How Level 6 Built a Smarter Alternative to One-Size-Fits-All Incentive Software

For better or worse, white-label SaaS software has become a mainstay in many industries, including fintech, e-commerce, and marketing. In marketing and advertising, many businesses have turned to white-label software platforms for tasks like CRM, or customer relationship management, as well as the incentive programs that have brought significantly more income, retention, and customer engagement to many retail brands. White-label solutions have become a popular choice for their convenience and affordable pricing, but many companies that have chosen these one-size-fits-all solutions have not considered the downsides of these software platforms.

Although it is difficult to deny that the white-label approach has its merits, one-size-fits-all platforms can be a trap for businesses whose needs are more particular. White-label sales incentive platforms often suffer from a lack of customization options and are unable to support companies that want to implement more unique compensation structures for their channel sales incentive programs. Also, most white-label incentive platforms operate on a multi-tenant software architecture, which means that a company has to share the same software infrastructure with other clients. This causes unnecessary competition over digital resources, such as database access, and prevents companies from operating to their full potential.

Florida-based marketing agency Level 6 has addressed this discrepancy by pioneering custom incentive platforms that operate on a single-tenant hosting architecture, ensuring that every company gets software tailored to their specific needs and characteristics as a business. Level 6 uses a modular development philosophy that allows its development team to assemble unlimited combinations of capabilities for each client. 

Instead of being dependent on new product updates or release cycles from white-label software developers, Level 6’s clients receive individualized support. The company’s development team works on integrating its incentive platforms with its clients’ existing infrastructure, while also introducing first-of-their-kind features based on its clients’ unique needs and challenges.

“Clients should not be forced to pay for software features they will never use,” Level 6 Founder and CEO Ben Wieder said. “Our perspective is simple: deliver exactly what the client needs to succeed — nothing more, nothing less — and build it in a way that adapts as their business evolves. That mindset stands in sharp contrast to the bloated, one-size-fits-all SaaS platforms that dominate our category.”

One recent example that illustrates the effectiveness of Level 6’s tailored solutions is the company’s work with a heavy-duty trucking manufacturer that was struggling to sell high-value, but lower-priced vehicles because of a fundamental misalignment with the interests of salespeople at the dealerships, who prioritized selling higher-priced vehicles because of the larger commissions they gained from them. In response, Level 6 developed a targeted sales incentive program that would financially reward salespeople for selling the lower-priced model. As a result, the manufacturer’s market share rose from 28% to 35% over three years, and incentivized sales grew from 1,167 VINs to 5,379 VINs. This case study shows how designing an incentive platform from the ground up based on a client’s needs can be the best way to create measurable outcomes for success.

“Anything we build that drives incremental revenue for our clients is a source of pride,” Wieder said. “What truly differentiates us is our single-tenant architecture: every client receives a purpose-built solution with its own codebase, database, and integrations.”

Level 6 was initially founded as a full-service marketing agency in 2005 before discovering it excelled at creating channel sales incentive programs early on. The company began focusing solely on incentive and rebate programs in 2015. This choice has paid dividends, as the company’s clients have sold more than $6 billion in product through programs powered by Level 6, generating an estimated $1 billion in incremental revenue along the way. In response to this, SourceForge and Slashdot have categorized Level 6 as a top performer in the incentive compensation management category. “It’s a level of impact we never could have delivered as a generalist marketing agency,” Wieder commented.

In the end, despite the fact that white-label SaaS platforms have established themselves as an integral part of today’s IT environment, their drawbacks become only more evident with increases in company size and the complexity of the incentive strategy some companies need to implement. For those running operations in competitive fields such as marketing, the ability to shape the behavior of sales professionals, create the most appropriate compensation models, and implement comprehensive integration solutions can make the crucial difference. This is exactly what sets Level 6 apart from the pack – with no restrictions associated with the need to work within a shared infrastructure, they deliver truly customized incentive programs and loyalty program solutions that turn a client’s specific strengths into a steady stream of revenue.