Step 4 — Recipient: who gets paid
"Who receives the commission?"
Four options.
Deal owner
"Whoever is assigned on the opportunity."
The ordinary case. It follows Pipedrive, so a deal reassigned in Pipedrive pays the new owner on the next calculation.
Watch for: if the owner cannot be resolved to a participant, the deal pays nobody — it shows as Unmatched in Deal Review, which is a silent zero, not an error. → Check and exclude deals
Manager override
"Pay the owner's direct manager."
"Pays the owner's manager, resolved from the reporting line on the Teams & Roles page."
This is how you pay managers on their team's production without naming anyone. Reorganise the team and the rule follows.
An override adds, it does not subtract. A deal paying 6% to the rep and 1% to the manager costs you 7%. If you meant to divide one pot, use Custom split.
When an override pays the wrong person, the team structure is usually the bug, not the rule. Check Organization → Roles first.
Custom owner
"Pay someone named on the deal via a Pipedrive user field."
For deals where the person who should be paid is not the owner — a solutions engineer, a partner manager, an overlay rep — recorded in a Pipedrive user field.
You will be asked "Which Pipedrive field names the recipient?" If the dropdown is empty you need to mark a participant field first, on the Fields page.
Custom split
"Divide between multiple recipients."
For genuinely co-sold deals. Add rows, each with a recipient type and a share:
Deal owner 70 %
Custom owner 30 % ← plus the Pipedrive field naming them
Lokom validates as you type and shows Total: 100% — looks good.
The rules it enforces:
| Error | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Add at least two recipients for a split | A split of one is not a split |
| Shares must sum to 100 | No implicit remainder |
| Each recipient can appear only once | No stacking a person twice in one split |
| Pick a participant field for each custom-owner row | A custom-owner row needs its field |
Those rules cover the rows you build. On a real deal, two different fields can still name the same person — someone who is both the Sales engineer and the Solutions consultant. That person earns both shares, shown as one line on their statement. The split still pays out exactly the rule's amount, never more.
A split with tiers measures each person on their own quota
When the rule also has a Multiplier or a % of quota threshold, the step says so under the split table: "Each person is measured against their own quota." In a 70 / 30 split, the owner's share follows the owner's attainment and the sales engineer's share follows theirs, so the order of the rows never changes what anyone earns.
A person whose role has no matching quota is paid their share as though the rule had no Multiplier and no % of quota threshold. The others are still measured normally. → Threshold, multiplier and cap
Choosing between them
| You want | Use |
|---|---|
| Pay the person who closed it | Deal owner |
| Pay their manager as well | A second rule with Manager override |
| Pay someone else named on the deal | Custom owner |
| Divide one payout between people | Custom split |
The distinction that costs money: Manager override is an extra cost; Custom split divides an existing one.
Common mistakes
- Using an override where you meant a split. Your commission cost doubles quietly.
- Custom owner on a field reps do not fill in. No recipient, no payout.
- Stacked overrides. A manager and a director both taking 1% is 2% on every deal in the company. Stress-test a plan with layered overrides before activating. → Stress-test a plan