Careers
Part of Direct selling: a focused business guide for 2027
Comparing direct selling tools on the same job
Compare direct selling tools by running every candidate through one identical task, then scoring the paperwork, the payout math and the exit.
What to take away
- Run every candidate direct selling tool through one identical job: enroll a distributor, place an order, calculate a commission, issue a 1099.
- Score the paperwork, not the demo. Compensation statements, income disclosures and autoship records are where tools fail.
- Ask each vendor how the tool separates retail customer sales from recruitment volume. The answer tells you whether it can support a lawful direct selling business.
- Price the exit before you signexport format, data deletion, and who owns the distributor list.
- Keep the tested edition, plan and date. Vendors ship changes monthly.
Name the tools before you compare them
Direct selling tools split into two families. General CRMs track relationships. Platforms built for the industry calculate rank, volume and payout. Choose the family first, then score the vendors inside it.
Direct Selling Tool Families
General CRM
- Primary focus
- Relationships
- Examples
- Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho
- Pricing
- Per user per month
- Best for
- Lead and support
Industry Platform
- Primary focus
- Rank and payout
- Examples
- DirectScale, Exigo
- Pricing
- Enterprise quote
- Best for
- Legs and breakaways
Seven tools cover most of the market. Prices below are public list prices checked in late 2025 and early 2026. Enterprise platforms quote instead of publishing rates.
What it is
- Salesforce
- General CRM; commission and partner modules are built by integrators
- HubSpot
- CRM with marketing automation and commission objects
- Zoho CRM
- Low-cost CRM with workflow rules and a partner portal
- DirectScale
- Platform built for direct selling, including rank and payout logic
- Exigo
- Direct selling platform with commissions, autoship and back office
- ByDesign
- Direct selling software covering orders, commissions and distributor portals
- Shopify
- Storefront and subscription billing, with no native commission engine
Who it suits
- Salesforce
- Companies past roughly a few hundred active distributors
- HubSpot
- Small teams that want one system for leads and support
- Zoho CRM
- Cost-sensitive startups
- DirectScale
- Companies whose plan has ranks, legs or breakaways
- Exigo
- Established companies with complex plans
- ByDesign
- Mid-size companies replacing spreadsheets
- Shopify
- Distributors selling retail first
Pricing model and public price signal
- Salesforce
- Sales Cloud lists at about $25 to $165 per user per month billed annually; integrator work is quoted separately
- HubSpot
- Free tier for basic CRM, then about $20 to $150 per user per month by tier
- Zoho CRM
- Standard about $14, Professional about $23, Enterprise about $40 per user per month billed annually
- DirectScale
- Enterprise quote. Implementations typically run five figures upfront plus a monthly platform fee
- Exigo
- Enterprise quote. Typically a monthly platform fee plus per-order or per-distributor charges
- ByDesign
- Quote-based. Mid-market deals typically land in the low thousands per month
- Shopify
- Basic about $39, Grow about $105, Advanced about $399 per month, plus card fees near 2.9 percent plus 30 cents
Two facts decide the shortlist. A binary, leg or breakaway plan needs payout logic a general CRM does not carry. A distributor who sells retail first can run on Shopify and a spreadsheet, with no commission engine at all.
Give every candidate the same job
One Identical Test Job
- Enroll a new distributor
- Place a retail order
- Run one pay period commission
- Produce year-end 1099 file
- Record setup hours and reconciliation time
Record four things for each tool.
- Setup hours to the first correct commission run.
- Minutes of staff time per pay period to reconcile the payout.
- Whether the export opens in your accounting software without editing.
- What happens when a distributor is terminated mid-period.
A vendor's accuracy claim is an advertising claim. The FTC advertising substantiation policy requires a reasonable basis for objective claims before they run, so ask for the test behind the number.
Where the comparison turns into a compliance question
A tool that counts recruitment volume as customer demand will produce reports your compliance file cannot defend. Ask the vendor to show how the system separates the two. Request a sample report pulled from a live account.
Contractor or Employee?
Does the company control behavior and finances?
Worker is likely an employee, paid on W-2
Worker is likely an independent contractor, paid on 1099-NEC
Under IRS rules, a distributor treated as an independent contractor is paid on Form 1099-NEC. An employee is paid on Form W-2. The behavioral and financial control tests decide which applies. Confirm your own classification with the IRS or a licensed CPA.
The GAO data reliability guide frames data quality against intended use. A commission report good enough for a monthly check may not be good enough for an income disclosure.
Check the parts a demo skips
- Export the full distributor list and open it in a spreadsheet.
- Terminate a test distributor and confirm the record survives.
- Run one pay period with a refund and a chargeback.
- Confirm the autoship record shows the consent date and the cancellation path.
- Read the data deletion clause.
- Ask who owns the distributor data if you leave.
The W3C guidance on information and relationships covers the distributor-facing pages your tool generates. Structure shown visually must also exist in the code. Test the real enrollment form, not a mockup.
The W3C privacy principles warn against shifting privacy work onto individuals. That is the same failure as a tool that buries the cancellation path and calls it distributor choice.
Worked example: one pay period
Take a plan paying 25 percent on retail volume and 5 percent on downline volume. Let R be retail volume, D be downline volume, and F be the platform fee for the period.
Commission owed = 0.25R + 0.05D. Net to the company = 0.25R + 0.05D subtracted from gross margin, less F.
With R at $40,000, D at $12,000 and F at $600, commission owed is $10,600. The platform fee takes $600 of margin.
Run the same input file in each tool. Differences in the result point to rounding, rank timing or volume carryover. Each is a question for the vendor.
Common questions
What should the first test be?
One full pay period with a refund and a termination inside it. That run exposes rounding, rank timing and record retention faster than any feature list.
Do I need a direct selling platform rather than a CRM?
It depends on the plan. Flat percentage plans run fine in a general CRM. Plans with ranks, legs, breakaways or compressed volume usually need a platform built for them.
How do I check income claims?
Income claims are advertising claims. Follow the FTC substantiation standard and your state attorney general's rules on earnings representations. Confirm the current requirement with the FTC or a licensed attorney.
What if the tool cannot separate retail from recruitment volume?
Treat it as a compliance risk, not a reporting gap. Preserve the records, correct any output already published, and set a review date before expanding use.
