How we are paid
Where a buyer engages FirmLedge to source records, the buyer pays FirmLedge. The owner, trustee, receiver or assignee who holds the records pays no FirmLedge fee, and sees our compensation beside each proposal before deciding.
The fee structure
The binding wording is in Section 1 of the Terms, quoted here in full:
"For company-record licensing opportunities, FirmLedge acts as a buyer-paid sourcing or referral partner under a separate written engagement. FirmLedge charges the rights holder no fee. The buyer pays FirmLedge, and each proposal discloses that fee alongside the amount payable to the rights holder. No FirmLedge fee is deducted from the rights holder's proceeds."
The amount of any fee is set in the written engagement with the buyer, never on this website.
In plain words
One arrangement, described for whoever is reading. There is no second fee on the other side.
01 / Records holders
Where a buyer engages FirmLedge to source records, the buyer pays FirmLedge and you pay no FirmLedge fee. Each buyer's proposal shows our compensation and who pays before you decide.
This covers owners, and trustees, receivers and assignees acting for an estate. See for owners or for estates.
02 / Buyers
When you engage FirmLedge to source records, you pay FirmLedge and the source pays no FirmLedge fee. The source sees your proposal with our fee beside it.
The sourcing process for buyers is on for data buyers.
03 / Other work
Any other engagement, such as a custom dataset, is defined in a separate written agreement that sets its scope and fee before work begins.
Fees for that work are not published here; they are agreed in writing before it starts.
Disclosure
FirmLedge may be paid by buyers when a buyer engages it to source records. That compensation is disclosed with each proposal, and no buyer pays to appear on the buyer programs page or anywhere else on this site.
The same disclosure goes into anything a court, a creditor or a lender needs to see: we provide the information for any motion, notice or report, including our fee arrangement.
Third-party costs
Some work a license needs is done by someone other than FirmLedge: extracting records from an old system, scanning paper, de-identification by a third party, or legal review of the agreement.
Those costs are agreed in advance, in writing, before anyone incurs them. They are not part of FirmLedge's compensation.
Boundaries
These hold on every matter. The binding terms are in Section 1 of the Terms.
In company-record licensing, the buyer pays FirmLedge and the records holder does not.
FirmLedge does not buy or resell the records it sources.
A buyer's fee to FirmLedge is shown to the source it concerns and its advisers, and kept from unrelated parties and competing bidders. Where a court, lender or creditor process requires disclosure, the fee arrangement is included in what that process needs.
No files first
The one-page assessment is prepared at no charge. It is not a valuation and not an offer.