Payout and costs

There are two parties who charge you something, and it pays to keep them apart. This article is mainly about the first one.

Who	What	Where you see it
Your payment provider	A cost per payment, kept back from your revenue	In your provider dashboard and on your bank statement
Passavo	The fixed amount of your plan, and whatever you buy on top yourself	On your invoice

1. Your payment provider

Mollie, Stripe or Bancontact Pro charges transaction costs: a fixed amount per payment, sometimes with a percentage on top. That runs directly between you and them. We are not part of it, we do not see your payouts, and we take nothing from them.

How much that is per method is on your provider's price list. Those amounts change regularly and differ per country, so check them there and not in an old manual. See also Which payment provider do you choose?

So what arrives in your account

what your visitor pays
  − your provider's transaction cost
  = what your provider pays out

An example you can repeat at your general meeting. You sold 200 tickets of €12, each in a separate payment. Suppose your provider keeps back €0.30 per payment — a round example amount, not the rate of any particular provider:

Sold	200 × €12.00 = €2,400.00
Transaction cost	200 × €0.30 = − €60.00
In your account	€2,340.00

So your books know two amounts: your revenue (€2,400, what your visitors paid) and your cost (€60, what your provider charged). Book those separately. Booking only the net €2,340 as revenue is wrong: you have then made €60 of costs disappear, and your VAT on the ticket sale no longer adds up either.

When is the money there?

Provider	Payout
Mollie	You choose the schedule yourself in your Mollie dashboard, for example daily, weekly or monthly
Stripe	You choose the schedule yourself in your Stripe dashboard, for example daily, weekly or monthly
Bancontact Pro	According to the arrangement with your bank or partner

Two things that surprise people:

• The first payout takes longer to arrive. With every provider there are several days between your first sale and your first transfer. Do not count on it to pay your caterer with.
• One transfer often contains several days of sales. Your bank statement then shows a single amount that does not match any order. That is normal.

How to find a transfer again

You will shortly have a bank statement saying "Mollie Payments 2,340.00" and a question from your treasurer about which tickets that is. Here is how you solve that:

1. Go to your provider's dashboard and look for the payout with that amount and that date.
2. Open it. You get the list of payments it contains, with the amount and the cost kept back per payment.
3. Every payment carries the reference of your order. With that you find it again under Orders in Passavo.

Do that once a month rather than per transfer. And download your provider's payout statement while you are at it: that is the document your accountant wants.

2. What we charge

We charge a fixed amount for your plan, per month or per year. Which plans there are and what they cost is on the pricing page. On top of that you can buy something extra yourself, such as paying separately for an event when you go over that event's ceiling on the free plan. That too is a fixed amount, never an amount per ticket.

If you do not choose a plan when you register, you start on the free plan. That one is permanent: free events are unlimited, and on top of that every event sells up to a hundred paid tickets. You need no card details to start and there is nothing to cancel afterwards.

What there is not:

• no amount per ticket sold;
• no percentage of your revenue;
• no cost per user or per device within your package.

That is not a marketing promise but a design choice: nowhere in the system is there a field called "cost per ticket". What the plans limit is numbers of venues, devices and users — and on the lower plans the number of paid tickets per event or per year. Never what you earn.

Exactly what your plan covers, how you switch over, what happens when you go over your ticket cap, what your invoice looks like and which VAT is on it: that is in Your plan, your invoices and pausing and Your plan and your limits.

What your visitor pays

Your visitor pays what is on the ticket. Nothing more.

Note: build the transaction cost into your ticket price, not as a surcharge. A surcharge on top of a payment with an ordinary consumer card, with Bancontact or with iDEAL is not permitted in the European Union. If you want to earn back the transaction cost, set your ticket at €12.50 instead of €12, for example. If in doubt, check with your accountant.

Commonly made mistakes

Booking the net transfer as revenue. See above: you then lose your costs and your VAT does not add up.

Thinking that we keep back the difference. Your provider does that. We do not even see your revenue.

Being alarmed by a transfer that does not match any order. One payout usually contains several payments.

Counting on tonight's money to pay for the hall tomorrow. Count on your provider's payout period.

Putting an "administration fee" on your ticket. See the warning above.

What if …

What if there is less in my account than I expected?

Count in the transaction costs, and check whether there are refunds among them. Your provider's payout statement shows both.

What if a refund costs me money?

With most providers you do not get back the transaction cost of the original payment when you issue a refund. A refunded ticket of €12 therefore costs you that €12 plus the cost that had already been kept back. Bear that in mind when you offer a gift voucher instead of money. See Refunds and cancellations.

What if I sell through a reseller?

Then the reseller collects the money and settles with you according to your contract. Those orders appear in your overview as paid at the reseller: they count towards your visitors and your VAT, but not towards what your provider pays out to you. See Selling through resellers.

What if I sell for cash at the desk?

Then no provider is involved and the money is in your cash drawer. See The desk till.

Frequently asked questions

Do you keep money back? No. The money goes from your visitor to your provider to your account. See What is a payment provider?

Can I see the transaction costs per order? In your provider dashboard, yes: it shows per payment what was kept back. In Passavo the gross amount is shown, because that is what your visitor paid.

What is the cheapest way to sell 300 tickets? With a fixed cost per payment (the case with most providers for Bancontact and iDEAL) you pay the same per payment regardless of the price. If you sell expensive tickets, a fixed cost is better than a percentage. If you sell tickets of three euros, that same fixed cost weighs heavily — consider letting people buy per order rather than per ticket in that case.

Do I get an invoice from my provider? Yes, from them. You find it in their dashboard. Our invoice stands apart from it.

Do I have to charge VAT on my tickets? That depends on your activity and your country. The platform charges what you set and gives no tax advice. See Products and prices.