The same traffic can be profit or loss depending on the contract. Operators overpay most often not because the traffic is bad, but because the deal structure does not match the traffic quality. Here is the math that decides it.
A flat CPA is a bet that a player's lifetime NGR will exceed the fee. At €250 per FTD, a cohort producing €25 NGR per FTD at 90 days has returned 10% of its cost in a quarter, a 30-month payback if the run rate even holds. The same €250 buys back in six weeks when 90-day NGR per FTD is €130. CPA is not expensive or cheap in itself; it is expensive relative to retention, which is why the 2nd deposit rate matters more than the rate card.
CPA suits proven, high-intent sources where you have cohort history: the affiliate carries no downside, but you cap your cost per player and keep all the upside of a good cohort. The protection that makes CPA safe is the qualification clause: an FTD only counts toward payment if it meets criteria such as a minimum deposit or a second deposit within seven days. Without it you are paying full rate for bonus tourists.
Revenue share is self-correcting: if the players are worthless, so is the commission. That makes it the right structure for unproven partners and volatile traffic. The cost is that great cohorts get expensive forever, and long-tail revshare liabilities accumulate across hundreds of partners.
The most expensive detail in a revshare contract is its basis. A share of GGR ignores your bonus cost, taxes and payment fees; a share of NGR shares them. An affiliate on 35% of GGR sending bonus-hungry traffic gets paid on revenue the bonuses destroy. If a partner's bonus cost runs above roughly 30% of deposits, a GGR-based deal transfers that damage entirely to you; renegotiate the basis before the percentage. Also read the deductions clause: audits of affiliate programs have found average net revenue shares of roughly half the advertised headline after administrative fees.
A moderate CPA plus a smaller revshare is the pragmatic default for mid-trust partners: the affiliate gets cash flow, you share the risk. On the revshare side, insist on negative carryover so a whale win in January is not forgotten by February. And whatever the structure, add a chargeback clawback clause, because that fraud arrives months after payment.
The free calculator computes total 90-day cost, ROI and payback for CPA, revshare (GGR or NGR basis) and hybrid deals next to a traffic quality score, so you can see whether the deal or the traffic is the problem.
Run your deal through the calculator →Related: Affiliate quality KPIs · What is a good reg-to-FTD rate? · Methodology