# Getting paid

This page is the one place that explains the money: what the platform charges,
where your ticket revenue sits while the event is coming up, when you can take
it out, what happens if you cancel, and how to get the numbers into your
accounting.

## Your event's currency

You pick it when you create the event — **PLN, EUR, USD, GBP or CZK** — and it's
the currency of everything that follows: the prices you type, what card buyers
are charged, your reports and your payouts. You can change it while the event is
still a draft; once tickets are selling, leave it alone.

Buyers paying in **USDC** pay the equivalent at the live rate, converted at the
moment they check out. They see the price in your currency and never deal with
the conversion.

> **Pricing in USD unlocks on-chain escrow.** The contract can only hold a price
> that doesn't move, so USD events settle crypto payments inside it — the
> strongest protection for buyers, and refunds come out of it automatically. In
> any other currency the equivalent shifts daily, so crypto payments settle with
> TicketConnect instead. Either way you're paid the same; see
> [Where the money actually lands](#organizers-getting-paid) below.

## Platform fees

Fees are the same on every plan — plans gate capabilities, not fees (see
[Plans & billing](#organizers-plans-billing)).

| Sale type | Fee |
| --- | --- |
| Primary sale (storefront) | **3%** of the ticket price, minimum **2.50 PLN** per paid ticket |
| Gate sale (at the door) | **3%** — same as the storefront, same minimum |
| Resale on the marketplace | **8%** of the resale price, paid by the seller |

**About the minimum.** It is a floor, not an extra: you pay 3% *or* 2.50 PLN per
paid ticket, whichever is higher — never both. On a ticket above about 83 PLN
the 3% is already the larger number, so the minimum never applies and 3% is the
whole fee. Below that it covers the card-processing cost, which is a fixed
amount per payment no matter how cheap the ticket. **Free tickets are always
free** — the minimum never applies to them, and neither does anything else.

**Card and BLIK processing is on us.** Those payments run through TicketConnect's own account, and the processing cost comes out of our margin — never yours. The rates above are the only deduction from your revenue, on every rail, including card and BLIK. Nothing is added to the buyer's price either: they pay the ticket price, full stop.

> **Rented-terminal package.** Events on the "zero upfront" rented-terminal
> package (a free terminal in exchange for commission, arranged with us) carry
> an additional **1.5%** on that event's primary sales — storefront and gate
> alike. Standard gate setups (Tap to Pay, your own reader) pay no extra fee.

On top of the resale fee, you earn a royalty on every resale of your tickets —
**5% by default**. Royalties are covered in
[Resale & royalties](#organizers-resale-royalties).

## Proceeds and escrow

Every primary sale — storefront or gate — accrues to a per-event proceeds
balance, which you can watch live on the event page in the panel. Those
proceeds are held in escrow and released at **event end + 7 days**. For a
multi-day event, the clock starts after the final day. This window is what
lets TicketConnect guarantee full refunds to buyers if an event is cancelled,
which in turn is why buyers trust the storefront enough to buy early.

> **Proceeds release at event end + 7 days.** Until then they sit in escrow,
> visible on your event page but not yet claimable — except for the immediate
> share your trust tier unlocks.

## Trust tiers

As you run events successfully, your organization earns a **trust tier**, and
each tier unlocks a share of every sale that is paid out immediately instead
of waiting for the escrow window:

| Trust tier | Immediate payout | How you get there |
| --- | --- | --- |
| New | 0% | Every organization starts here. |
| Verified | 50% | Complete identity verification (KYC) and run 3 events. |
| Trusted | 80% | Run 10 events. |
| Platinum | 95% | Granted to established, high-volume organizers. |

Trust tiers are assigned by TicketConnect — if you believe your track record
qualifies you for a higher tier, contact us. A new tier applies to sales made
after the upgrade.

> **The immediate share applies to on-chain (USDC) sales.** It is baked into
> each ticket tier when the event is created, so it also only affects tiers
> created after an upgrade. Card and BLIK sales follow the payout option you
> chose above: settled into your own Stripe straight away (Option A), or held
> until the escrow window closes (Option B).

