Introduction

The inactivity fee is an amount charged when a publisher account has earned no new commissions, meaning it has been inactive, for twelve (12) consecutive months and carries a balance of commissions earned that cannot be paid due to an absence of payment information from the publisher.

The inactivity fee is in place due to the cost of ongoing account maintenance for inactive publisher accounts with commission balances.

Publisher Impact

The average publisher will never have an inactivity fee deducted from their account.

We make every effort to pay commissions as quickly as we receive funds from advertisers. We will never deduct an inactivity fee from an account without first trying to pay those funds out with the instructions you provided. However, the success of our payment depends entirely on the payment information you provide us.

If funds are returned to us, or if a check is not deposited, a hold will be placed on the account. You will be notified of actions needed to resume receiving payments.

Accounts With Multiple Channels

Inactivity is solely based on the channel Site ID (SID) level rather than the Legal Entity ID (LEID) level. Though your account may include multiple channels, there can only be one payment option for all channels. If, for example, one of your multiple channels is inactive with a balance while all other channels are active with a balance, the fee will only be deducted from the inactive channel.

Fee Amount and Process

The fee is 10% of the balance or 10 currency units, whichever is greater, with a cap of 50 currency units per month. Inactivity fees are deducted monthly from your account balance.

A currency unit is the standard unit of monetary value used to calculate commissions in your account. For example, if the commission balance in your account is in USD, then the applicable currency unit is USD.

Deductions are made on the US, UK, AU, CA, FR, DE, and BR networks separately. For example, if your channel has an outstanding balance of 100 EUR and 100 GBP, a fee of 10 EUR and 10 GBP will be deducted.

Accounts With No or Low Balances

Deductions stop if your account balance reaches zero. You will never owe Rakuten money. Additionally, your account will never carry a negative balance, nor would you owe money in the event of an inactivity fee being charged to your account with insufficient funds.

Examples

You have a balance of 1000 currency units. 10% of 1000 is 100, but the cap is 50. This means the monthly fee is 50 units until your balance drops below 500.

Once your balance is lower than 500, the monthly fee is 10% until your account balance reaches zero.

Updating Payment Information

The best way to ensure your account is never charged an inactivity fee is by maintaining up-to-date payment information in your account profile. Once we are able to pay out your funds, we will stop deducting the inactivity fee.

Account Reactivation

If you become active again after being inactive for 12 months, a fee will be deducted in month 13 only. Even if there is activity on your account for only one month, your tally of inactive months will be reset to zero. You will not be subject to any fees unless you reach 12 consecutive months of inactivity with an unpayable balance once again.

Additional Information

Review the Publisher Membership Agreement for details.