led aggregator scale, advertising+featured stays at ~18% of revenue [8]. Suggests our $200-1,000/mo featured estimate at maturity is consistent with peer ceiling.

A counter-finding worth surfacing. Across LatAm peers (MercadoLibre and below), no platform was found that denominates seller fees in USD — even in markets with severe FX volatility (Argentine hyperinflation triggers IAS 29 hyperinflation accounting at MELI), the standard practice is local-currency fees plus platform-side FX hedging [9]. The Lebanon case is structurally different because Lebanese retailers themselves price in USD per retailer audit §2-§3; LatAm precedent doesn't directly apply. We adopt USD invoicing per §3.2 with eyes open to this being an outlier choice in EM aggregator practice.

3.2 Currency

USD only for invoicing, settlement, and rate-cards. ADR-0004 ratifies English-only UI; the same logic applies to commercial. Lebanese retailers price in USD (retailer audit §2-§3); banking-crisis lollar/fresh-USD bifurcation makes LBP invoicing actively harmful; settlement rails are USD-denominated. LBP is rejected.

3.3 VAT and accounting

Stage VAT registration Income classification Detail in
v0 (informal, < $1.5k/mo) No (below LBP 5B / ~$56k threshold) Add affiliate income line to MASTER's existing R10 PIT declaration Spec §7.1, #40
v1 (validated, $1.5k+/mo) No (still likely below threshold Year 1) Lebanese SARL: 17% CIT + 10% dividend WHT Same
v2 (scale, $8k+/mo) Yes if crossed SARL + optional Estonia OÜ for international expansion Same

Detail in #40 legal / VAT; RFC and reference flag at the stream level.

Retailer-side withholding: Lebanese retailers account for the commission as a cost on their P&L. We issue invoices, retailer pays Net 7 (spec §6.3). We do not withhold for them.

3.4 Settlement rails

Rail Cap / cost When
Whish Money personal Personal wallet limits v0 informal
Whish Money corporate $30k/mo per spec §7.1 v1+
USDT TRC20 No cap, ~$1/transfer All stages, fallback
OMT Per-transfer fee, lower cap All stages, in-country fallback
Bank transfer Standard banking rails v1+ (SARL business account)

Retailer picks at onboarding (spec §6.4). Multi-rail support is a feature, not friction — Lebanese retailers expect choice given the post-2019 banking environment.

3.5 Trust patterns

Pattern Adopted? Source / model
Public affiliate disclosure page Yes PCPartPicker /disclosure/ [3], competitive §3.6
Public affiliate code of conduct Yes (file as new ticket post-acceptance) PCPartPicker /code-of-conduct/industry-affiliate/ [3]
Sponsored label + visual differentiation on featured placements Yes Competitive §3.4 #3, Idealo precedent [2]
Per-listing source attribution + last-updated timestamp Yes (already universal in M1) Geizhals / Idealo pattern, competitive §3.6
Non-discriminatory ranking (organic ignores featured-tier) Yes Geizhals pure-CPC-no-bidding, competitive §2.2 [4]
48-hour retailer takedown SLA Yes Spec §6.1 Stage-1

4. Open questions

  1. Lebanese retailer affiliate willingness — Unknown for every retailer profiled in the audit §7 #1. Outreach to Wave-1 (Tech Titan, PC Station LB, PCBuildingLeb, Sbeity, Macrotronics per spec §6.2) is the unblocker. Owner: MASTER. Decision-flip checkpoint: Month 9 — if zero CPS deals signed, demote CPS to fallback per RFC decision-flip #1.
  2. Featured-placement scope — RFC OQ-1: 1 slot per category vs 2-3 vs reject entirely. Recommend 1 slot. Awaiting MASTER signoff.
  3. B2B/SMB tier pricing — RFC OQ-2: defer to #16 vs price now. Recommend defer. Awaiting MASTER signoff.
  4. Aggregate market data productization — RFC OQ-3: defer post-launch vs price now vs don't pursue. Recommend defer. Awaiting MASTER signoff.
  5. Per-stream telemetry needs — what to instrument in M2 to validate the rate-card. Specifically: outbound click-through rate per retailer, conversion funnel for CPS-eligible retailers, featured-slot fill rate, per-persona session-shape distribution. Routed to #43 KPIs / observability / perf budget and #17 affiliate reconciliation S2S postback.
  6. Retailer-side dispute-resolution SLA — RFC mentions 7-day review window from spec §6.3; flag for #16 admin tools UX design.
  7. Coupon-code attribution as third-tier fallback — adopted from spec §5.3 ©; fits IG-only retailers who can't host postback or do CSV reconciliation. Surface in #16 admin tools once an IG-merchant onboarding flow is designed (target M3).

