Compendium Token
Rewards That Actually Reward: What We Give Tokens For
Most software rewards programs are engineered for low redemption. Here is what Compendium gives tokens for, why those things and not others, and what we refuse to pretend.
There is a question worth asking about any rewards program before you value it at anything: does the operator want you to redeem? A surprising number are built so the answer is no. Breakage — the portion of rewards never claimed — is a line item, and programs get designed to maximize it.
We would rather run a smaller program that people actually use. Here is what earns tokens and why.
Onboarding milestones
Tokens land when a firm genuinely gets live: migration finished, bank feeds connected, the first cohort of users actually working in the system rather than merely invited to it.
That distinction matters. "Seats provisioned" is a vanity number that looks like adoption and is not. A firm with twenty invited users and three active ones has a problem, and paying out on invitations would reward us for hiding it. Milestones are tied to things that only happen when the software is genuinely in use.
Longevity
Anniversary tokens for each year you stay. The logic is unsentimental: acquiring a new customer costs meaningfully more than keeping an existing one, and a program that spends heavily on acquisition while offering existing customers nothing is making a choice about who it values.
Making the product better
A reproducible bug report with real steps. A feature specification detailed enough that we ship it. Agreeing to act as a reference for another firm evaluating us. These are genuine work, and treating them as free is how vendors end up with customers who stop telling them anything.
Referrals — the big one
The largest balances come from referral commission, which has its own mechanics and its own article. In short: a percentage of net revenue on invoices a referred customer actually pays, accrued when payment lands, optionally continuing on renewals.
What we are not going to pretend
Rewards, other than contractual referral commission, are discretionary. We set the amounts and can change them. We would rather say that plainly than dress it up as a guaranteed tier structure and then quietly move the thresholds, which is the standard move.
What we do commit to: once tokens are granted, they are yours. We do not claw back granted tokens because a program changed. Promotional tokens carry whatever expiry they carried on the day it was granted, and changing the program later does not retroactively shorten it.
The honest test
Here is a question worth putting to any vendor running a rewards program, ours included: what percentage of issued rewards gets redeemed, and what happens to the rest? A program designed to be used has a comfortable answer. A program designed around breakage does not.
Common questions
Are Compendium rewards guaranteed?
Referral commission is contractual and agreed per partner. Other rewards — milestones, anniversary tokens, contribution tokens — are discretionary and the amounts can change. Once tokens have been granted they are yours and are not clawed back if the program changes.
Do I have to enroll in the rewards program?
No. Your wallet exists from your first invoice and tokens land in it automatically. There is no tier to maintain and no way to lose a balance through inactivity.