Honest ROI: what we'll show you, and what we won't claim

Six months into a channel incentive programme, someone in your business is going to ask what it returned.

It's a fair question and it deserves a real answer. This page sets out exactly what Vouchley will put in front of you when that question comes, how the number is built, and — the part that matters more — what Vouchley will never claim about it.

The short version

Vouchley's dashboard will show you a return multiple for your programme.

That multiple is built from a revenue figure you enter. Vouchley divides it by what the programme cost you over the same period and shows the result, labelled on the screen as your own reported figure.

Vouchley does not measure, verify, track or audit your sales. Not through an integration, not through a reconciliation, not through a clever attribution model. A person in your business enters a number, and the platform does the arithmetic on it.

We say this on the page, in the product, in the sales conversation, and in the contract.

How the figure is produced

Four steps, in order.

1. You choose what counts as programme revenue. Whatever your business will stand behind. Total sales through the participating network. Sales of the eligible range only. The increase over the same month last year. The increase over a pre-programme baseline. Vouchley does not impose a method, because the method that survives scrutiny inside your business is the one your business chose.

2. You enter it, month by month. Revenue is entered against calendar months, in your admin dashboard, by someone you authorise. You can enter it as you go or catch up later. You can revise it.

3. Vouchley calculates what the programme cost you over the same months. The points funded into the programme, plus your share of Vouchley's fees for that period. Nothing is left out to make the number look better.

4. The dashboard shows the multiple, and labels its source. Your reported revenue over your programme cost. The label sits on the number itself, not in a tooltip and not in a footnote.

What "reported" means, plainly

It means a human typed it in.

Not "reported" in the sense of a system reporting on itself. Not derived, inferred, or reconciled against anything Vouchley holds. Vouchley has no view of your sales ledger, your invoices, or your customers, and does not attempt to construct one.

That word does real work, so it stays on the number. Anywhere the figure appears — dashboard, export, printed report — it is identified as your reported figure.

What Vouchley does not do

Written plainly, because the absence is the point:

• Vouchley does not measure your sales.
• Vouchley does not verify the revenue you enter.
• Vouchley does not audit your figures or reconcile them against any source.
• Vouchley does not track your revenue. Nothing about your sales flows into the platform unless you put it there.
• Vouchley does not attribute your revenue to the programme. You do that when you decide what to enter.

And one more, which is the one that surprises people:

Once you enter revenue, the modelling assumptions stop affecting the number. Before you enter anything, the dashboard shows an illustrative estimate built from assumptions you can adjust — clearly labelled as modelling, because that is all it is. The moment a reported figure exists, that estimate steps aside. You can move every assumption slider to its extreme and the reported multiple will not shift by a cent, because it isn't derived from them.

A number that changes when you move a slider was never a measurement.

Why it's built this way

There is a version of this product that would be easier to sell.

It would pull sales data through an integration, apply an attribution model, and present a confident figure with Vouchley's name on it. It would look more sophisticated. It would demo better.

It would also be wrong, for a reason no amount of engineering fixes: nobody can separate the sale a rep made because of the programme from the sale they were always going to make. Not a platform, not a model, not a consultant. The counterfactual doesn't exist. Any number that claims to isolate it is an assumption wearing a measurement's clothes.

So Vouchley does the part that can be done honestly — the arithmetic, on figures you stand behind, against costs we can state exactly — and refuses the part that can't.

The practical consequence is that the number holds up in the room where it matters. When your finance director asks where the revenue figure came from, the answer is "we chose it, and here is the method". That is a defensible sentence. "The platform calculated it" is not.

Your figures are yours

The revenue you enter is your Confidential Information under your Master Services Agreement, and it is treated that way.

• Vouchley does not publish it.
• Vouchley does not use it in marketing, in a case study, in a benchmark, or in an aggregate.
• Vouchley does not disclose it to another customer, in any form, including anonymised.
• It leaves with you if you leave.

The confidentiality obligation is mutual and it is written into clause 10A of the agreement, rather than being a promise made on a website.

What Vouchley will never publish

While we're being specific about it:

No customer results, of any kind, until a paying customer both exists and has given written consent. Not "an early customer told us". Not anonymised. Not directional. Not "one of our customers is seeing…". Nothing. The consent mechanism is written into the agreement — a customer approves the specific content, in writing, before it is published, and can decline for any reason without it affecting anything else.

No benchmark built from customer data. No "typical customer sees", no "average programme returns", no industry comparison assembled from figures customers gave us for their own purposes.

No return figure attributed to Vouchley. If a multiple appears anywhere in Vouchley's marketing, it is either published third-party research, cited to its source, or Vouchley's own modelling, labelled as modelling.

Today Vouchley has no paying customers to write about. When that changes, these rules do not.

What the published research says

Separate from anything above, there is independent research on whether channel-incentive programmes work as a category. It is worth knowing, and it is worth being precise about its limits.

The Incentive Research Foundation's channel-partner case study — a Fortune 500 manufacturer selling through value-added resellers — found a well-designed non-cash channel incentive programme increased total revenue by 32%, achieved market share exceeding 30% in 9 of 12 markets, and raised net operating income to 19% of revenue. That is one programme. It is not typical, not an average, and not a projection for anyone else.

Condly, Clark and Stolovitch (2003), reviewing 45 qualifying studies, found incentive programmes deliver a 22% average performance gain across work settings, rising to 44–48% for programmes running 12 months or more.

Neither figure describes what your programme will do. They answer a narrower and more useful question: is this category worth taking seriously before you spend anything on it.

Sources. Incentive Research Foundation, "ROI Incentive Programs: A Case Study for Channel Sales Success" (32% revenue lift; market share exceeding 30% in 9 of 12 markets; net operating income to 19% of revenue — one Fortune 500 channel programme, not a typical or average result). Condly, S. J., Clark, R. E., & Stolovitch, H. D. (2003), "The Effects of Incentives on Workplace Performance: A Meta-Analytic Review of Research Studies", Performance Improvement Quarterly 16(3), catalogued by the Incentive Research Foundation. Individual programme outcomes vary with design, audience, and execution.

What this means for the conversation with finance

Three things you can say in that meeting, and stand behind:

"The cost is capped and the cap is enforced." Every programme runs against a monthly budget cap. Points cannot be issued past it — the platform blocks the transaction rather than flagging it afterwards. There is no scenario where a strong month produces an invoice you didn't budget for.

"Unredeemed points cost us nothing." Points that are earned but never spent are not a bill.

"The revenue figure is ours, and here's how we chose it." You control the input, so you control how defensible it is. The platform contributes the arithmetic and the cost side, both of which can be shown line by line.

Start with the numbers you already have

The fastest way to test any of this is against your own figures — network size, the range you want moved, and what you'd be willing to put behind it monthly. Forty-five minutes is enough to sketch the whole shape and tell you whether it's worth building.

[Book a demo](/demo), or email sales@vouchley.com.au.

Related reading: The channel-incentive field guide · ROI calculator · Pricing.