Article

How TrustPast is paid

By TrustPast

Updated November 2, 2026

An owner who gets an email from us asks a fair question before anything else. Who pays TrustPast, and what does it cost us? micro1 pays us a referral fee when a company that applied through our link completes a deal, and your company pays us nothing. This page puts our referral disclosure into plain words, line by line, and says plainly what it doesn’t cover.

You’ve been pitched by brokers before, so you know to ask who pays. Here, it isn’t you. We don’t sell anything to you. We point you to a buyer, and the buyer pays us if a deal is done.

The short answer

Four lines settle most of it. They come from our referral disclosure, which is the text that binds us. This page explains it; where the two differ, the disclosure wins.

micro1 pays us a referral fee “when a company that applied through our link completes a deal.”
“Your company pays us nothing.”
“We do not share our referral fee with any referred company.”
“We never receive, store or handle your company’s files or systems.”

That’s the whole arrangement. No retainer, no success fee from you, no charge for the estimate, no charge to read the articles. The money in this arrangement runs from micro1 to you, under your agreement with micro1, and from micro1 to us, under ours.

See your estimate

The disclosure, line by line

Here is each line of the disclosure that concerns micro1, with what it means for an owner.

How we are paid. The disclosure says we are paid a referral fee “when a company that applied through our link completes a deal.” Three conditions sit in that sentence. The company applied. It applied through our link. And a deal completed. If any one is missing, no referral fee is paid.

What you pay. “Your company pays us nothing.” Not before you apply, not during the review, not after the payment lands. We’ll never send your company an invoice.

Our fee stays with us. “We do not share our referral fee with any referred company.” This line closes a door some owners expect to be open. We don’t rebate any part of the fee to you. What your company is paid comes from micro1, under its own agreement with micro1.

You apply yourself. The disclosure says “you apply to the buyer directly through a tracked link on our site, and the buyer alone reviews, prices and licenses.” We don’t fill in your application. We don’t sit in on the review. We don’t set the price, and we don’t sign anything.

We never touch your files. “We never receive, store or handle your company’s files or systems. Samples and data pass directly between your company and the buyer, under their own agreement.” Your estimates, job files and change orders never pass through us. There’s nothing of yours on our side to lose.

A second line about partners. The disclosure also says: “micro1 also pays us a share when someone who registered with micro1 as a partner through our invite link completes a referral; it is paid on top of that partner’s own payout, not out of it.” This concerns people who refer companies, such as a bookkeeper or an adviser, not the companies themselves. If an adviser of yours joined micro1’s partner programme through our page for referrers, this is the line that covers it. It doesn’t change anything your company pays, because your company pays us nothing either way.

When the fee is paid, and when it isn’t

The fee depends on a finished deal, not on interest. micro1’s referral page is specific about this. A referral bonus “is not earned simply because a company registers, completes its application, or signs an agreement.” It adds: “The data must be transferred and approved before the referral enters the payout approval process.”

So here are the cases where nobody pays us anything:

You read our pages and never apply.
You apply, and micro1 decides your company isn’t a fit.
You take the discovery call and decide not to go ahead.
You sign, but the data isn’t transferred or isn’t approved.
You register with micro1 independently, without our link.

In each of those, your company owes us nothing too. There’s no cancellation charge, no fee for our time, no bill for the estimate. micro1 warns that “There is no guaranteed timeframe between application and partnership completion,” and we carry that wait the same as you do.

Want to see your range before deciding anything? Our estimate asks five questions and runs in your browser. The range is ours, not an offer.

How micro1 knows a company came through us

The link does the counting. Our privacy policy says our links to the buyer go through our own address, and that “We count the clicks on them, by the page the link was on.” It adds: “We do not record who clicked,” except on a link in an email we sent to a past sign-up.

micro1 does its own attribution, by its own rules. Its referral page says: “A company must register through your unique referral link for the referral to be attributed to you.” And: “If a company has already registered independently or through another partner’s link, attribution cannot be manually or retroactively changed.”

