Payment terms

These Payment Terms explain how money moves on FreelancerPeople ("the Platform"): what buyers pay, how payments are protected while work is in progress, how sellers are paid, and what happens when a payment fails or an order is refunded. They apply whenever you pay for, sell, or receive money through the Platform, whether the transaction is a packaged service (a "SERVE"), a custom or hourly contract, a digital product, a tip, or a wallet top-up.

These Payment Terms form part of, and should be read together with, our Terms of Service, Privacy Policy and Refund & Cancellation Policy. FreelancerPeople is an online marketplace operated from India. Sellers on the Platform are independent professionals, not our employees; the contract for the work itself forms between the buyer and the seller, and these Payment Terms govern how the money side of that contract is handled on the Platform.

One principle runs through this whole document: wherever a number can change over time, such as a fee percentage, a clearance period or a minimum amount, the live figure shown to you in the product at the moment of your transaction is the figure that governs. The checkout screen, your order details and your earnings view are the authoritative sources, and every such amount is shown to you before you confirm.

1. A single-currency platform: everything is in USD

FreelancerPeople operates in a single currency, the United States dollar (USD). Every price, fee, escrow balance, wallet balance, refund and payout on the Platform is denominated, held and settled in USD.

• The Platform does not convert currency. There is no exchange step anywhere in a FreelancerPeople transaction, and we never apply an exchange rate or a conversion margin.
• If your card, bank account or payment method is held in another currency, your bank or payment provider may convert the charge at its own rate and may add its own foreign-transaction or conversion charges. Those rates and charges are set by your provider, are outside our control, and are not collected by FreelancerPeople.
• Withdrawals are likewise sent in USD; any conversion into your local currency is performed by the receiving institution or payout provider under its own terms.

2. What buyers pay

When you place a freelancing order (a SERVE order or a custom contract), the amount you pay is made up of:

• The order amount: the price of the package, contract or add-ons you selected, as defined by the seller.
• A buyer service fee, where applicable: a percentage-based fee that supports payment protection, escrow handling and the operation of the marketplace. The current rate that applies to you is shown at checkout.
• Applicable taxes: for example GST for buyers in India, as described in section 10.

All three components are itemized at checkout, line by line, before you confirm. There are no charges added after the fact: the total you see when you confirm is the total you pay.

Digital products work slightly differently. The price shown on a product page is the all-in product price for the license you select. Any buyer fee that applies and any tax due on your purchase are itemized at checkout before you confirm, alongside the product price, so the final total is always visible before any payment is taken. Some digital products are free; a free product settles through the same checkout with nothing charged.

Tips are optional and always buyer-initiated. A tip is processed like an order: any applicable fee and tax on the tip amount is shown to you before you confirm it.

3. Fee reductions for frequent buyers

Buyers who spend consistently on the Platform can qualify for reduced buyer service fee rates through spend tiers. Tiers are applied automatically based on your qualifying spend; you do not need to enrol, and there is nothing to purchase. The tier levels, the spend required for each, and the rate you currently pay are shown in your account, and the rate applied to any particular order is always itemized at checkout before you confirm.

4. What sellers receive

Sellers receive the order amount minus the platform commission. The commission rate that applies to you is shown in your seller dashboard, and the exact earnings breakdown for each order is shown on that order before and after it completes.

The commission rate is frozen at the moment an order is placed. If the Platform's rates change later, the change applies only to new orders: it never moves the economics of an existing order in either direction.

Amounts shown as seller earnings are stated before any taxes the seller may owe on their own account (see section 10). FreelancerPeople does not charge sellers any listing fee, membership fee or subscription; the commission on completed orders is how the Platform earns.

5. How escrow works

Freelancing orders on FreelancerPeople are protected by escrow: the buyer's payment is collected up front and held by the Platform, and it is not released to the seller until the work is accepted or the order otherwise resolves under our rules.

Fixed-price orders

• The full amount (order amount plus any buyer fee and tax) is funded into escrow at checkout, before the seller starts work.
• The funds stay in escrow through delivery and the buyer's review window, which is shown in the order details.
• Escrow is released to the seller when the buyer accepts the delivery, or automatically when the review window shown in the order details closes without the buyer responding and no dispute is open.
• If the order is cancelled under the Refund & Cancellation Policy, or resolved in the buyer's favour, the held amount is returned to the buyer as described in section 12.

