Your earnings
How royalties are calculated, when a balance becomes yours to take, and how to cash out.
The four figures
Earnings opens on four tiles.
| Tile | What it is |
|---|---|
| Available to Cash Out | Cleared, and yours to take now |
| Owed to You | Earned, and not yet paid by the brand |
| Total Paid | What the brand has paid you, all time |
| Lifetime Earned | Everything you have earned in this workspace |
Paid and owed
Underneath, the same money is broken into the stage each amount is at, so there is no gap between what you are owed and what has arrived.
Owed to you
On hold, waiting for the pay run, or sitting in a pay run the brand has not completed.
Paid to you
Clearing, ready to cash out, already cashed out, or paid to you directly.
The two sides add up to their totals, so a figure can always be traced to a stage.
How a video earns
Your royalties are worked out once a day from what your ads actually did, against the terms attached to each video.
The same page shows you those terms: your share, the cap on each piece of content, the hold period and the minimum payout. If you are unsure what a video earns on, that card is the answer rather than a conversation.
Terms are frozen onto a video when the brand approves it, and locked for good once that video goes live as an ad. If they change your rate afterwards it applies to your new work, never to work already approved. Two of your videos can carry different terms, and each one reports against its own.
Each approved video carries a bar showing what it has earned against its cap, and opens a read-only view of the terms locked onto it. You cannot edit those, and you will never see the workspace defaults or another creator's deal.
What the brand can set
| Part | What it means for you |
|---|---|
| Payout model | A share of revenue, a flat fee per order, or a rate against how the ad delivered |
| Submission fee | A fixed amount when a video is approved, whether or not it ever runs |
| Cap per content piece | The most one video can earn in total, across every ad it runs in |
| Hold period | How long an earning waits before you can take it |
| Minimum payout | The smallest amount you can cash out |
Brands can add two things to that. A retainer guarantees you a floor for a period, as long as you hit an agreed number of approved videos, and tops up the difference if your royalties come in under it. Bonuses are discretionary, paid immediately, and sit outside your cap.
A cap is shared across every ad running that video. If the brand runs one of your videos in four adsets, that does not multiply what it can pay you.
Why a balance is not available yet
Two waits sit between an ad running and money you can take.
The hold period
An earning is pending until the hold period on its terms has passed. Fourteen days is the default. This covers refunds and chargebacks on the orders your ad drove.
Settlement
When the brand pays, your balance is credited and settles two days later. That is the bank clearing their payment, not Hotline holding it back.
Getting paid out
Connect Stripe first, from Settings, then Payouts. The account is yours: you onboard to Stripe directly, and your money lands in an account you control. Hotline never holds it on your behalf.
Until Stripe onboarding is finished your earnings still accrue and still settle. They simply cannot be withdrawn.
Cashing out
Once your available balance clears the minimum payout, cash out from Earnings whenever you want.
You can also turn on automatic cash outs in Settings, then Payouts, and set your own threshold. Hotline checks once a day and sends anything over it without you asking. The switch needs a connected payout method, and says so rather than failing when you try.
The date of the brand's next scheduled pay run is shown beside the money waiting for one, so you can see when it is due rather than having to ask.
Brands can pay on a schedule of their own, so money can arrive in your balance without either of you doing anything. Automatic cash outs on your side mean it carries on into your bank account the same way.
If something looks wrong
Earnings, cash outs and payouts each have their own history table on the Earnings page, so a figure can be traced to the day and the video it came from.
If a number still looks wrong, email hello@hotlineugc.com with the video title and roughly when you expected it. That is usually enough to find the exact record.