Split the Price: How Hybrid Payments Save a Deal

The short version

• A hybrid deal splits a price between cash and Silva, agreed by both members at the point of trade.
• It earns its place when the alternative is losing the deal, not when the buyer would have paid cash regardless.
• Cash still covers what only cash can cover: materials, subcontractors, tax, anything payable outside the network.
• Silva covers the part of the deal that would otherwise be an unsold hour, seat or shift.
• Silvatree doesn't set the split. It records the one the two members agree.

"I'd love this, but cash is tight until the autumn"

A marketing agency quotes a boutique hotel for a full rebrand: new photography, a rebuilt website, a season of social content through the autumn. The hotel director wants it, and says the sentence most service businesses hear at some point. "I'd love this, but cash is tight until the season picks back up."

The easy move is to cut the price and hope the margin survives. That's a discount, and discounts come straight out of the agency's pocket. There's a better question underneath the objection, though: does "cash is tight" mean the hotel has nothing to offer, or does it mean the hotel's value just isn't sitting as pounds in the account this quarter?

For a hotel that's also a Silvatree member, it's usually the second one. Rooms are still filling on quiet midweek nights. A diary still has gaps. That's real value, just not cash-shaped yet.

Why does a hybrid price save a deal a pure cash price would lose?

Silvatree is a Capacity Exchange. A Capacity Exchange is a B2B network where UK SMEs sell spare capacity (unsold time, unfilled rooms, empty seats, surplus stock) for Silva instead of cash, then spend Silva on real business expenses. A hybrid deal is what that looks like the moment a trade doesn't split cleanly into all-cash or all-Silva: the invoice carries some of each, split by agreement between the two members doing the deal.

"Cash is tight" rarely means a buyer has run out of value. It usually means the value they hold isn't liquid this month. The agency, on its side, has its own version of the same problem: quieter weeks between retained clients, hours the team would otherwise leave unbilled. A hybrid price lets both sides put what they actually have to hand into the same deal, instead of forcing the whole thing through the one channel, cash, that only one side has plenty of right now.

What does the buyer get from paying part in Silva?

The hotel pays the photographer's day rate, the stock licensing, and any paid ad spend in cash, because those are real costs the agency owes to people outside the network. For the rest, the agency's own time, the hotel pays in Silva: either Silva it has already earned by filling rooms for other members, or Silva drawn against its Trading Headroom, the ceiling the network sets from a member's own trading activity rather than a credit check.

The deal happens now, at the full price, instead of waiting for a quieter season that might not clear the calendar in time.

What does the seller get, that a straight discount wouldn't?

For the agency, this isn't a discount. Cash covers the costs it owes elsewhere. Silva covers the margin, in full, on the time that would otherwise have gone unbilled. Say the rebrand is worth £4,000. The photographer, the stock licence and the ad spend genuinely cost the agency £1,200 in cash it will pass straight on, so that part of the invoice stays in cash. The remaining £2,800 is the agency's own expertise, exactly what would otherwise have sat as an unbilled week, so that part is priced in Silva.

The agency then spends that Silva on its own real costs, with its own member suppliers: a freelance photographer's assistant, a bookkeeper, a print run for new signage. The figures here are illustrative; your own split will turn on your own real costs, not this one. The two-pot idea covers what happens to that Silva once it's in your account.

Isn't this just discounting by another name?

No, and the difference is worth stating plainly. A hybrid price belongs on a deal where the alternative is genuinely losing the business, or leaving your own capacity to sit unsold. It has no place in a conversation where the buyer would have paid you in full cash anyway. If a paying cash customer is ready to hand over the whole invoice in pounds, take the pounds. Silva sits alongside cash, adding a way to say yes that wouldn't otherwise exist. It never replaces cash you were already going to receive.

The same test runs from the buyer's side too. If your business can comfortably clear an invoice in cash this month, clear it in cash. Save the hybrid structure for the deal cash alone would have lost, or for a supplier who's also a member with genuine spare capacity to sell you. One question does the whole job: would this trade have happened in full cash anyway? If yes, hybrid isn't for it. If no, it might be exactly what turns "not this month" into a yes.

How do you decide the split?

Put anything payable to someone outside the network in the cash column: materials, subcontractors, wages, tax. Put your own genuine spare capacity, the hours, the seats, the stock that would otherwise go unsold, in the Silva column. Then agree the ratio directly with the member on the other side of the deal. Silvatree doesn't impose a split. It records the one the two of you choose.

The takeaway

A hybrid price isn't a concession. It's a second lever, one you pull when cash alone isn't quite enough to get a deal over the line, or when your own capacity is what's sitting idle. Reach for it when the alternative is losing the business, never when cash was already on the table.

If you want to work out where a hybrid structure might save your next deal, book a call and we'll go through it together.