Milestones

Where an order is broken into milestones, each milestone is a slice of the same single escrow, not a separately funded payment. The order is funded once, and milestone settlements draw against that one held balance until it is fully released, refunded, or a combination of the two.

Hourly contracts

• An hourly contract is funded up front with one week's cap: the maximum weekly amount agreed for the contract, plus any buyer fee and tax at the rates locked in when the contract was created.
• As the seller logs hours and the buyer approves each week, approved weeks draw down against the funded pool. The buyer can top the pool up as the engagement continues.
• Weeks the buyer does not review within the window shown on the contract are approved automatically and settle to the seller.
• When the contract ends, any unused remainder in the pool is returned to the buyer.

While a dispute is open on an order, the disputed funds stay where they are: no release to the seller and no refund to the buyer until the dispute resolves through the Resolution Center or by our decision.

6. Identity verification (KYC)

Identity verification protects both sides of every transaction and helps keep the Platform free of fraud and unlawful activity. Verification is required at the points where money moves under someone's control:

• Buyers: before you can take an action that releases escrow, such as accepting a delivery, approving an hourly week or ending an hourly contract, you must have completed identity verification. Automatic releases that occur when a review window lapses are not blocked by this requirement.
• Sellers and anyone withdrawing funds: identity verification must be completed and approved before any withdrawal can be processed, whether the balance comes from earnings, refunds or top-ups.

Verification is not required simply to sign up, browse, or list services. During verification you will be asked for identity information and documents; provide accurate, current and legible information to avoid delays. We may ask you to re-verify where the law or our risk checks require it, and payouts may be paused while a verification review is under way. See our Privacy Policy for how verification data is handled and our Trust & Safety page for the wider protections around your account.

7. Clearance: the safety hold on released earnings

When escrow is released to a seller, or a digital product sale or tip settles, the seller's net earnings do not become withdrawable immediately. They first pass through a short clearance window: a safety hold that gives the Platform time to confirm the transaction is complete and final and to guard against fraud and reversals.

The current length of the clearance window, and the exact date each amount clears, are shown in your earnings view. Once an amount has cleared it moves to your available balance and can be withdrawn, subject to section 8. Clearance is paused for funds connected to an open dispute or an order under review, and resumes when the matter is resolved.

8. Withdrawals

You can withdraw your available balance once the following are in place:

• Identity verification completed and approved (section 6).
• A verified payout method: you add a payout method on the withdrawals page and confirm it with a one-time verification code before it can be used.

Withdrawal requests are processed after a review by the Platform. Most reviews are quick; some take longer where additional checks are needed. The minimum withdrawal amount, any withdrawal fee, the payout methods available for your country, and indicative processing times are all shown on the withdrawals page before you confirm a request. Once a withdrawal is sent, the time it takes to arrive depends on the receiving institution.

If a payout fails for reasons outside our control, for example incorrect account details, the funds are returned to your balance so you can correct the details and try again. We may decline or reverse a withdrawal, or temporarily pause withdrawals on an account, where required by law or where a fraud, dispute or policy review is in progress; we will tell you when this happens and what is needed to resolve it.

9. Your FreelancerPeople wallet

Your wallet is the balance held in your FreelancerPeople account. Money flows into it when you top up, when a refund is approved, and, for sellers, when earnings clear. You can spend your wallet balance on the Platform or withdraw it under section 8.

• Top-ups: you can add funds in advance using the payment options shown at checkout. Any minimum or maximum top-up amount is shown on the top-up screen. Top-ups are in USD.
• Spending: the wallet can be used as a payment method at checkout for orders and digital products.
• Withdrawing: wallet balances are withdrawable, subject to identity verification and a verified payout method (section 8). This includes refunded amounts.
• What the wallet is not: the wallet is not a bank account, deposit or stored-value product, and it earns no interest. It exists to make paying and getting paid on the Platform simple.

Keep your account secure: anyone with access to your account may be able to use your wallet balance. See the Terms of Service for your account-security responsibilities.

10. Taxes

Tax on purchases. Buyers in India are charged Goods and Services Tax (GST) at 18% on their purchases. The GST amount is itemized as its own line at checkout before you confirm, is shown on your order record, and appears on the tax invoice you can open from it. Buyers outside India are not charged GST. Where another jurisdiction's law requires us to collect a tax on your purchase, it is likewise itemized at checkout before you confirm. Tax we collect is accounted for to the relevant authority as the law requires; it is never part of a seller's payout.

