Providing Marketing Funds to your partners

Who is this for?

Program managers who want to give partners a budget for marketing or sales activities, review requests, and pay approved amounts in PartnerStack.

Marketing Funds overview

Marketing Funds (also called Market Development Funds, or MDFs) are budgets you give partners to promote and sell your product in a market or region. They support marketing and sales work that creates demand and provide partners with financial support for that work.

You can pay an approved request in PartnerStack (manually, or automatically when the fund setting is on) or outside PartnerStack. PartnerStack commissions follow your existing fee and invoice rules. There is no separate MDF fee setup.

Who can create a Marketing Fund?

Marketing Fund creation is available to all companies on PartnerStack. Open Enablement in the left-hand menu, then Marketing Funds.

You can create a Marketing Fund for partners your teammate's permission level covers.

If you have restricted group access, you can create funds only for partners in your assigned groups. If you need a fund for a partner outside those groups, ask a teammate who has access to that partner.

How to set up a Marketing Fund

You can create more than one fund. Each fund can include many partners, and a partner can belong to more than one fund.

1. Log in to your PartnerStack dashboard here.
2. Click Marketing Funds under Enablement.
3. Click Create a Marketing Fund.
4. In the Description & Schedule step, add:
   • a name (for example, "Referral Funds 2026 - VIP Partners")
   • a description partners will see, so they know how to qualify
   • a schedule for when partners can submit requests. Note: The fund end date is optional.
5. Click Start building.
6. In the Audience step, choose who can submit requests: Groups, Segments, Individual partners.
7. Click Save & continue.
8. Choose how the fund is managed: Unlimited budget or Limited budget. Budget fields follow the audience you selected.
9. Click Save & continue.
10. Turn on Automatically created when a request is approved, or select Manually created. 
11. In the Request form step, add any extra guidelines partners should see when they submit a request, and configure the form fields.
12. Click Activate marketing fund.

How to review and approve Marketing Fund requests

1. Log in to your PartnerStack dashboard here.
2. Click Marketing Funds under Enablement.
3. In Fund requests, click the request to open the detail view. You can see who requested the fund and the partner's form answers.
4. Click Approve or Decline.
5. Select Approve or Decline. If you decline, enter a reason for the partner.
6. Click Approve request or Decline request.

If auto-commission is on for that fund, approval creates the Marketing fund commission. If it is off, choose how you will pay:

• Create a manual commission in PartnerStack. Manual commissions use your regular payout fees and payment schedule.
• Pay the partner outside PartnerStack.

Marketing Fund statuses

Your Marketing Fund can have one of four statuses:

If there are no pending requests, you can end a fund before its scheduled end date. Once ended, a fund cannot be reactivated. You must create a new fund.

Partners cannot submit new requests after a fund has ended. If you set an end date, review open requests before that date.

Marketing Fund request statuses

Requests submitted by your partners can have one of three statuses:

Approving or declining a partner's request cannot be undone. If a request is declined by mistake, ask the partner to submit it again.

Filtering Marketing fund commissions

Under Commissions & Invoices, filter by commission type MDF to see commissions created from MDF approvals (automatic or, if you labeled them that way, other MDF payouts). 

What your partners see

Partners only see Marketing Funds in their partnership if an Active or Ended Marketing Fund exists for them.

They do not turn auto-commission on or off. They submit a request and, after you approve, they are paid on your usual PartnerStack schedule when a commission exists, or however you pay them outside PartnerStack.

For how partners submit requests, see Requesting Marketing Funds from a company.

Important Information

• Auto-commission is off unless you turn it on for that fund.
• Auto-commission does not pay immediately. It creates a commission that then follows your existing payout and fee rules.
• Auto-commission does not attach receipts or proof. If you need evidence before paying, keep the toggle off and create the commission after you have reviewed proof.
• Group and segment targeting does not replace teammate group restrictions. You still only manage partners your permission level covers.

Troubleshooting & FAQ

Q: Do I have to use automatic commissions?
A: No. The setting is off by default. You can keep paying with a manual commission or outside PartnerStack.

Q: I turned auto-commission on, but an older approved request has no commission.
A: Only approvals after you turn the setting on create a commission. Create a manual commission for requests you already approved.

Q: Can I give a fund to a whole group instead of picking partners?
A: Yes. In Audience, choose Groups or Segments.

Q: What if a partner joins the group after I create the fund?
A: They become eligible when they match the live group or segment, typically when they next open Marketing Funds.

Q: Can partners see unlimited vs limited budget?
A: Yes, they can.