A “powerline” is a payout model where the first X sales of a distributor are passed “up the powerline” to their sponsor/referrer. X represents the number of powerlines in the program. For instance, in a “2 up” powerline program, the first two sales a distributor makes are passed up to the person that referred them, unless it’s one of that person’s first two referrals, in which case they are passed up one more level to the person that referred them. Once again, if it was one of that person’s first two referrals, then all those sales are passed up one more level. The fact that the sales of the first two people referred by a distributor continue to be passed up to the person that referred them creates the “powerlines”.

The powerline sales, which in the above example are the first two sales, are often called the “qualifying sales”.  Each non-qualifying sale starts a new powerline for the person who made the sale. For instance, in a 2-up powerline program, the first two sales pass up the powerline, and then every sale after that starts a new powerline for that distributor. This can be a very difficult concept to grasp, but hopefully the following chart will help you wrap your head around it.

For this example, let’s assume it’s a 2 up powerline program, and each person refers three people. Each circle represents a new distributor, and are numbered in the order they were referred. The lines represent who referred who, with the high number being referred by the lower number, or from the center of the diagram outwards. The colors represent the flow of commissions, or powerlines. For instance, all of the qualifying sales made by the circles that are red go to the first circle that has red, which is Distributor #3.

Even with only three sales each, the matrix grows so quickly it becomes virtually impossible to illustrate after four levels. However, if you think of the diagram above as a small “slice” of the larger matrix, with a little imagination you can use it to visualize what is too complicated to draw.

In the above example, Distributor #0 refers Distributor #1. For the sake of this example, let’s assume that this is Distributor #0’s third sale, and is therefore starting a new powerline. Distributor #1 then makes three sales, bringing in Distributors 2, 3 and 4. Distributors 2 and 3 are the qualifying sales of #1, so they go to his sponsor, Distributor #0. Distributor #4 starts a new powerline for #1, in green.

Each of the new distributors then bring in three more distributors. The first two go to the person that referred them, and the third starts a new powerline. For instance, #2 refers 5, 6 and 7. Numbers 5 and 6 are the qualifying sales, so they go up the powerline to the person who referred #2. Since #2 was a qualifying sale for #1, then once again it goes up another level to #0.

After that, each of the new distributors refers three more distributors. After this point the diagram would become to difficult to draw, but you can start to see the pattern in which the new powerlines form. By following the colors, you can see who gets what. For instance, all the blue dots go to #0, all the dark green go to #1, all the red dots go to #3.

If you imagine that the end of the matrix connects to the beginning, you can follow a chain further then 4 levels. For example, when #8 referred #25, it started a new powerline in light green. If you wanted to follow that, you can substitute #8 for #0, #1 for #25, and light green for blue.  In other words, you can make #0 be any spot in the matrix, and then follow it from there.

Now let’s look at how the money would break down. For this example, let’s assume each sale is $10. Let’s also assume that only the sales shown on the diagram occurred. This means that distributors 14 through 40 didn’t make any sales. Of course, in real life the powerlines will continue to infinity!