Tax on refunds. If an order that included tax is refunded, the tax on the refunded amount is returned with it, in full for a full refund and proportionally for a partial one.

Sellers' own taxes. Sellers are independent professionals and are solely responsible for determining, reporting and paying their own taxes on their earnings, including income tax and any registration or filing obligations that apply to them. Nothing on the Platform is tax advice; consult a qualified professional for your own situation.

11. Invoices, receipts and the binding price

Every order has a transaction record in your account showing what was charged, itemized into its components, which serves as your receipt. Digital product orders and funded contracts also carry a numbered invoice: a printable document you can open from the order record or the contract page and save as a PDF. For buyers in India charged GST it is issued as a tax invoice showing the tax charged and the place of supply; for buyers outside India it records the purchase with no GST charged. You can access these records from your orders and purchases pages.

The server-computed total is the binding amount. Prices, fees and taxes are always computed by the Platform at checkout from the seller's live listing and the rates in force at that moment. If anything changes between the moment a checkout is prepared and the moment you pay, for example the seller edits the price, the Platform will not charge the stale amount: you are asked to review a fresh total instead. No amount submitted by a browser, app or third party can override the server-computed total.

12. Refunds

When and how you can request a refund, and what happens to an order when you do, is governed by the Refund & Cancellation Policy. The money mechanics are the same in every case:

• An approved refund is credited to your FreelancerPeople wallet promptly on approval, including the buyer fee and tax attributable to the refunded amount.
• Your wallet balance can then be spent on the Platform, or withdrawn to your own account, subject to identity verification and a verified payout method (section 8).
• Refunds are not sent back to the original card, bank account or payment method; the wallet credit and withdrawal path above is how refunded money leaves the Platform.

The Platform does not impose cancellation charges on consumers. If an order is cancelled under the Refund & Cancellation Policy, the full held amount, including the buyer fee and tax, is returned to the buyer's wallet.

13. Failed, declined and duplicate payments

If a payment cannot be completed, because a method is declined, an authorization expires or a checkout session times out, the order is not funded and does not start. No escrow is created and no obligation arises until a successful payment is received. You can retry with the same method once the underlying issue is resolved, or use another option shown at checkout.

Payment confirmations are processed idempotently: a payment is credited exactly once, even if the confirmation for it reaches us more than once. If you believe you were charged twice for the same order or top-up, or charged for an order that never started, contact us through the Support page with the transaction details and we will investigate and correct any duplicate.

Chargebacks filed with your bank or card issuer are outside the Platform's process and can freeze the related funds while they are investigated. If something went wrong with an order, the Resolution Center and the Refund & Cancellation Policy are the faster and fairer route, and using them first helps us resolve the underlying problem directly.

14. Coupons and discounts

Coupons and promotional discounts may be offered from time to time by the Platform or by individual sellers. Each offer carries its own conditions, which may include expiry dates, eligibility rules, usage limits and minimum order amounts; the discount that applies to your order is always shown at checkout before you confirm.

• Coupons and promotional credits have no cash value, cannot be exchanged for cash and cannot be withdrawn.
• A discount is applied to the qualifying amount shown at checkout; whether it affects fees or tax is reflected in the itemized totals before you confirm.
• We may modify, suspend or end a promotion, and may decline or reverse a discount obtained through error or abuse.

15. Changes to these Payment Terms

We may update these Payment Terms as the Platform, our payment arrangements and our legal obligations evolve. When we make material changes we will update the date shown on this page and, where appropriate, notify you. The version in effect at the time of your transaction applies to that transaction. Continued use of the Platform after an update means you accept the revised terms.

16. Governing law

These Payment Terms are governed by the laws of India, and the courts in India have jurisdiction over disputes arising from them. Nothing in these Payment Terms limits any rights you have under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 or any other applicable law that cannot be excluded by agreement.

17. Questions and contact

If you have a question about a charge, a payout, your wallet, a hold, or anything else in these Payment Terms, contact us at support@freelancerpeople.com or through the Support page in your account. Every complaint receives a ticket number for tracking.

Complaints and grievances are handled by our Grievance Officer, reachable at support@freelancerpeople.com. We acknowledge complaints within 24 hours and aim to resolve them within 15 days. Disagreements about the work delivered on an order are best raised in the Resolution Center.

For related policies, see the Terms of Service, Refund & Cancellation Policy, Privacy Policy, Prohibited & Acceptable Use and Trust & Safety pages.