5. Sources

Source citations follow the convention: [N] CLAIM — SOURCE_URL — DATE — VERIFIED_BY so the RFC can trace back. Where a claim is unverifiable from public sources within reasonable research time, it is tagged (industry pattern, no public source) and the reasoning is given inline.

[1] Skroutz — 7-15% commission per category + €469 setup fee (2024-2025). - "The merchant then pays commission for sold goods. The commission amount depends on the product category. Typically it is 7-15 percent." — e-tailize integration partner doc (2022-2025; ⚠ that source still references 2022 setup fee €248). - "Skroutz does not charge a monthly fee, but it does charge a setup fee of EUR 469.00 — as well as a commission on sales based on the product category." — ChannelEngine Skroutz marketplace guide (2024-2025). - Skroutz's own merchant commission page (merchants.skroutz.gr/merchants/commissions/marketplace) was 403-blocked on the verification fetch; canonical per-category list could not be retrieved. Per-category structure is confirmed; exact per-category rates require a Skroutz-registered merchant account. - Delta from spec: spec said 7-12%; verified band is 7-15%. Setup fee was €248 in 2022 (per e-tailize) and is €469 in 2024-2025 (per ChannelEngine) — pricing has escalated.

[2] Idealo — public per-country CPC rates with annual escalator + Berlin Regional Court €465M ruling Nov 2025. - CPC rates (current, primary source — verified 2026-04-28): Germany standard CPC €0.51 effective 2025-04-01. Austria €0.36. UK standard £0.35 (with category variation £0.20-£0.45). France €0.40. Italy €0.25. Spain €0.35. Annual automatic escalator: "Der Standard CPC und die hiervon abweichenden Kategoriepreise erhöhen sich am Ende jedes Vertragsjahres ... automatisch um 0,02 € bzw. GBP £0,02." Monthly minimum revenue €20 on idealo.de; UK has no minimum. — partner.idealo.com/de/preise, partner.idealo.com/uk/pricing. - Berlin court ruling: Landgericht Berlin II (Berlin Regional Court II), Case No. 16 O 195/19 Kart(2), judgment 14 Nov 2025. Idealo: €374.1M damages + €91.1M interest = €465M. Producto GmbH (operator of Testberichte.de): €103.7M (separate case 16 O 275/24). Combined ~€572M / ~$665.6M total. Both parties announced appeal. — SCiDA project legal commentary, TechCrunch coverage 14 Nov 2025. - Delta from spec: spec said "rates not public" — wrong, Idealo publishes rates openly. Spec said "~£0.24/click" — outdated by ~50% (current UK rate is £0.35). Spec said "Berlin Regional Court ruling" — court is more precisely Landgericht Berlin II; co-plaintiff is Producto GmbH (Testberichte.de), not anonymous "co-plaintiffs."

[3] PCPartPicker — disclosure + code-of-conduct pages confirmed; effective rate not publicly disclosed. - Both /disclosure/ and /code-of-conduct/industry-affiliate/ exist and are search-index-confirmed. Direct WebFetch returned 403 (anti-bot wall); content extracted from Google search snippets. - Disclosure page snippet (search-index): "PCPartPicker receives income from affiliate relationships to fund site maintenance and feature development. PCPartPicker is a participant in the Amazon Associates Program ..." - Code-of-conduct page snippet (search-index): "Industry affiliates are authorized representatives from manufacturers, retailers or other companies within the industry... an industry affiliate account is encouraged to request company-specific 'flair'... industry affiliates may not recommend their own products or services to users who have not previously expressed interest." - The "0.5-1% effective rate" widely cited in industry coverage has NO public primary source and should be tagged (estimate; no public primary source). Amazon Associates' own published Electronics rate (1-2% category-dependent) brackets it but doesn't confirm. - Sources: pcpartpicker.com/disclosure/, pcpartpicker.com/code-of-conduct/industry-affiliate/, Wikipedia: PCPartPicker.

[4] Geizhals — dual Pay-by-click OR Pay-by-order model with public CPC rates; Heise (German tech publisher) ownership since June 2021. - CPC rates (primary source): "€0.38 per click (with Geizhals logo on 90% of subpages)" / "€0.41 per click (without logo integration)." Plus affiliate cooperations and ad-space sales as additional revenue lines. — unternehmen.geizhals.at/haendler/. - Wikipedia confirms dual model: "Traders pay either by (i) Pay-by-click, paying for every user visiting the website from Geizhals, or by (ii) Pay-by-order, paying for every sale." — Wikipedia: Geizhals. - Ownership history: Heise indirect 24% in October 2013, raised to 75% in May 2014, 100% in June 2021. - Delta from spec: spec said "pure CPC, no bidding-based ranking." Verified: NOT pure CPC (dual model). The "price → shipping → stock → rating" sort-tiebreaker chain claimed in spec is unverifiable from primary sources within scope.

