How money moves through Maelo

Your client pays with a card. The money goes straight into your own Stripe account, not into Maelo's. It sits there for a couple of days while the card networks settle it, and then Stripe sends it to your bank on a schedule. Four steps, and Maelo never holds a penny of it at any point.

That matters most when something looks wrong. If money has not reached your bank yet, it has not gone missing. It is sitting in one of two named buckets in the Financial hub, and that page will tell you which.

Every charge Maelo creates is made directly on your Stripe account, so the money is yours from the moment the card clears. Maelo does not receive the payment and then forward it to you. There is no middle account it could get stuck in.

Two amounts come off at the moment of the charge. Stripe deducts its card processing cost from your balance, because your Stripe account is billed for processing directly. Maelo takes its fee at the same time, and only on a deposit. Everything left is yours and moves on to the payout stage untouched.

Open Financial and go to the Payouts tab. Your money is shown in two cards, one per currency you have been paid in.

• •Pending is marked Still settling. The card has gone through, but the funds are still moving through the card networks. Nothing you can do speeds this up.
• •Available is marked Ready to pay out. It has cleared and is queued for your next payout.

How long a payment stays pending is set by Stripe and varies by country. It is usually a couple of days and it can be longer in some markets. Stripe publishes the wait for each country in its own guide to payouts.

Maelo charges 5% on deposits, and nothing at all on anything else. Final payments, quick payments, Tap to Pay and no-show fees carry no Maelo cut. You can see the rate and the live worked example in Settings, Payments, Platform Fees.

Stripe's processing cost applies to every charge, including the ones with no Maelo fee. The Who covers the fee slider on that same panel decides whether your client covers both of those on top of your price, or whether you absorb them out of your own payout. At 100% the client covers them and your listed price reaches you whole.

A deposit is what a client pays to lock a session in. You set it on the quote, they pay it online, and it comes off their final balance later. This is the only charge Maelo takes a fee on.

A final payment is the balance, taken on the day. You open Collect Payment from the booking and pick how they pay: contactless with Tap to Pay, a card you have on file, an online link, or one of your own methods such as cash or a bank transfer.

A quick payment is a one-off charge with no booking attached, for a walk-in, a touch-up or merch. You create it from the Quick Pay tab and send the client a link.

The four tabs in Financial each answer a different question. Payments is every charge you have taken, with the fee breakdown and the refund button inside each one. Payouts is what has actually reached your bank. Quick Pay holds your one-off payment links. Account is your verification status and your details.

If a payout has not landed, start at bank account and payouts. If you have not been able to take a payment at all, start at setting up Stripe.