Payments

AwardKit collects entry fees through Stripe Connect. The design is deliberately minimal: each charge is created directly on your organization's Stripe account, so fees flow from the entrant to you and AwardKit never holds the money.

How it works

1. You connect your Stripe account to your organization once (see Stripe Connect setup).
2. You price a program on its Categories tab: a standard fee, per-category fees, early-bird and late periods, member and non-member pricing, an automatic multi-entry discount, discount codes, and a declared tax rate (see Entry fees).
3. An entrant submits and either pays right away through Stripe Checkout or chooses Pay later, add more entries, which puts the fee on their balance.
4. The fee lands in your Stripe balance with no commission taken by AwardKit.
5. Refunds happen in your Stripe Dashboard; AwardKit updates the entry's status from Stripe's webhook.

The entry balance

Entrants do not check out once per entry. Each paid submission completes on the spot and its fee joins a running balance; one itemized Stripe checkout then settles every unpaid entry at once, with the multi-entry discount counted across the whole balance. The line item reads "Entry Fee: {program}" with the pricing period and entrant type in its description. Payment is due before entries close. Unpaid entries stay visible to you as Unpaid with the amount owed, and to the entrant on the program page and in the navbar. See Paying entry fees for the entrant's side.

Which payment methods entrants can use

Checkout offers whatever payment methods your connected Stripe account has enabled for the currency: cards and wallets, plus local methods such as iDEAL, SEPA Direct Debit, or bank transfer where you have turned them on. Manage that list in your Stripe Dashboard under payment methods; AwardKit does not restrict it. Delayed methods such as bank transfer sit in a processing window until Stripe confirms them; the entry page shows "Payment processing. Some payment methods take a few days to confirm." and flips to Paid on confirmation.

What AwardKit charges

For payment processing: $0. AwardKit takes zero commission on entry fees. You pay only the AwardKit subscription (see billing).

What Stripe charges

Stripe charges its standard processing fees on every transaction (for US accounts, 2.9% + $0.30 per successful card charge; other regions and methods have their own rates on Stripe's pricing page). Those fees come out of each entry fee and are paid to Stripe directly.

Payment statuses

The Entries table shows a payment badge on each paid entry, kept in sync with Stripe:

The entry detail sheet's Payment block shows the amount, the pricing Tier (period), the entrant type under Declared as, any Discount, the Paid date, and the Stripe ref. The entries CSV export adds Payment Status, Net Amount, Tax Rate, Tax Amount, Gross Amount, and Currency for every entry.

Failed and abandoned payments

• Abandoned or expired checkout: the entry goes back on the entrant's balance as Unpaid. Nothing is lost; the entrant pays from their entry page or the balance banner at the current price. If the checkout used a discount code, the entry shows Failed instead and the entrant restarts payment.
• Delayed method fails (for example a bank transfer that never arrives): the entry returns to the balance and the entrant receives "Payment failed for {program}: {amount} still due".
• Reminders: an hourly job sends one nudge when an immediate-payment checkout is still unsettled after an hour ("Action needed: Complete your AwardKit payment"), and sends unpaid-balance reminders inside the last 72 hours before entries close.

There is no organizer action that marks an entry paid or waives its fee; payment status only changes through checkout and Stripe. If you want to let someone in free, set a free entrant type or a $0 category before they submit, or refund in Stripe afterwards.

Refunding an entry fee

There is no refund button in AwardKit. To refund:

1. Open the Stripe Dashboard for your connected account (the Payments settings page links to it).
2. Find the payment by entrant email, program name, or amount.
3. Click Refund and confirm.

For a full refund, AwardKit marks the entry Refunded within seconds and emails the payer "Refund processed for {program}: {amount}". The entry itself stays in the program; delete it from Entries if it should also be withdrawn. If Stripe later cancels or fails the refund, the entry returns to Paid.

Partial refunds leave the entry Paid and are not tracked in AwardKit: you kept part of the fee and the submission remains valid. Keep the note in Stripe.

Refunds reach the entrant's card in 5 to 10 business days, on Stripe's and the bank's timeline.

Disputes (chargebacks)

Stripe emails you about disputes and shows them in your Stripe Dashboard; AwardKit does not surface dispute state. Handle the dispute in Stripe. If it is lost, Stripe issues a refund, which reaches AwardKit like any other full refund and marks the entry Refunded.

To reduce dispute risk: set a statement descriptor in Stripe that includes your organization's name (Stripe Dashboard > Settings > Public details), keep your program page clearly branded, and honor refund requests promptly. Most disputes are escalations of a refund request that went unanswered.

Emails around a payment

AwardKit sends these emails itself, from your program's name:

Stripe's own receipts are separate and controlled in your Stripe settings.

Tax

If your organization is tax-registered (VAT, GST, sales tax), declare it on the program under Categories > Tax: switch on Charge tax on entry fees, enter the Tax name and Rate, choose under How it applies whether it is Added on top of the fee or Included in the fee, and add your Tax registration number. The rate shows next to every price entrants see, checkout charges the right total, discounts apply before tax, and the receipt carries your registration number so business entrants can reclaim input tax.

The decisions stay yours: whether you must charge tax, which rate, and remitting what you collect. AwardKit records what you declare and is not tax advice. Your accountant gets the numbers from the entries CSV export, which breaks out net, tax rate, tax amount, and gross per payment.

Stripe Tax on your Stripe account does not affect AwardKit checkouts: AwardKit applies your declared rate directly and never uses Stripe Tax's automatic calculation, so nothing is double-charged, but Stripe Tax's filing reports will not include AwardKit transactions either. Use the CSV export.

Reporting

• AwardKit's CSV export of the Entries table: payment status and net, tax, and gross per entry.
• Stripe Dashboard: the authoritative record of gross volume, processing fees, payouts, disputes, and refunds.

For filings, Stripe is the source of truth; AwardKit's export is the entry-level view.

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