[5] Pricena — 2-10% CPA per category, founder Wamda interview 2014. ⚠ Date warning: 2014 source. Only public, attributable MENA-aggregator rate disclosure found in research. - "Pricena makes money from advertisers (CPM), cost per click (CPC), and cost per acquisition (CPA), i.e. by charging the advertiser with a fee whenever a purchase is done. Fees paid by a store in this case usually range between 2 and 10% depending on the product category." — Wamda — Pricena is growing and fast (July 2014). - No newer public disclosure found in primary or news sources searched within research window. Crunchbase profile blocked WebFetch (403). ZoomInfo / Owler scraped revenue figures for Pricena are unverifiable third-party scrapes. - Pricena explicitly skips Lebanon — has country subdomains for UAE/KSA/Egypt/Kuwait/Qatar, no lb.pricena.com (competitive §4.1).

[6] MENA region — Amazon.ae 2.00% Electronics; Noon up to 10% headline; eXtra closed bilateral only. - Amazon.ae Associates (verbatim from primary): "Camera, PC store, Electronics/Mobile Electronics, Video, Video Games, Wireless: 2.00%". Apparel/Luggage/Shoes 9.00%; Books 8.00%; Beauty/Health 7.00%; Furniture 5.00%; Grocery/Home/Toys 4.00%. — affiliate-program.amazon.ae commission table (verified 2026-04-28). - Noon Affiliate: "Earn Up to 10% commission. Join noon Affiliate now" (Noon UAE Facebook). Alternate flat rate: "$1.50 commission per order (CPO) for orders from the GCC region and Egypt … 80% confirmation rate" via the CPX Affiliate network. Cashback variant: "10% up to 50 AED/SAR for new customers." — affiliates.noon.com, CPX Affiliate Noon program detail. - eXtra (KSA): Closed/curated partnership channel only; no public self-serve affiliate program. The retail electronics arm at extra.com.sa has no public affiliate program. Confirms regional norm of opacity. — extra.app/partnerships. - Yaoota (Egypt — Pricena's nearest competitor): Series-A from KBBO Group (2015, $2.7M); rate model not publicly disclosed. — Wikipedia: Yaoota, EgyptInnovate Yaoota Series A coverage. Useful negative signal: even funded MENA comparators don't publish rate cards.

[7] Daraz BD/PK — affiliate "up to 18%" headline; voucher-code attribution alongside clicks; outsourced to DCM Network. - From the Daraz BD affiliate T&Cs (verbatim from fetched primary): "Daraz affiliate commission rate is up to 18%." Commission base is "Net Sales… which involves the (1) Customer's Click of a Hyperlink; and/or (2) input of a Voucher Code at checkout on the Channel." Payout "by the 7th day of each calendar month… for the Commission accrued… in the preceding calendar month." 7-day cookie window. — daraz.com.bd/daraz-affiliate-program/. - Daraz seller-side commission schedule (per gigbuzz.pk seller-rate summary mirroring the Daraz seller-portal PDF): 0% to 17.2% by category. Lowest end: cameras/electronics ~3.4%, watches ~4.0%, computer accessories 5.1%. Highest: shoes 17.2%, kids' fashion 14.6%, men's/women's clothing 12.0%, books 12.9%. - Critical for the RFC: Daraz primary source explicitly defines voucher-code input as a tracked attribution path alongside hyperlink clicks. This is direct support for spec §5.3 © coupon-code third-tier fallback. The affiliate program is also outsourced to DCM Network (a MENA performance-marketing intermediary) rather than run in-house — pattern relevant to thin-cooperation markets.

[8] Indian aggregators — MySmartPrice 80/18 revenue split; 91mobiles ~\(6M annual; Smartprix 2-employee shell.** - **MySmartPrice revenue mix (StartupTalky profile):** "More than 80% of the revenue for MySmartPrice comes from the affiliate income i.e., a commission from promoting affiliate products on the site, and close to 18% of the revenue is generated from advertising and online directory services." Retailer base "more than 100 online and offline stores"; offline partners generating "\)2-3M every month" GMV. — StartupTalky MySmartPrice profile ⚠ **Date warning: publish date not crisp on rendered page; treat 80/18 figure as directional not 2026-current. - Smartprix (Tracxn, Aug 2025): "2 employees, 50% year-over-year decline in headcount." Total funding \(185K from Snapdeal. — [Tracxn: Smartprix](https://tracxn.com/d/companies/smartprix/__0IE1a4wfHDqUQfgOviqvymCys0h4WFdhQDMwOBZE7LY/funding-and-investors). - **91mobiles + Pricebaba (Inc42 2018; Growjo 2025):** Acquisition of Pricebaba in 2018 with "\)500K to upgrade Pricebaba's platform." 91mobiles annual revenue ~₹49.8 Cr (~USD 6M) FY-end Mar 2025. Brand advertisers cited: Samsung, Nokia, Micromax, Airtel. CEO Nitin Mathur: "The market data we have about the audience is fairly valuable to advertisers." — Inc42 — 91mobiles acquires Pricebaba, Growjo: 91mobiles. - CashKaro (cashback intermediary, India) — adjacent confirmation: "Using CAKE tracking technology, CashKaro can easily onboard new clients, launch campaigns, accurately track and attribute performance across marketing channels and user devices." Pattern: Indian retailers integrate once with shared attribution infrastructure (CAKE/DCM/etc.) rather than per-aggregator postback; aggregators ride the shared backbone. — CAKE case study: CashKaro. - Negative result: there is no neutral PC-builder aggregator analogue to 961tech that survived in India — multi-merchant builders are either retailer-captured (MD Computers, PrimeABGB, ModxComputers) or imported (PCPartPicker with poor local coverage). Same bilateral-retailer-cooperation problem as 961tech audited.

