Summary: With the recent development of new initiation techniques in atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) that allow catalysts to be employed at unprecedented low concentrations ($10 ppm), a thorough understanding of competitive equilibria that can affect catalyst performance is becoming increasingly important. Such mechanistic considerations are discussed herein, including i) factors affecting the position of the ATRP equilibrium; ii) dissociation of the ATRP catalyst at high dilution and loss of deactivator due to halide dissociation; iii) conditional stability constants as related to competitive monomer, solvent, and reducing agent complexation as well as ligand selection with respect to protonation in acidic media; and iv) competitive equilibria involving electron transfer reactions, including the radical oxidation to carbocations or reduction to carbanions, radical coordination to the metal catalyst, and disproportionation of the Cu I -based ATRP activator.