Set up probabilistic revenue sharing

Probabilistic revenue sharing is a way for a monetized page’s total revenue to be split between multiple wallet addresses/payment pointers based on the probability of one address being chosen over the others on each page load.

Why take this approach? First, the monetization <link> element itself only supports one URL as the href value. Second, although your page can contain multiple monetization links, there are a few reasons why some of the links might not be monetized.

Probabilistic revenue sharing works by choosing from a list of predefined wallet addresses/payment pointers in URL format each time a web monetized visitor loads your page. Payments are sent to the chosen address until the visitor reloads or closes the page.

The chance of and address being chosen is based on its assigned weight. For example, if Alice’s address has a weight of 50 (out of 100), then her address has a 50% chance of being chosen. The laws of probability state that Alice’s share of the page’s total revenue will approach 50% as more web monetized visitors access the page.

This guide presents two ways in which to set up probabilistic revenue sharing. The first is by adding a script to your page. If you’d prefer to not use a script, you can use our generator.

Before you begin

You must have a wallet address or payment pointer assigned to you by your wallet provider.
Each page you want to monetize must served over HTTPS.

User experience

Probabilistic revenue sharing does not affect the user experience for your web monetized visitors.

Example dev scenario: Use a script

In this scenario, you’ll set up probabilistic revenue sharing via a script. For simplicity, the total amount of the assigned weights equal 100.

The code

<head>
  <script>
    // Define your revenue share here.
    // If the weights add up to 100, then they represent the percent each address gets.
    const pointers = {
      'https://wallet.example.com/alice': 50,
      'https://wallet.example.com/bob': 40,
      'https://wallet.example.com/connie': 9.5,
      'https://wallet.example.com/dave': 0.5,
    }

    function pickPointer() {
      const sum = Object.values(pointers).reduce(
        (sum, weight) => sum + weight,
        0,
      )
      let choice = Math.random() * sum

      for (const pointer in pointers) {
        const weight = pointers[pointer]
        if ((choice -= weight) <= 0) {
          return pointer
        }
      }
    }

    window.addEventListener('load', () => {
      const monetizationTag = document.createElement('link')
      monetizationTag.rel = 'monetization'
      monetizationTag.href = pickPointer()

      document.head.appendChild(monetizationTag)
    })
  </script>
</head>

Interactive example

This example shows how the random choices will approach the correct percentages over enough tries. You can customize the number of times to randomly choose a pointer and it will show you the results.

The example doesn’t require you to have Web Monetization enabled in your browser and no real payments are occurring.

If source files appear instead of the example, click View App in the bottom-right corner.

Example dev scenario: Use the Probabilistic Revshare Generator

As an alternative to including a script in your page, you can use our Probabilistic Revshare Generator.

Follow the instructions on the page to generate a monetization <link> element that contains a unique URL hosted on webmonetization.org. Then, include monetization link on each page you want to web monetize.