What Should I Watch For Before Signing With a Technology Distributor?

Can My Distributor Change My Commission Terms After I've Signed?

Whether they can depends entirely on the specific language in your agreement, and it's one of the most consequential things to check before signing rather than after a change shows up. Legal guidance for technology agents and distributors specifically flags "commission schedules and payment terms that can't be quietly changed" as a core protection to negotiate for, alongside evergreen, termination, non-solicitation, and non-circumvention language (techlawyers.com, 2025). If your agreement doesn't explicitly say commission terms are locked once a deal is placed, assume they can move.

HonestStok's agreements keep commission terms fixed once a deal is placed, specifically so an advisor's economics on a deal they already closed can't shift later.

What Do Evergreen and Termination Clauses Actually Protect?

Evergreen language protects your residual income on business you've already placed, for as long as that business stays active, regardless of whether your relationship with the distributor continues. Termination language governs what happens the moment either side wants to end the relationship, notice periods, wind-down terms, and what happens to deals already in motion. The same legal guidance notes that liability exposure and "commission disputes that impact your bottom line" tend to grow as an advisor's book of business grows, which makes catching weak evergreen or termination language early more consequential the more successful an advisor becomes, not less (techlawyers.com, 2025).

Ask directly: if I stop bringing new deals but existing customers keep paying, do I keep getting paid? An agreement that's silent on that question is answering it by omission, usually not in the advisor's favor.

What Do Non-Solicitation and Non-Circumvention Clauses Actually Restrict?

Non-solicitation and non-circumvention clauses restrict who can contact your customers and under what circumstances, and a poorly scoped version can effectively let a distributor or a supplier go around you to reach an account you brought them. Read this section specifically for whether it protects you from the distributor circumventing your relationship, not only the reverse.

Intelligent Tech Channels' 2026 partner research found that advisors consistently want "deal protection that is honoured and enforced," not just written into a program guide and then ignored in practice (Intelligent Tech Channels, 2025). Written protection and enforced protection are two different things, worth asking a distributor for a real example of the second.



Who Actually Owns the Account If the Relationship Ends?

Account ownership should be explicit in writing, not assumed, and it should specify what happens to the customer relationship, the commission stream, and any renewal rights if either side walks away. The same research pointed to "margin traps behind elaborate tiering structures" as a common way advisors lose value without a clause technically being broken; the terms were just complicated enough that the loss wasn't obvious until it happened (Intelligent Tech Channels, 2025).

HonestStok's position is that the advisor keeps ownership of the customer relationship throughout, a direct answer to the account-ownership question rather than language that's technically true but practically ambiguous.



A Short Contract Checklist Before You Sign With Any Distributor

1. Can commission terms change after a deal is placed, and does the agreement say so explicitly?
2. Does evergreen language protect residual income on active business regardless of relationship status?
3. What are the actual notice period and wind-down terms if either side terminates?
4. Does non-circumvention protect you from the distributor or its suppliers going around you?
5. Is account ownership stated explicitly, or does the agreement stay silent on it?
6. Can you get a real example of a protection clause being enforced, not just written?



What's the Bottom Line?

Most of the contract risk in a distributor relationship doesn't show up in the sales conversation, it shows up months or years later, when a term that looked standard turns out to have a gap. Commission stability, evergreen protection, non-circumvention scope, and explicit account ownership are the four places that gap most often hides. HonestStok built its agreements to answer all four in writing, specifically because those are the terms advisors report getting burned by most often elsewhere in the channel.



Frequently Asked Questions