Success fee: the model where your upsell app pays for itself

A success fee is a pricing model where the app charges a fee only on the extra revenue it generates. If you don't sell more, there's no fee. Here's how it works at CrossUp: a fixed monthly charge based on your plan, plus a percentage of the revenue attributed to the recommendations your customers accept. The fee applies only to that extra sale, never to what your store was already selling. Put simply: the app wins when you win.

It's an uncommon model in software, which is exactly why it raises questions. Below we break it down: what it is, why CrossUp prices this way, how the extra revenue is calculated, and the point where an upsell app literally pays for itself.

What is a success fee?

A success fee is a charge tied to a concrete, measurable result. Instead of paying a flat rate just to "have access to the software," you pay in proportion to the extra revenue that software earned you. It's the same principle behind a commissioned salesperson: they get paid on what they sell, not for showing up to work.

The difference from a traditional subscription is risk. With a standard subscription, the risk is all yours: you pay the same whether it works or not. In a success fee model, the provider shares the risk, because part of what they charge depends on the tool actually delivering.

Why does CrossUp price this way?

Because it aligns incentives. If CrossUp charged only a high flat fee, it would earn the same whether the product helped you a lot or a little. With a success fee, CrossUp only grows when your revenue grows, so the entire product—from SalesPilot's recommendations to the six conversion moments—is built around a single goal: getting you to sell more. Not locking you into a contract, but driving results.

For you, the upside is that you start without taking on risk: you can try CrossUp without paying anything upfront and measure the impact before committing to a plan. If it doesn't move the needle, there's no fee to pay.

How is the extra revenue calculated?

This is the crucial part, and where the model's honesty is put to the test: attribution. CrossUp links every accepted offer to the products that actually ended up in an order. In other words, the fee isn't charged on "everything you sold," but on the sales that can be traced directly to a recommendation the customer accepted.

The CrossUp dashboard breaks down sales, conversion, and attributed revenue for each conversion moment. That way you can see, offer by offer, how much extra CrossUp generated and exactly what the fee is being calculated on. No black box: what you're charged is exactly what can be measured.

The three fee tiers

CrossUp has a fixed monthly charge per plan and a success fee percentage that drops as you move up tiers (the higher your volume, the lower the fee on the extra):

• Impulso — $49,999/mo + 7.49% on extra revenue. To start converting better.
• Escala — $79,999/mo + 2.99% on extra revenue. For growing stores, with bundles and A/B testing.
• Evolución — $124,999/mo + 1.29% on extra revenue. For high-volume operations, with a dedicated account manager.

The logic is simple: the more volume you move, the less the fee weighs on each extra sale. You can see the current details and the terms for your country on plans and pricing.

When does an upsell app pay for itself?

Let's run the numbers, with round figures and for illustration only (your real ones depend on your store). Say a store on the Impulso plan brings in $5,000,000 a month. If CrossUp lifts the average order value (AOV) by 9.2%—the average across the stores we measure—that's about $460,000 in extra revenue each month.

On that additional sale, the 7.49% success fee comes to roughly $34,000, and the plan's fixed charge is $49,999. Total: about $84,000 in cost against $460,000 in revenue that didn't exist before. The tool doesn't just pay for itself: it leaves a wide margin of new sales above what it costs. And since the fixed charge doesn't change, the more your store sells, the better the ratio between what you pay and what you earn.

The break-even point, in this example, is crossed well before you reach 9.2%: CrossUp only needs to generate around $54,000 in extra revenue to cover the fixed charge plus its own fee. Everything it generates above that is net profit for the store.

In short

A success fee charges on results, not on access. CrossUp combines a fixed monthly charge with a fee (7.49%, 2.99%, or 1.29% depending on the plan) that applies only to the extra revenue attributed to its recommendations. You start without paying, you measure the real impact in your dashboard, and the fee only exists if CrossUp made you sell more. It is, literally, the model where the app pays for itself.

If you want to understand what CrossUp recommends to generate that extra sale, check out the 6 conversion moments and how SalesPilot's AI works.