Fees and pricing

What Maelo charges

Maelo takes 5% of your deposit only. There is no monthly subscription or setup cost. Stripe processing fees apply separately to card payments.

It is charged on the deposit only. Final payments, Tap to Pay, quick sales through Quick Pay and no-show fees carry no Maelo fee at all. So on a booking with a $200 USD deposit and an $800 USD balance to settle on the day, Maelo earns on the deposit and nothing on the rest.

Maelo does not charge a fee for recording payments taken outside Stripe. Your payment provider may charge its own fees. See Payments outside Stripe.

What Stripe charges

Stripe is separate, and Stripe bills you directly. It comes out of your Stripe balance before your payout, not out of Maelo's cut, and it applies to every card payment including the ones Maelo takes no fee on.

Stripe's price depends on your account country, payment method and the card your client uses. Maelo estimates processing costs using a standard domestic card rate for your currency. Your actual Stripe bill can differ, including when a card is issued abroad, a premium card is used or currency conversion is needed. See Stripe's current pricing for your country.

A worked example

All amounts below are in US dollars (USD), for a $200 USD deposit. Processing is estimated at Stripe's standard US domestic online card rate of 2.9% + $0.30 USD. These are estimates, not a guaranteed payout. Check Stripe's current US pricing.

The client share controls how much of the full price increase needed to cover the estimated fees is added to the deposit price. At 50%, half of that increase is added. The final fees are not divided exactly in half, because Stripe's processing fee changes with the amount charged. Your client sees the total price before paying.

On an $800 USD final payment, Maelo takes no fee. Stripe processing still applies.

Who covers the fee

By default the client share is 100%, covering Maelo and estimated processing fees. You can change that with the Who covers the fee slider in Settings, Payments, Platform Fees. It runs from 0% to 100% in steps of 5, and it saves the moment you let go.

Choose 0% client share to absorb all the fees, 100% client share to pass on the estimated fees, or any setting in between to share the cost. The three examples above show how the client price and estimated payout change.

Checking your own numbers

The Platform Fees panel does this maths live, in your own currency, on a listed price of 100. Move the slider and the four lines underneath update: Your client pays, Maelo fee, Stripe processing (est.) and You receive. It is the fastest way to see what a change actually does before you commit to it.

For real bookings rather than examples, open Financial and tap any payment. The breakdown there lists every fee that came off that specific charge, taken from Stripe rather than estimated. See The Financial hub.

If your account is on an at-cost plan, the panel says so and the Maelo fee shows as nothing. The slider still works, and it decides whether you or your client covers Stripe's processing cost.