Payments FAQ

How does payment work on Storyhunter?

One of the biggest problems for freelancers in our industry is getting paid on time, so we’ve gone to great lengths to try to solve this problem. Our system guarantees that freelancers get paid within 30 days whenever they are commissioned on the platform. Upon completion, Storyhunter will bill the client the amount owed, plus Storyhunter’s service fee and complete the payment to the freelancer. Freelancers do not need to worry about invoicing clients or chasing late payments.

We also offer a custom workflow for advances and expenses, along with early payment options for a nominal fee.

How much do I get paid?

You work out your rates directly with your client the way you normally do. Depending on your relationship with the client hiring you, your payment amount might be subject to the Freelancer Service Fee. Sometimes money transfer or currency conversion fees may apply, depending on the payout method and currency selected. You can review the fees associated with your available payout methods when adding them to your profile. Feel free to use the counter-offer tool when you negotiate and let publishers know if they’ve posted a project under the market rate.

How do I get paid?

We guarantee that your payment will be issued within 30 days of your project getting marked as complete on the Storyhunter platform (as long as your account is set up and barring any extraneous issues). We have partnered with industry leaders Hyperwallet & Payoneer, which allows us to offer multiple payment and currency options including bank transfer, wire transfer, Venmo, Paypal, and pre-paid debit cards. Click here for more information about payments.

Are Advances Possible?

Yes. Advances allow clients to pay a freelancer while projects are still ongoing. If expedited, advances are paid out to you within 3-5 business days. If not, advances will go out within 30 days. Read more on advances here. 

What about Expenses?

Yes, we have a custom expenses workflow in which freelancers upload their itemized expenses and receipts for approval and reimbursement (read more here). Confirm that your client approves of any expenses beforehand, and make sure to upload your expenses before a publisher marks the project as complete. If not, the final bill will not include expenses.

Is there an expedited payment option?

Absolutely. Since we recognize that some freelancers need money faster than 30 days, we’ve added a way that we can release payment faster, and then we deal with the financing of this payment. With our expedited payment option, freelancers can receive payment within 3-5 business days for a financing fee of 5%. Find more information on expedited payments here. 

How do you try to help freelancers to get paid in a timely manner?

We pay out freelancers within 30 days of the project being marked complete. Once a freelancer completes their payout method registration, payments are automated and can be tracked with the Reports tab. We work out the payment terms with the client, so they can hire as many freelancers as they want without extra approvals or needing to process extra invoices. Then, we handle all the e-signatures for their standard contracts, pay freelancers in over 192 countries, track each invoice by budgets and we handle all their tax reporting at the end of the year.  On the freelancers side, we offer something similar: a one-time payment setup allows freelancers to be hired by multiple clients anywhere in the world, without the hassle of additional paperwork or tracking down payments with multiple clients. 

For background, large companies have increasingly implemented corporate policies of paying vendors within 45 days, 60 days, 90 days, and even 120 days. We believe this is too long to wait for a freelancer, so we negotiate preferential payment terms with them and even if we don’t achieve 30 day payment terms with them, we still guarantee that for the freelancers (and finance the difference if needed). For clients, it’s much easier to make an exception for a company like Storyhunter than to process a large amount of small invoices from freelancers. They also are more open to a system that allows them to receive one invoice for multiple payments, so they have less invoices to process.