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Unilevel MLM Plan Calculator – Level Commissions and Income Online

This free unilevel MLM plan calculator shows what one member at the top of a unilevel team earns in a month. Enter the number of paid levels, the average number of personally sponsored members per member (the width), the commission percentage of each level and the order value in USD; the table gives the members, the sales volume and the commission on every level, the totals, and the share of team volume the company pays out. It runs in your browser, needs no sign-up, and updates as you type.

A unilevel MLM plan is a compensation plan in which every member can sponsor an unlimited number of people on their first level (unlimited width) and earns a fixed percentage of the sales volume on a limited number of levels below them (limited depth), most often five to ten levels.

Unilevel MLM calculator – enter your plan

Paid levels (1–15) How many levels below a member pay a commission.

Average personally sponsored members per member (width) Decimals allowed, for example 2.5. The team is modelled as width^level members on each level.

Product or package value per member (USD) The order each member places in the month you are modelling.

Monthly repurchase value per member (USD, optional) Autoship or repeat order; added to the package value.

Same commission % for all levels: %

Dynamic compression is on (note only – it does not change the figures, see the result sentence)

Commission % per level (defaults 10 / 5 / 5 / 3 / 3 / 2 – change any field):

Level 1 %

Level 2 %

Level 3 %

Level 4 %

Level 5 %

Level 6 %

Reset to defaults Copy results

Unilevel level commissions for one member at the top of the team

Level	Members on the level	Sales volume (USD)	Commission %	Commission paid (USD)
1	3	$300.00	10 %	$30.00
2	9	$900.00	5 %	$45.00
3	27	$2,700.00	5 %	$135.00
4	81	$8,100.00	3 %	$243.00
5	243	$24,300.00	3 %	$729.00
6	729	$72,900.00	2 %	$1,458.00
Total	1,092	$109,200.00	28 %	$2,640.00

Team size in the paid levels1,092

Team volume per month$109,200.00

Commission per month, member at the top$2,640.00

Company payout on this team's volume2.42 %

Plan maximum per order (sum of level %)28 %

With 6 paid levels, a width of 3 and an order of $100.00 per member, a member at the top has 1,092 people in the paid levels, who order $109,200.00 in the month. The level commissions add up to $2,640.00, which is 2.42 % of that team volume; the commissions pass the member's own $100.00 order once level 3 is filled. The plan itself pays at most 28 % of every order across all uplines. Dynamic compression is on: inactive positions are skipped, so each paid level is filled with the next active member and the figures above are close to what a fully active team pays.

How the unilevel MLM plan calculator works

The unilevel MLM calculator models one month of a symmetrical team. You give it four facts about the plan and the team, and it fills every paid level from the top down:

• Paid levels – the depth the plan pays on. A unilevel plan with six paid levels pays the sponsor on levels 1 to 6 and nothing on level 7 and below, however large the team grows there.
• Width – the average number of people each member personally sponsors. Level 1 holds that many members, level 2 holds width × width, and so on (width^level). A width of 3 and six levels give 3, 9, 27, 81, 243 and 729 members; the decimal field lets you use a realistic average such as 2.4 instead of a round number.
• Order value – the package value plus the optional monthly repurchase. Every member on every paid level is assumed to order once in the month, so the sales volume on a level is members × order value. Set the package value to 0 and use the repurchase field alone when you want a steady-state month with autoship only.
• Commission % per level – the heart of a unilevel compensation plan calculation. Each level has its own percentage; the "same for all" switch applies one rate everywhere, which some plans do.

The result is what the member at the top of that team receives from level commissions alone. The unilevel compensation plan calculator does not add rank bonuses, matching bonuses, pool shares or retail profit, and it does not remove members who fail a qualification rule; those depend on the specific plan and on real genealogy data, which is the job of the MLM software described further down. The compression switch is a note, not a formula: with dynamic compression on, the software skips inactive positions when it walks up the sponsor tree, so each paid level is filled with the next active member and the symmetrical model above is a fair approximation; with compression off, every inactive upline leaves a gap, and the real payout is lower than the calculator shows.

Because a plain level plan is the same structure with a flat payout per level, the tool doubles as an MLM level plan calculator: switch on "same for all", type the flat rate, and read the result the same way.

Unilevel compensation plan calculation – the formula and a worked example

For a member at the top of the team, the unilevel MLM calculation runs level by level:

• members on level n = widthⁿ
• sales volume on level n = members on level n × (package value + monthly repurchase)
• commission on level n = sales volume on level n × commission % of level n
• commission per month = the sum of the commissions on all paid levels
• team volume = the sum of the sales volume on all paid levels; payout ratio on this team = commission per month ÷ team volume

With the calculator defaults – six paid levels, a width of 3, a $100 order per member and 10 / 5 / 5 / 3 / 3 / 2 % – the worked example reads:

The top member has 1,092 people in the six paid levels, the team orders $109,200 in the month, and the level commissions come to $2,640, or 2.42 % of the team's volume. Two things stand out. First, the deepest level pays the most even at the lowest percentage, because the number of members multiplies at every level; this is why a plan that pays only five levels and one that pays seven can differ enormously in cost. Second, the member's commission passes their own $100 order once level 3 is filled, which is the point at which the plan starts to feel real to a distributor.