## Where the money actually lands

There are two ways to get paid, and you choose which by whether you connect
your own Stripe account. **Billing → Payouts** in the panel shows which one
you're on.

### Option A — connect your own Stripe

Link a Stripe account from **Billing → Payouts** and card payments for your
events settle straight into it. From that point the money is yours in Stripe
and you pay out to your bank on Stripe's schedule, exactly as you would with
any other Stripe business. TicketConnect never holds it.

Pick this if you already run on Stripe, want money in your bank quickly, or
would rather not deal with a crypto wallet at all.

### Option B — no Stripe account (the default)

If you don't connect Stripe, card payments settle on TicketConnect's account
and we hold your share until the escrow window closes. You then send it to
your organization's **Safe wallet** — a multi-owner treasury on Base that your
organization controls, not TicketConnect — from **Billing → Payouts**, where
each event shows its pending amount and whether it has been released yet. The
transfer goes out as USDC.

You manage the Safe from the panel's **Wallet** page: view its balances,
propose transfers, and approve transfers proposed by other owners. Because the
Safe can require multiple owners to approve a transfer before it executes, no
single compromised account can drain your revenue.

> **USDC sales never touch Stripe**, whichever option you pick above — Stripe
> only handles card and BLIK.

A USDC sale settles one of two ways, and the platform picks per order:

* **In the contract** — the normal case. The buyer's money goes straight into
  the event's on-chain escrow, and you claim it from the **event page** after
  the release date. This is the strongest version for the buyer: if you cancel,
  the refund comes out of the contract automatically.
* **Held by TicketConnect** — when the order can't settle on-chain. The contract
  charges a price fixed when the tier was created, so it can't apply a discount
  code or follow a price step you scheduled later. Those orders settle with us
  instead and appear in the same pending balance under **Billing → Payouts**.

You don't configure this and buyers never see it — but it explains why one event
can show proceeds in both places.

Card money and USDC money are tracked separately — you'll see a line per
currency — because they came in as different things and are paid out at the
rate on the day, not converted twice.

### What refunds do to your balance

Refunding a buyer removes your share of that ticket from the pending amount —
whether it's one buyer asking for their money back or a full event
cancellation. The buyer is repaid from the same place your proceeds are held,
so the two always move together and a refunded ticket never gets paid out to
you later.

## Refunds and cancellation

If you have to cancel an event, TicketConnect handles refunds automatically —
you don't chase individual orders:

* Every buyer gets back **exactly what they paid**: the face value of the
  ticket plus the platform fee, refunded in full.
* Buyers who bought on the resale marketplace also recover their escrowed
  markup — they're made whole too, at the price they actually paid.

Before you commit, the panel shows you a **dry-run preview** of the
cancellation: how many tickets will be refunded and the total amount, so
there are no surprises.

Outside of cancellation, each event has a **refund policy toggle** — you
decide per event whether individual refunds are offered.

> **Cancelling refunds buyers in full, automatically.** Face value comes from
> escrow, the platform refunds its own fee, and resale buyers recover their
> markup. This is funded by the escrow window above.

## Reports

Everything above is exportable from the panel's **Reports** page as CSV or
PDF:

| Report | What it contains |
| --- | --- |
| Ticket sales | Every ticket sold, per event. |
| Financials | Financial transactions across your organization. |
| Attendee check-in list | Who attended, with check-in status per attendee. |
| Revenue statement | Periodic revenue, broken out as net / VAT / gross. |
| Payout breakdown | Gross, platform fee, already paid out, and still owed — one line per currency. |
| Royalty distribution | Royalties earned from resales of your tickets. |

## See also

* [Resale & royalties](#organizers-resale-royalties) — resale rules and your
  royalty on every resale.
* [At the door](#organizers-door-operations) — gate sales, Tap to Pay, and
  wristbands.
* [Plans & billing](#organizers-plans-billing) — what plans cost and what
  they include.