Create Residual Income as a Plucky Referral Partner

About us

Plucky provides bookkeeping services with friendly sliding-scale fees to life coaches, solo consultants, and freelancers.

Who you’d be working with

I’m Mark Butler, founder of Plucky. For over a decade, I’ve served as “chief money guy” for online businesses, including several that earn millions per year. Plucky started life as Let’s Do the Books, which I launched in 2020 to provide accessible bookkeeping services to coaches and other solo operators who want professional care without the expense of a fractional CFO.

A two-tiered commission structure

When a client pays $500 or more in their first six bookkeeping bills, you earn $1,000. You earn $500 for clients whose first six bills total less than $500.

Our client-friendly sliding-scale fee structure means our clients’ fees vary month-to-month, but our partners know they’ll earn $500 or $1,000 regardless of the client’s fluctuating fees.

How commissions are paid

Commission begins accruing as soon as the referred client makes their first monthly service payment. Commissions “vest” after a client’s third payment. If the client doesn’t make at least three payments, commissions on that referral are canceled — onboarding clients is expensive, and when a client leaves after one or two months, everyone loses.

To be clear: commission is paid retroactively on all payments the client makes; we just don’t start paying until the client reaches the three-payment milestone. Qualified commissions are paid out at $83 per month until reaching $500 or $1,000, depending on the tier a referred client reaches.

Here are example commission payments for a $1,000 referral. Note that qualified commissions are paid in the second month after they’re earned (commission earned in February is paid in April).

(If this were a $500 commission, there would only be six payments totaling $500.)

How referrals are tracked and paid out

All commissions are paid through PayPal Mass Pay on the last business day of the month. This means (a) you’ll need a PayPal account to receive commissions, and (b) you’ll need to be comfortable paying a 3% merchant fee (just as you would with any other client payment). Partners receive an end-of-month statement tracking their active referrals’ commission timelines.

Earning potential

Historically, about 60% of clients have reached the fee threshold for the $1,000 commission. If that percentage holds, you’d earn just under $10,000 in a year by referring one client per month.
*60% is the average after five years of data and several hundred clients. I can’t predict whether that percentage will persist across all future signups.

Attribution

The signup page has a “who referred you” field. When a new client enters your name, that’s your client. We want to reward our partners, so if a client signs up and leaves the referral field blank, we’ll follow up during onboarding to ensure the referrer gets credit.

Presumption of “good business”

Plucky gives great service to coaches, consultants, and freelancers with small teams, dedicated business bank accounts, and a collaborative attitude. Our best partners encourage the people they refer to bring a professional mindset to the service. (See the FAQ on our services page for clarity on how we work and who we serve well.)

We’d love to support your promotion of the service

I’m happy to come on your podcast, co-create promotional materials with you, and brainstorm other ways to support your promotion of the service. Just send an email to team@markbutler.com and we’ll get together!