[9] MercadoLibre — public 11-17% category commission; commerce blended take rate ~22-24%; Mercado Ads 2.1% of GMV Q4 2024. - 10-K structural quote (verbatim): "Final value fees represent a percentage of the sale value that is charged to the seller once an item is successfully sold and flat fees represent a fixed charge for certain transactions below a certain merchandise value." — MELI 10-K filed Feb 2025, SEC EDGAR. - Q4 2024 metrics: "Gross merchandise Value (GMV) ... in 2024 reached $51.5 billion, up 15% YoY. Net revenue from the commerce business in 2024 reached $12.2 billion, up 48.3% YoY." Naive arithmetic: $12.2B / $51.5B = 23.7% blended commerce take rate (includes shipping fees + ads + commissions). "Advertising reached 2.1% of GMV" in Q4 2024. — MELI Q4 2024 press release. - Public seller commission band: 11-17% per category; published per-country in seller back office. — global-selling.mercadolibre.com selling fee. - Tiered seller program (Mercado Líder): "Premium stores benefit from lower fees and priority listings" — directly portable as a structural pattern. - Counter-finding worth surfacing. No LatAm peer found denominates seller fees in USD — even with Argentine hyperinflation triggering IAS 29 hyperinflation accounting at MELI, the practice is local-currency fees plus platform-side FX hedging. Lebanon's case differs because Lebanese retailers themselves price in USD per retailer audit §2-§3; LatAm precedent doesn't directly apply, but worth noting that USD-denominated seller fees are an outlier in EM aggregator practice.

[10] Buscapé / Zoom — historical hybrid CPC + CPS, post-2019 collapse; PriceCheck (South Africa) — prepaid CPC bidding + parallel marketplace commission. - Buscapé / Zoom historical model (NeoFeed, 2019, ⚠ pre-2022): "O modelo de negócio de Zoom e Buscapé é levar audiência para sites de comércio eletrônico. Em troca, os lojistas pagam uma comissão para cada usuário que chega ao seu site através dos comparadores de preço ou um percentual por cada venda gerada." [Translation: "The business model of Zoom and Buscapé is to drive audience to e-commerce sites. In exchange, retailers pay a commission per user who arrives via the comparator OR a percentage per generated sale."] — NeoFeed: Buscapé — quase fim de um ícone (2019). - Buscapé current state (Tracxn, Jul 2024): "As of Jul 01, 2024, the latest employee count at Buscape is 2." Operationally near-defunct after Naspers→Zoom 2019 sale. — Tracxn: Buscapé. - PriceCheck SA (primary source): "PriceCheck CPC is a prepaid service allowing you to load credits upfront that will be converted into 'clicks'." "To rank higher than other merchants, you can increase the Pay-Per-Click value of your listings, with the minimum incremental amount being R0.10." "It is FREE to list your products on PriceCheck!" / "NO monthly subscription fees." Marketplace: "After your item is sold successfully, you will be charged a commission fee based on the item sales value." Bi-weekly (15-day) payment cadence. — help.pricecheck.co.za CPC merchant help, merchantsupport.pricecheck.co.za.

Methodology + access limits. - WebFetch returned 403 anti-bot on pcpartpicker.com, merchants.skroutz.gr, partnersupport.skroutz.gr, crunchbase.com/organization/pricena. PCPartPicker pages confirmed via Google search index. Skroutz canonical per-category list could not be retrieved. - Pre-2022 sources flagged inline with ⚠ throughout: Pricena (Wamda 2014), MySmartPrice StartupTalky profile (date not crisp), NeoFeed Buscapé (2019), e-tailize Skroutz coverage (2022 setup-fee figure). - Rates marked (estimate; no public primary source) are deliberately unverifiable: PCPartPicker effective rate, BuildMyPC effective rate, Logical Increments effective rate, Geizhals industry-pattern CPC range used for comparable sanity-checks.

6. See also