This article is relevant to UK customers only. To see your fees as a North American customer, click here.Overview
This article explains how your fees are calculated and billed on your GotPhoto invoice. GotPhoto applies different rounding rules for billable order fees and the amount charged when an order is placed.
Fee Overview
First: What fees are we charging you?
GotPhoto charges you:
- A monthly subscription fee (not applicable for Enterprise customers). Here you can also switch to an annual subscription. The annual fee will be charged upfront, with your first invoice that follows the switch. In both cases, we will charge the credit card that you saved in your GotPhoto account.
- A service fee is applied per order on gross revenue.
- Production and shipping fees
- Payment fees:
- A payment service fee of £0.20 per order.
- A volume-based fee per transaction: 1.5% per order.
Other charges that may occur if you use additional services:
- If you use our basic editing services, we will charge this fee within the following invoice.
- If you create manual direct or batch orders on the order entry page, we apply a service fee per order. The amount is dependent on your plan.
You may notice a negative balance in your account throughout the month. The amount is dependent on the volume of orders you handle.
The reason for this is due to how GotPhoto calculates fees. There are different types of fees:
- Service Fee: % of gross revenue, (% depending on your plan)
- Payment Fee: 1.5% per payment + £0.20
For both fee types, our accounting uses four decimal places, while the charges we apply have only two decimal places. This difference in precision can cause a balance discrepancy. Please note that this rounding practice also applies to fees for orders that are placed manually via Order Entry.
Example:
The gross order amount of an order is £29.29
The net fees that are applied are:
- A service fee of 7% → £2.0503
- A payment fee of 1.5% → £0.4393+ a £0.20 payment fee (Total: £0.639)
Charges are rounded to just two digits. Therefore, GotPhoto deducts the following amounts for this sample order:
- A service fee of £2.05 (net)
- A payment fee of £0.64 (net)
Due to volume, we have higher precision when we sum up all fees for an entire month. This results in a difference between the total amount of fees and the total amount of charges. In some months, this difference may result in a positive balance, while other months may result in a small negative balance.
A negative balance can also be a result of a batch shipping order. Your production fees are charged in your monthly GotPhoto invoice. When a transaction is processed, GotPhoto charges all applicable fees and taxes. Your fees are billed immediately, but production fees for batch shipping orders are billed when your batch is transferred to the lab. This means that unlike the rest of your fees, your production fees for batch shipping orders will end up as a credit in your GotPhoto balance and look like available funds that can be withdrawn in a payout. If you choose to request a payout at this time, your balance will run negative in the next billing cycle due to the production fee being billed.
Using billable items with four decimals ensures fairness, especially for photographers with a high volume of small orders. Rounding up even one cent for each order could lead to a different total service fee at the end of the month. This is why we have chosen to apply rounding rules in this way.
The Takeaway
GotPhoto applies specific rounding rules for invoice items, order fees, and charges deducted from customer payments. This discrepancy can result in balance variations. These differences are automatically reconciled, ensuring fairness for all users. GotPhoto's commitment to accuracy and fairness underlines our decision to maintain four-decimal precision for order fees.