Your organization is the payer on an org booking, not the individual member who arranged it. ARRIVE creates a payment profile for your organization the first time you pay, and every booking after that is charged against it.
A booking is paid in one full charge. There are no deposits, no balances due later, and no payment plans.
Paying
Open the booking and use the Pay button, which appears while the booking is Pending Payment and shows the exact total. Pay before the Pay by time shown on the booking: if it passes unpaid, the booking closes, the performer's date is released and nothing is charged — see Booking a performer directly. Card details are entered on ARRIVE's payment form; the amount charged is always read from the booking record on our servers, never from your browser.
While paying you may see:
- "This booking is awaiting internal approval." — someone with booking-approval permission must approve it first.
- "Payment is processing — this page will update once it settles."
- "This booking is paid and confirmed."
Payment is also re-checked against your organization's plan at the moment of paying, so a booking created while your plan was active cannot be charged after it lapses.
The money lines
A booking's Money box shows these figures, in exact dollars and cents. Two are what your organization pays; two describe how the booking total is split with the performer.
| Line | What it is |
|---|---|
| Booking total | The amount you agreed with the performer. |
| Service fee | ARRIVE's fee, charged to your organization on top of the booking total. Its percentage is shown beside it. |
| Total to pay / Total charged / Total (not charged) | Booking total + service fee — what your organization pays. It reads Total to pay until you pay, Total charged once the payment has been taken, and Total (not charged) on a booking that ended without being paid. |
| ARRIVE commission | ARRIVE's commission, deducted from the booking total, with its exact rate (for example 2.5%). You do not pay this separately. |
| Professional payout | Booking total − commission. What the performer receives. |
Once a booking has ended — cancelled or declined — the commission and payout lines are no longer shown, because they describe an event that isn't happening. If you cancelled a booking you had paid for and the cancellation terms leave the performer a share, the box shows Professional's share (cancellation terms) — the amount they receive — together with the Refunded line.
So the booking total is split between ARRIVE and the performer, and the service fee is added to your side of the transaction. Raising or lowering the agreed amount changes the performer's payout; the commission never comes out of your pocket twice.
The service fee is non-refundable when you cancel. It is retained in full on any cancellation your organization makes, at any notice period. There are two exceptions, both when the performer is at fault: if the performer can't do the booking and ARRIVE Support cancels it for them, or if the performer doesn't show, the service fee is refunded along with the booking total — see Cancelling a booking and how refunds work.
Where the percentages come from
Neither percentage is fixed in the product. Both are ARRIVE platform settings:
- The service fee is a percentage of the booking total, optionally with a flat amount added and an optional maximum.
- The commission rate depends on the performer's ARRIVE subscription tier.
Both are read at the moment you create the booking and locked onto that booking. A later change to ARRIVE's rates does not alter a booking you have already made. The rates that applied to yours are shown on the booking itself, next to each line.
Payment methods
Org bookings are charged through Stripe. The PayPal option offered on ARRIVE's consumer marketplace is not available to organizations — an org booking that was not paid by card cannot even be cancelled through the normal path ("Only Stripe-paid org bookings can be cancelled here.").
What happens the moment payment succeeds
- The booking moves to Confirmed and the funds are held by ARRIVE — they are not sent to the performer yet.
- The booking agreement, which you could already read, is fixed and can now be signed. See Signing the booking agreement.
- The performer is notified, and told their payout releases about 72 hours after the event.
- The release time is calculated and stored on the booking (visible under History → Auto-release).
When the performer is actually paid
The performer's payout releases 72 hours after the event — not 72 hours after you pay.
Precisely: the clock starts when the event ends, in the booking's own timezone. A booking with a start time ends at its start time plus its hours — an act booked for 8:00 PM for 3 hours ends at 11:00 PM, and its payout releases at 11:00 PM three days later. A booking with no start time is treated as ending at midnight at the end of its event day, local time. A booking that runs over several days ends at the end of its last day.
Nothing is released before the release time. Two things are in your organization's hands:
- Sign the agreement. Both your organization and the performer must sign it before the payout is released. If a signature is missing, the funds stay held, and they release on ARRIVE's next check once the second signature lands.
- Open a dispute if something went wrong. Opening one on the Disputes tab pauses the release; it resumes once every dispute on that booking is resolved, withdrawn or cancelled. See Cancelling a booking and how refunds work.
The payout is a transfer of the performer payout figure — the service fee and ARRIVE's commission are never part of it.
What this does not do yet
- There is no invoice or receipt document for an org booking. The agreement PDF carries the full itemised breakdown, and your card statement carries the charge, but ARRIVE does not generate a separate invoice in the workspace.
- There are no deposits, instalments, purchase orders or invoice-me terms — one charge, at the time of payment.
- You cannot pay by bank transfer or PayPal, and you cannot change the payment method on a booking after it has been charged.
- Each booking is charged in one currency: the currency of the performer's prices, shown on every amount. That is US dollars (USD), or Canadian dollars (CAD) for a performer based in Canada — Canadian amounts show "CAD" after the number. ARRIVE never converts the amount. If your card is in another currency, your card issuer converts it at the time of charge.
- The performer is paid in the booking's currency.
- Totals across several bookings — on your dashboard, in reports and in exports — are shown per currency. US-dollar and Canadian-dollar amounts are never added together.