Fees, prices and taxes

What a sale earns you, and what can change it: the platform fee, VAT, refunds and chargebacks. You set the price on Name and price; your share of every sale collects on Payouts, where you withdraw it.

Your price

A guide has one price, paid once. Buyers keep the guide they bought.

• The lowest price is 9 in the guide's currency.
• A new price applies to purchases from then on. What past buyers paid never changes.
• When the creator agreement has a new version, price changes wait until you accept it with Accept the current agreement in the banner at the top of the studio. Under the creator agreement, guides already on sale keep selling at their price during a reasonable transition window.

What a sale earns you

What Sceniq keeps depends on who brought the buyer.

• Your own sales: a buyer who comes from your link, your post or your profile page. You keep 85 percent of your price and Sceniq keeps 15 percent.
• Store sales: a buyer Sceniq brought, from the explore store, the Sceniq homepage, the blog or the Sceniq app. You keep 65 percent and Sceniq keeps 35 percent.

On a guide priced at 27 US dollars:

The fee covers payment processing. The fee is rounded down to the smallest unit of the currency, so any rounding goes your way.

A store sale is one where the buyer opened your sales page from a Sceniq page and bought in that same visit. Someone who finds your guide in the store but comes back later through your own link is your own sale. When it is not clear where a buyer came from, the sale counts as yours. Sales marks each store sale with Store sale.

Your share of each sale is added to your balance on Payouts.

VAT and income tax

Sceniq sells your guide as the merchant of record and handles the VAT on every sale.

• Your price is the price before VAT. Buyers in countries that charge VAT pay it on top, and it never comes out of your share. On the guide above, a buyer pays 27 plus their country's VAT, and your share of your own sale is 22.95 either way.
• Your payouts are your business income. Income tax on them is yours to handle. Where the law requires it, Sceniq reports creator income to the tax authorities.

Currencies

A guide's price is in one currency, shown in the price field's label, for example Amount (USD). New guides start in US dollars, and the studio keeps a guide's currency when you change its price. Buyers pay in that currency.

Your balance keeps every currency apart: each has its own amount on Payouts, and each is withdrawn on its own.

Refunds

Buyers ask Sceniq for a refund, and Sceniq decides under its refund policy, for example when a guide is materially broken, does not match its listing, or the buyer was charged in error. There is no refund button in the studio.

• A full refund ends the buyer's access to the guide. A partial refund leaves it.
• Your share of the refunded part goes back to the buyer, together with the platform fee and the VAT on it. A partial refund takes back the same fraction of your share as of what the buyer paid.
• Every refund also costs a refund fee of 10 percent of the refunded amount before VAT. The payment processor keeps its own fee when a payment is refunded, and the refund fee covers it. On a 27 guide refunded in full, the refund fee is 2.70.
• When Sceniq charged a buyer twice by mistake, refunding the extra payment costs you no refund fee.
• The sale then shows as Refunded or Partial refund on Sales. The refund fee shows on Payouts as Refund fee in the Balance ledger and comes off your balance.
• If the refund fails at the bank and the buyer gets nothing back, the fee is cancelled: the ledger shows Refund fee cancelled.

Chargebacks

A buyer can also dispute a payment with their bank. Sceniq handles the dispute. From the moment it opens, the sale shows as Disputed on Sales and the buyer cannot open the guide. A sale you have not withdrawn yet stays out of your balance until the dispute ends.

• Decided in Sceniq's favour: the sale loses the Disputed label, the buyer's access comes back, and a sale you had not withdrawn returns to your balance. A dispute Sceniq wins costs you nothing.
• Decided for the buyer: the sale reads Dispute lost, and your share of the disputed amount is not paid out. When only part of the price was disputed, your share of the rest returns to your balance. If you had already withdrawn the sale, the disputed share is recovered as described below.
• A lost dispute also costs a dispute fee of 20 in the sale's currency, shown as Dispute fee in the Balance ledger. The card network charges a fee on every dispute, and Sceniq pays it on the disputes it wins.

Refunds after you withdrew

Each sale waits 14 days before you can withdraw it, which leaves room for refunds. A refund that comes before you withdraw the sale only lowers your balance.

When a refund or a lost dispute comes after you withdrew the sale, Sceniq takes your share of it back from your payout account where it can. Only what it cannot take back appears on Payouts: as an Outstanding balance that comes off your next withdrawal automatically, and in the Balance ledger as Refund recovery or Chargeback recovery. A share taken back in full from your payout account shows nowhere on Payouts; Sales still shows the refund or the dispute on the sale. Refund and dispute fees that your balance cannot cover yet wait the same way and come off a later withdrawal. Nothing is ever collected from your bank account.

When you can withdraw

• A sale becomes available 14 days after the purchase. Until then Payouts shows it as On the way, with the day it becomes available.
• A sale the buyer's card company flags as possible fraud stays on hold longer.
• Withdraw sends everything Available in one currency to your bank account, once that is at least 100 in that currency. Withdrawing is free, and the money usually arrives within a few business days.
• Before your first withdrawal, set up a payout account with Set up payouts: your country, then your identity and bank details.

How each of these looks in the studio is on Payouts.

If you leave Sceniq

New sales stop and your guides come off the store. Buyers keep the guides they bought. Your remaining balance is paid out to you after the usual 14 days, even when it is under the withdrawal minimum.