Two things follow for an owner. First, the route is fixed when your company registers. Switching later doesn’t move the credit. Second, the credit is between micro1 and the referrer. It’s a record of who sent the company. micro1 doesn’t publish anything that ties it to what your company is paid, which brings us to the question owners ask next.

Does the fee come out of your payment

This is the fair question, and we’ll answer it with what is published and no more.

micro1 doesn’t publish whether a referral changes what a company is paid. We looked. Here is what it does publish about how a company’s compensation is set. “Factors considered include dataset size and volume, workflow complexity, data quality, domain expertise represented, and the uniqueness of the operational knowledge contained within the dataset.” Its payout page says the final payout “is determined based on data sources, volume, quality, access terms, and due diligence.”

Neither list names the route a company took to apply. That’s all the pages say, and it isn’t a promise either way. If you want it confirmed for your company, ask micro1 on the discovery call, and have the answer written into the agreement.

For scale, micro1’s data partnerships page says payments typically range “from $150K to over $2M” (indicative, not an offer). The buyer prices each company; we can only show you the band. Our page on what decides the price takes each of micro1’s factors in turn.

Why this page names no fee amount

You’ll notice there’s no figure for our fee on this page. That’s on purpose, and it’s worth saying why.

Our disclosure doesn’t name an amount, so this page doesn’t either. What the disclosure does fix is when the fee is paid: only “when a company that applied through our link completes a deal.” If that never happens, micro1 pays us no referral fee for your company.

What our fee means for what we tell you

A fee that depends on a completed deal gives us an interest in deals completing. That’s true, and you should weigh what we say with it in mind. Here is how the arrangement limits what that interest can do.

We don’t set the price. “The buyer alone decides whether to make an offer, and at what price,” our terms say. Our estimate is a range, and our terms say “The estimate on this site is for information only. It is not binding.”

We don’t promise anything. “We do not guarantee any offer, any price, or any timeline.” You won’t find a line on our site that says your company will be paid a given amount.

We aren’t your adviser. “We are not a broker, an agent, a law firm, an accountant or a financial adviser.” We don’t tell you to accept an offer. That’s a decision for you and, if you want one, your own counsel.

We quote micro1, not our hopes. Every fact about micro1 on this page comes from micro1’s own published pages, quoted wherever we can, and its pages are listed in the sources. Where micro1 publishes nothing, we say so.

We share nothing with micro1. Our privacy policy says we share nothing with the buyer, and “You apply to the buyer yourself, through our link.” We don’t pass your answers, your name or your files to micro1. Our page on what TrustPast does and doesn’t do sets out the full list.

What you get for nothing

The free part is real, and it’s most of what we do. Here is what costs your company nothing, whether or not you ever apply.

The estimate. Our privacy policy says your browser works out the range from your answers, and “The answers are not sent to us or to the buyer, and we do not store them.”

The articles. Every page on this site is free to read, with no sign-up. Our cornerstone page on what data buyers want from a trade business is the best place to start. It shows which of your files carry the work: estimates, job files, change orders, repair notes.

The plain reading of micro1’s terms. micro1’s pages cover a lot of ground. Our pages pull out what matters to an owner, in micro1’s words, with the source.

None of this is a teaser for a paid tier. There isn’t one.

You can apply without us

micro1 doesn’t require a referrer. Its referral page speaks of companies that have “registered independently.” It also says “Companies must register and complete their own applications through the referral link” when a referrer is involved. Either way, the company applies for itself.

If you’d rather apply straight to micro1, do. Nobody pays us anything for your company in that case, and your company still pays us nothing. Our page on whether you can apply without TrustPast walks through that route and what changes with it.

What happens to the money on the company’s side

Since the fee runs from micro1 to us, it helps to see how the company’s own money runs. micro1 lists four steps: discovery and pricing, contracting, delivery and acceptance, and payment.

For payment, micro1 says: “We pay in full within 30 days of acceptance.” In its answer on timing, it adds that once the data is approved, “we’ll ask your company to submit an invoice, and payment will be made within 30 days of invoicing.”

