Laddered commissions apply a declining percentage to each year’s face rent. Early years are expensive; later years are cheap. A flat percent of total consideration overweights the back of the term and underweights commencement — which is exactly when the capital actually goes out.
A worked stub
18,000 SF at $72/SF, ten years, ladder 5-4-3-2-1.5 (last rate holding). Year one commission is 5% of $1,296,000. Year ten is 1.5% of an escalated number. The sum is not 3.1% of aggregate, and it is certainly not 5% of aggregate. Payback analysis using the wrong shape will tell an owner they recover slower than they do — or faster, which is worse.
Leasing Locker takes the ladder as a first-class structure, the same way it takes an Atlanta procurement fee or a Chicago dollars-per-foot number. Enter it as written.