A tier is a group of creators at the same level of your program. Tiers can drive rewards and commission rates, gate access to campaigns, or simply organize your creators.
This guide covers what you can do with tiers and how to design them. For how tiers are scored and when creators move between them, see How Program Tiers Work After Setup.
What is a Tier?
A level in your program with a name, a rank, and optional qualification requirements. Each tier can carry rewards, a commission rate, both, or neither.
Creators land in a tier one of two ways. Automatic tiers score everyone on performance and move them on your evaluation schedule. Manual tiers hold whoever you put in them, which suits VIP and invite-only groups. You can also change a creator's tier by hand at any time, and it takes effect immediately.
Approving a creator into a tiered program requires picking a tier, for single and bulk approvals alike, unless auto-accept rules already assign one by follower count.
Three Ways to Use Tiers
You can use one, two, or all three.
Segment and report on your creators
This needs no rewards. Tiers give you a performance-based grouping in the app: who your top performers are, how many creators sit in each band, and how that changes over time. The Incentive Tier filter on the Members list lets you filter and report on the program by tier.
To use tiers this way, create them, set their qualification requirements, and leave the reward and commission fields empty.
Control campaign access and rewards
Tiers can decide who gets into a campaign at all: invite specific tiers rather than the whole program, so your top performers go on a launch while the rest of the program stays on evergreen content. Within a campaign, different tiers can also receive different gifts and different earnings for the same deliverables.
Reward and pay creators differently
Each tier can carry its own rewards and its own commission rate. This is also how you seed product by tier: each tier's welcome gift goes to the creators approved into that tier. Rewards fall into four categories, which differ by when they are given:
Category | When it's given | Resets? |
Welcome Gift | When a creator is approved into the program and assigned a tier | No. Once per gift, at approval. A tier can have several, and the creator earns each one. |
Monthly Gift | The 1st of each month, to everyone in the tier | Yes, recurring monthly |
Monthly Task | When the creator hits the monthly goal | Yes, resets monthly |
Lifetime Milestone | When the creator hits the all-time goal | No, one-time |
Every category is set per tier. Gold can have a richer welcome gift, a bigger monthly gift, different monthly tasks, and different milestones than Silver.
Delivery is automatic. Welcome gifts fire the moment a creator is approved. Task and milestone rewards are evaluated in real time as content is approved, so creators often have them within minutes. Nobody receives the same reward twice.
A milestone can require more than one thing. "Drive $500 in revenue" and "Post 3 times" can sit on the same milestone. The creator has to clear both, and the Hub shows a progress bar for each.
Tiers can get different welcome emails. Scope a WELCOME template to a tier in Messages > Templates.
What You Can Give
The same reward types are available whatever your store runs on. What changes is where the codes come from.
On Shopify, we create the rewards
LoudCrowd provisions a unique code or balance per creator the moment they qualify, with no action from your team.
Reward | How it works |
Discount Code | A percentage-off code, optionally scoped to products or collections. Creators claim it from their Earnings page. |
Free Product | A 100%-off code scoped to products or collections you pick. The reward card shows exactly what they'll get. |
Gift Card | A balance creators redeem in set amounts from the Creator Hub. |
Site Credit | Store credit applied straight to the creator's customer account. |
On custom eCommerce, you create the codes and we distribute them
Anything you can generate as a code, we can upload and assign. Upload a CSV of codes to a Reward, LoudCrowd gives each creator a unique code from it, and it lands in their Reward Wallet. To the creator, it is identical to a Shopify-native reward.
Reward | What you provide |
Discount Code | A pool of percentage-off codes |
Free Product | A pool of 100%-off codes, scoped however you created them |
Gift Card | A pool of gift card codes. These are fixed-value, rather than a redeemable balance. |
Site Credit | A pool of store credit codes |
Anything else with a code | Bundle offers, free shipping, early access. If your platform can produce it, we can distribute it. |
Codes are finite. Each code in the pool is assigned to one creator, so a pool of 200 codes covers 200 rewards. When codes are running low, they need to be replenished: generate a new batch in your platform and upload it.
Sending a reward by hand
Select creators on your program's Members tab and choose Send Reward. You can send anything configured in the program, a specific tier's reward, or a one-off Shopify discount, product, or gift card. It lands in the creator's Reward Wallet to claim, and each recipient gets their own unique code.
No ESP integration is needed for rewards that carry a code or product. The Wallet is the delivery channel. Message-only rewards still require one.
Commission rates by tier
Link a tier to a commission tier and a creator's rate updates automatically when they move. Commission tiers support a base rate, different rates by product or collection, different rates for new versus returning customers, and include/exclude rules.
Moving an existing program onto tiers is covered in Transitioning Your Rewards to Program Tiers.
Designing Your Tiers
If you are using tiers as a ladder, the thresholds are the thing to get right. The common mistake is setting them at levels that look good on paper but that almost nobody reaches. Build the tiers as a funnel: an easy entry point, and top tiers that feel earned but not impossible.
What you can measure
Metric | What it counts |
Posts | Distinct days a creator posts content mentioning your brand |
Revenue | Attributed sales revenue the creator drove |
Sales | Distinct attributed orders |
New Customers | Attributed orders from first-time buyers |
Impressions | Impressions on qualifying posts |
Tier qualification can use any of the five. A tier holds one or more requirements, each a metric and a threshold, and a creator must clear all of them to qualify. A requirement with a threshold of 0 is always met, which is how you build an entry tier that catches everyone. Milestones and tasks use the same five metrics.