That invoice goes from your company to micro1. Nothing goes from your company to us. Our page on whether licensing your records costs anything counts the cost that is real: your office’s time on the profile, the interview, the exports and the contract.

What this means for an electrical contractor

Here’s one company, as our own example, not a case micro1 publishes. Say an electrical contractor with 45 people and eighteen years of records. micro1 says it’s “looking for established companies with 30+ full-time employees,” so the company is in range. Our page on companies with 30 or more staff covers that lane.

What it keeps. Bids and estimates back to the first year, with the takeoffs and the revisions. Job files with daily reports, panel schedules and inspection notes. Change orders with the reason and the sign-off. Service calls with the fault found and the fix. Years of email between the estimators and the project managers.

What it pays TrustPast. Nothing. Not for the estimate, not for reading our pages, not if it signs.

What happens if it applies through our link. The office manager registers the company and fills in the profile. micro1 reviews it and, if it fits, invites the owner to a call. If a deal completes and the data is approved, micro1 pays the company under their agreement. Separately, micro1 pays us a referral fee.

What happens if micro1 says no. The company has spent some hours on a profile and an interview. It owes us nothing, and we’re paid nothing.

What happens if it applies directly. The same steps, the same review. micro1 credits no referral, and nobody pays us anything for that company.

In every case, the line between the contractor and us has no money on it.

What is never included

micro1 doesn’t publish a fixed exclusion list. It says personal and identifying information “is removed or transformed before your data is shared with third parties,” and that the scope is confirmed together “Before any participation.”

What follows is our own advice, not micro1’s. Keep these out unless micro1 agrees otherwise in writing: attorney-client privileged records, health information, payment-card and financial-account details, Social Security numbers, minors’ data, biometric data, and classified or export-controlled material. Add anything a client owns under its contract with you, and the customer list itself.

None of that ever reaches us, because no file of yours does. Our page on what is never included shows where those records tend to hide. Our How it’s safe page gives the short version.

What you keep

micro1 says “Companies retain ownership of their underlying data.” A licence of your records isn’t a sale of the company, and it isn’t a sale of the records. Our page on whether you keep ownership of your records covers that in full.

Where we fit

We, TrustPast, find companies that may qualify, explain micro1’s programme in plain words, and give you a range with our estimate. You apply to micro1 yourself. micro1 pays TrustPast a referral fee when a company that applied through our link completes a deal. Your company pays us nothing, and we don’t share the fee. The exact words are on our referral disclosure page, and they’re short enough to read in a minute.

TrustPast

Questions and answers

Does our company pay TrustPast anything?

No. Our referral disclosure says: “Your company pays us nothing.” There’s no fee for the estimate, the articles or the link, and no fee if a deal completes. micro1 pays us; you don’t.

When does micro1 pay TrustPast?

Only when a company that applied through our link completes a deal. micro1’s referral page says a referral bonus “is not earned simply because a company registers, completes its application, or signs an agreement.” The data must be transferred and approved first. If micro1 says no, or you stop, nobody pays us.

Does TrustPast share its fee with our company?

No. Our disclosure says: “We do not share our referral fee with any referred company.” What your company is paid comes from micro1, under your own agreement with micro1.

Does the referral fee lower what micro1 pays our company?

micro1 doesn’t publish an answer to that. The factors it names for company compensation are dataset size and volume, workflow complexity, data quality, domain expertise and uniqueness. The route a company took to apply isn’t on that list. If you want it in writing, ask micro1 on the discovery call.

Why doesn’t this page say how much TrustPast is paid?

Our referral disclosure doesn’t name an amount, so we don’t either. It does say when the fee is paid: only “when a company that applied through our link completes a deal.”

Can we apply to micro1 without TrustPast’s link?

Yes. micro1’s referral page speaks of companies that have “registered independently.” If you apply that way, micro1 credits no referral to us and nobody pays us anything for your company.