# Some revenue models are traps: know why you refuse a success fee

- Category: business
- Author: Mihai Negrea (https://indie.md/people/mihai-negrea/)
- Source: https://indie.md/events/indie-tm-12-timisoara-july-2026/
- Canonical URL: https://indie.md/advice/refuse-the-percentage-of-public-money/

Customers keep offering Mihai a seductive model: charge nothing up front, take a percentage when the tender is won. He refuses, and his reasoning is worth copying. The contract values are public money, and a private platform skimming a percentage of state contracts invites legal scrutiny, reputational damage, and misaligned incentives to push clients toward the biggest tenders rather than the right ones. If he ever prices on outcomes it will be a fixed fee per successful assisted tender bundled into a subscription, never a percentage. The general discipline is to stress-test a revenue model against the source of the money and the behavior it rewards, not just against revenue potential, and to be able to articulate exactly why you turned down the model everyone suggests. A pricing structure is a position you have to defend for years.