Scoping a goal to a platform or content type
Posts and Impressions requirements, on tiers as well as tasks and milestones, can be narrowed to Instagram or TikTok, and to Feed & Reels or Story. Everything else counts across all platforms. With Platform set to Any Platform, the content type decides what counts:
Content type | What counts |
Any (default) | All Instagram posts + all TikTok posts |
Feed & Reels | Instagram Feed and Reels + all TikTok posts. Excludes Instagram Stories. |
Story | Instagram Stories only. TikTok is excluded, since it has no Story format. |
Use this when you value content types differently. Creators see the filter on their task card: a task scoped to Stories reads "Make 5 Instagram Stories" and tracks progress the same way.
Choosing an evaluation period
How often the platform re-scores everyone and reassigns tiers. It is a single program-wide setting, so every tier is measured over the same span.
Period | Best for |
Monthly | High-velocity programs with frequent creator activity |
Quarterly | Most programs. Gives creators time to ramp between evaluations |
Semi-annual | Seasonal brands, or longer sales cycles |
Annual | VIP and loyalty-style programs built on long relationships |
Nothing is selected until you choose one, and the first evaluation runs on the very next 1st of the month after you do. Where to set it, and what that first run does, is covered in Setting Up Program Tiers.
Controls worth deciding on
Control | What it does |
Max Participants | Caps a tier. When more creators qualify than there are seats, they compete on one metric (revenue if the tier requires it, otherwise sales, new customers, impressions, then posts) and the rest cascade down to the next tier they qualify for. |
Auto-Accept Rules | Assign new creators to a tier by follower count, so approvals do not need a manual tier pick. |
Max Redemption Limit | A monthly dollar cap on what a creator can redeem in site credit and gift cards within a tier. Worth setting to control spend. A separate monthly cap covers cash rewards. |
An Example Program
A fashion brand that wants creators posting consistently and driving sales. Their data showed about 15% of creators clearing $500 a quarter while posting 3+ times, and a group of roughly 8 consistently above $2K. Evaluation period: quarterly.
Tier | Qualification | Commission | Rewards |
Silver | 1+ posting day | 10% | Welcome: 15% off code |
Gold | 3+ posting days AND $500+ revenue | 15% | Welcome: 20% off code |
Platinum | 6+ posting days AND $2,000+ revenue, max 10 spots | 20% | Welcome: 25% off code. Monthly: $50 gift card |
Milestones bridge the gap between tiers, so Silver creators have something to work toward before Gold is in reach:
Milestone | Goal | Reward |
First Sale | $100 lifetime revenue | $15 site credit |
Content Streak | Post 3x in a single month | $20 site credit |
Revenue Ramp | $1K lifetime revenue | $50 gift card |
Monthly tasks keep the upper tiers engaged between evaluations: Gold posts 2x for $25 site credit, Platinum posts 4x for $50. If the brand valued Reels more, it could add "Post 2 Instagram Reels" for $30 alongside them.
Why it works. Silver is easy to enter, so new creators are included from day one. Milestones give them wins on the way up. Platinum's 10-seat cap makes it a status, not just a payout.
What Happens Once It's Live
Three things run on their own, on different clocks:
The monthly reward run, on the 1st. Monthly gifts go out and monthly tasks pay out for the month that just ended. It never pauses.
Tier evaluation, on your Evaluation Period. Everyone is re-scored and moved. The first one runs on the very next 1st after you select a period. It does not wait a full period, and it measures the full look-back window even though your tiers were only just set up.
Milestones, in real time. The reward sends within minutes of the creator qualifying.
Two things to design around. A welcome gift only ever sends once, at initial approval, so a perk every Gold member should have belongs in Gold's monthly gift or a milestone, not its welcome gift. And a milestone only applies to creators who are below its threshold when you create it, so set milestones at levels creators will reach after you launch them.
Evaluation windows, dated examples of the first evaluation, demotion protections, capped-tier displacement, and what creators can and cannot see are covered in How Program Tiers Work After Setup. The emails creators receive are listed in LoudCrowd Notifications.
Questions to Work Through With Your Client Strategist
Decide what tiers are for
Are you using tiers to reward creators, to segment and report on them, to control campaign access, or all three?
What is your core KPI: revenue, content, or both? Everything else follows from this.
Make the progression achievable
How do your creators segment today? Compare your top 5 to 10 against your middle 15 to 20% and the long tail. Use real bands, not aspirational numbers.
Is the entry tier easy enough that new creators are included right away, and does each step up feel possible?
What evaluation period fits your business: monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, or annual?
Decide what each tier gives
What commission rate and reward types per tier?
What small wins can you reward between tier jumps, like a first sale, a first $100, or a content streak?
Can you layer in exclusivity or status at the top, with capped spots or an invite-only tier?
Do you need a per-tier cap on site credit and gift card redemptions?
Special cases
Do you value content differently by platform or type, and should tasks be scoped accordingly?
Any invite-only tiers, participant caps, or follower-based auto-assignment?
Different commission rates for specific products, collections, or customer types?
Best Practices
Start with the behavior, not the reward. Define the KPI first, design tiers around what creators should do, and let the rewards follow.
Aim for a realistic shape. Top tier around 5 to 10 creators, mid tier around 10 to 20% of the program, entry tier everyone else.
Use milestones to bridge the gap. Tier jumps are too far apart on their own. Milestones and monthly tasks turn them into a continuous loop.
Differentiate beyond money. The strongest programs stack better rewards, exclusivity, and status on top of a higher rate. For your lower tiers, lean on content incentives rather than revenue pressure.
Give your lowest tier a requirement with a threshold of zero. Then nobody falls out of tiers, loses their rewards, and is never told why.
Spell out the tier structure in your welcome message. The Creator Hub does not show creators the tiers above them or how close they are.
Revisit after one or two cycles. Are creators actually progressing? Are the thresholds realistic?