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No we do not take a cut on what you have termed “secondary margins”. If you work with affiliate networks you will be familiar with the tiering that is in place on some (not all) affiliate programmes. If we reach a higher tier in a programme we pass this on to members. As Quidco passes back 100% this is visible on many programmes and you are welcome to browse the site and compare against network tiers. Many of the larger brand programmes we are in the higher tiers and this can easily be seen when you look at Quidco (supposing you know the tiering structures which you say you do).

It is for reasons such as this that we call Quidco a cooperative and this has been one of our main goals from the beginning, to pool our purchasing power as consumers to reach the higher tiers on these programmes.

Yes obviously Quidco is not a registered business cooperative and we would never try to place it within a business definition of cooperative. We called it that to identify ourselves as a site where we want members working together as a cooperative to join together purchasing power, to put members first, to pass on 100% of the commissions we receive.

“An autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise.”

…say the International Co-operative Alliance. Is Quidco jointly-owned by its members? No. Is Quidco democratically-controlled? No. Do Quidco’s members and owners have common economic goals? We have only the owners’ word for that, since it is a bog standard Ltd company. Ergo, I find Quidco’s ‘cooperative’ schtick a tad disingenuous.

Do Quidco earn only £5 per user per year? That seems an unlikely business model and Paul sidesteps the question. If they had, say, 50,000 users (in which case their £26m in sales would mean an average spend of £520 per user per year), that revenue (£250k) might just cover payroll for their five staff - but wouldn’t leave much for the Xmas party…

I work with a number of the companies that Quidco offer cashback from. To take an example, one particular merchant offers affiliates 2% commission, the same figure that Quidco offers their users in cashback. But many merchants increase affiliate commission in line with their sales volumes. In that example, I earn 4-5% of sale value instead of the standard 2%.

Most cashback sites make their money by splitting affiliate revenue with their users. Do Quidco do the same thing but on these secondary margins (ie, negotiated higher percentages)? Be interesting to hear more about where exactly they take their cut.