«Up to $250» is a ceiling, not a rate. The rate is assigned to you personally and comes out of four things.
1. Geo
The main multiplier. Countries differ in how much players spend, and the rate follows. A high rate on an expensive geo is no gift: expensive traffic and strict quality requirements sit behind it — see geo in affiliate payouts.
2. Traffic quality
The programme looks past registration counts at what players do next: repeat deposits, or nothing. Traffic that yields one deposit and silence gets a lower rate.
3. Volume
At scale, terms are negotiable. It cuts both ways: volume without quality does not raise the rate, because the operator needs player money rather than rows in a report.
4. History
An affiliate sending steadily and without surprises for a third month is a known risk. A new affiliate is an unknown one, and the starting rate says so.
How to ask for a raise
With numbers, not words: this many players a month, this share of repeat deposits, this geo. A rate conversation without your own statistics is a request; with them it is a proposal. How to keep them: stats and postbacks; what to show: getting a higher rate.