Payments & Refunds

How payments work on Makenotwork.

The Short Version

Stripe handles all payments. You’re the merchant of record. We don’t take a cut of your revenue. Fans handle refunds with you or dispute via their bank.

How Payments Work

Fan Payments

When fans buy your content or join a membership:

Fan pays via Stripe (~2.9% + $0.30 per transaction)
Funds go directly to your connected Stripe account
Deposits to your bank on your chosen schedule
We never touch or hold your money

Platform Membership

Your monthly Makenotwork membership ($8-$24) is separate:

Billed to your payment method
Goes to us for platform access
Has nothing to do with your fan revenue

You’re the Merchant of Record

When you connect Stripe, it creates an account for you:

You are the merchant - Fans are paying you, not us
You set prices - Including pay-what-you-want options
You handle disputes - Chargebacks and refunds are your responsibility
Your Stripe account is yours - If you leave, it stays with you

The tradeoff: you absorb the (typically rare) chargeback risk.

Payouts

You control payout timing from your Stripe dashboard: standard (2-3 days), daily, weekly, monthly, or instant (1% fee in CA/EU/UK/SG/NO/HK/MY; 1.5% fee in US/AU/NZ/AE; min $0.50 USD or local equivalent, per Stripe Instant Payouts docs). See Receiving Payouts for full details on schedules, minimums, and international payouts. Payout schedule options are documented at https://docs.stripe.com/payouts.

Refunds

Our Policy

Refund decisions are yours; you’re the merchant of record. You can issue a full refund directly from the sale in your MNW dashboard, or handle full and partial refunds from your Stripe dashboard.

How Fans Request Refunds

Fans should contact you directly. You can:

Issue a full refund from the sale in your MNW dashboard, or a full or partial refund via your Stripe dashboard
Offer alternative resolution (access fix, different content)
Decline if the purchase was delivered as promised

Our Recommendation

Clear refund policies reduce disputes. Consider:

Stating your policy on your page
Being generous with genuine mistakes
Responding promptly to requests

A $5 refund is cheaper than a $15 chargeback fee.

Chargebacks

If a fan disputes a charge with their bank:

Your balance is debited - Disputed amount plus fee (~$15)
You respond through Stripe - Provide evidence the charge was legitimate
Bank decides - You either get the money back or lose it

Why This Model

The alternative (us being merchant of record) would mean we’d take on chargeback risk and price that into fees, hold reserves from your earnings, and have incentive to restrict what you can sell.

Reducing Chargeback Risk

Most chargebacks come from:

Unrecognized charges (fan forgot they joined a membership)
Unauthorized use (stolen card)
Dissatisfaction (fan expected something different)

Clear communication prevents most disputes. Make sure fans know what they’re paying for, how your billing descriptor appears on statements, and how to cancel memberships. See Receiving Payouts for dispute resolution details.

Taxes

What We Provide

Transaction records - Exportable history of all payments
1099-K (US creators) - Issued by Stripe if you meet reporting thresholds
Invoices - For your platform membership

Your Responsibilities

You’re responsible for:

Reporting income from fan payments
Collecting and remitting sales tax if required in your jurisdiction
Understanding tax obligations for digital goods in your location

VAT, GST, and Sales Tax

If you sell digital goods to fans in the EU, UK, Australia, Canada, or other jurisdictions with digital sales tax, you may be required to collect and remit VAT, GST, or sales tax, even if you are outside those jurisdictions.

Stripe may collect sales tax automatically in some regions depending on your account configuration. Check your Stripe Tax settings to see what’s enabled.

Since we do not act as Merchant of Record, tax collection and remittance is your responsibility. Consult a tax professional if you’re unsure.

Platform Fee Deductions

Your Makenotwork membership fee may be deductible as a business expense. Keep your receipts.

International Payments

Each creator sells in one currency, taken from their Stripe account. Supported: USD, CAD, GBP, AUD, NZD, EUR. Every price that creator sets, and every charge and subscription for them, is in that currency.

To sell here, your country must be supported by Stripe Connect and your Stripe account must settle in one of those six. Those are two separate conditions and both must hold.

Who Pays for Currency Conversion

The buyer does, and the buyer chooses how. When a buyer’s card is in a different currency from the creator’s, checkout offers two paths:

Stripe converts at checkout. Stripe presents the price in the buyer’s currency and charges that. Stripe’s exchange rate includes a currency conversion fee, which Stripe sets and which is between 2% and 4%. Stripe does not report that fee to us as a separate figure, so we do not itemise it and we do not estimate it. Stripe displays the exact converted total on its own checkout page before the buyer confirms, and the buyer’s receipt from us records the exact amount charged.
The buyer’s bank converts. The charge is made in the creator’s currency and the buyer’s card issuer converts at its own rate, which is set by that issuer. We cannot see it, display it, or estimate it, and we do not.

In both cases the creator receives their price in their own currency and the buyer bears the cost of conversion. Neither path involves an exchange rate set by Makenotwork; we hold no rates and perform no conversions.

Revenue Splits

A project owner can invite another creator to a share of that project’s revenue. An invitation has to be accepted before it pays anything. While it is pending the percentage is reserved, so the owner cannot promise it to someone else, but sales in the meantime belong entirely to the owner. A share begins at acceptance and is not backdated.

Declining removes the invitation and frees the percentage. There is no obligation to accept, and nothing happens if you ignore it.

Revenue Splits Across Currencies

A revenue split is denominated in the currency of the project that generated it, which is that project’s owner’s currency. If you receive a split in a currency you do not settle in, Stripe converts it when it reaches you and the conversion cost comes out of your share, not the project’s. We cannot tell you that rate in advance, because Stripe sets it at payout.

You are shown this before you accept, which is the reason acceptance exists: nobody should carry a conversion cost they were never given the chance to refuse. The project owner is told the same thing when they send the invitation.

See Receiving Payouts for the detail.

What We Don’t Do

Hold creator funds - Money goes directly to your Stripe account
Take a percentage - Our fee is flat monthly membership only
Control your pricing - Set whatever prices you want
Process payments ourselves - Stripe handles everything
Provide tax advice - Consult a professional