From the company's side the same sale looks different. One $100 order on level 6 of the top member is level 5 of someone else, level 4 of someone else again, and so on up the sponsor line; the company pays 2 % + 3 % + 3 % + 5 % + 5 % + 10 % = 28 % of that order in total, as long as every upline position is active and qualified. The sum of the level percentages is therefore the plan's maximum payout per order, and the payout ratio on one member's team is always lower than it because that member is only one of the uplines being paid.

Unilevel vs generation plan vs level plan

This site covers the whole family of depth-based plans, so it helps to see the three side by side before you set the percentages. All three have unlimited width; they differ in how depth is measured and in who qualifies.

If your plan pays on generations, the numbers above do not apply directly: a generation can hold hundreds of people, and the leader's percentage applies to all of their volume, but only while the leader holds the rank. Read the generation MLM plan page for that structure, and the binary, matrix, unilevel and board plan software overview for the plans with a fixed width.

What software must do for a unilevel plan

The calculator is enough to design the percentages. Running the plan every month with real members is unilevel MLM software calculation, and the software to use for unilevel MLM calculation has to do these jobs without exception:

• Unlimited width in the genealogy. Every new member is placed directly under their sponsor, there is no placement logic and no limit to a frontline; the genealogy report and the commission engine must stay fast when one leader has a frontline of several hundred people.
• Upline mapping and level assignment. For every order the engine walks up the sponsor line a fixed number of steps and assigns each upline to a level – level 1 for the sponsor, level 2 for the sponsor's sponsor, and so on – so that the right percentage applies without anyone tracking levels by hand.
• Level caps and depth by rank. Many plans pay a new member on three levels and a leader on seven; the engine checks the rank of each upline at the moment of the order (or at the end of the period, as the plan defines) before it pays a level.
• Qualification checks. Active status, a minimum personal volume or a minimum number of active frontline members are checked on every upline before a commission is credited, so that only qualified members are paid and everyone is paid by the same rule.
• Static and dynamic compression. When an upline is inactive, dynamic compression skips the position and gives the level to the next active member above; static compression removes terminated accounts from the tree for good. Both must be configurable per plan, because they change the payout ratio.
• Rank bonuses, matching bonuses and pools. Paid on top of the level commissions and therefore part of the company's total payout; the engine calculates them in the same run so that the payout cap can be applied to everything together.
• Wallet, payout and reports. Every commission is credited to the member's e-wallet with the order, level and percentage it came from; the member sees the breakdown on their dashboard, the admin sees period totals, the payout ratio and ad hoc reports, and payouts go out on the plan's cycle – real time, weekly or monthly.

Daani's MLM software does all of the above for unilevel, generation, level, binary and matrix plans, with the percentages, depth, compression and qualification rules set from the admin panel rather than in code, so a change to the plan is applied without a rebuild. See the product page for the unilevel MLM plan software and the in-product MLM commission calculator that runs on real genealogy data, or compare the generation plan MLM software on this site.

Reading the result as a company

A distributor reads the unilevel plan calculator for income; a company reads it for cost. Three numbers matter:

• Payout ratio. The sum of the level percentages is what the plan pays on each dollar of commissionable volume when every upline qualifies – 28 % in the defaults. Add rank, matching and pool bonuses to get the plan's total payout. Many plans budget somewhere between 30 and 50 % of commissionable volume for all payouts together; if your product's gross margin after fulfilment does not cover that plus operating cost, the percentages must come down or the depth must be shorter.
• Caps. A unilevel plan can cap the commission per level, the commission per member per period, or the total payout of a period – if the engine's total exceeds, say, 45 % of the period's volume, every commission is scaled down by the same factor. Caps protect the company in a month when a large team suddenly qualifies deeper; they must be written into the plan document before launch, not added afterwards.
• Break-even and breakage. Without compression, every inactive upline is a level that is not paid, and the difference between the plan maximum and the actual payout is breakage – money the company keeps. Compression turns most of that breakage back into commissions, which is better for distributors and more expensive for the company; the unilevel marketing calculation you do before launch should be run both ways. For the member, the break-even is the month in which level commissions exceed their own order plus fees – level 3 in the worked example.

Run the numbers for a realistic width first. A width of 3 looks modest, but it assumes every one of the 1,092 people in six levels sponsors three others; a real team has a few builders with large frontlines and many members with none, which is why the average width across a whole company is usually below 2. Try 1.8 and 2.5 and see how the deep levels shrink.

Last updated: 6 November 2026. Figures are illustrative; your own plan's rules decide the real payout.