OVERVIEW

  • We don’t charge you to make accounts.
  • We don’t charge a monthly fee.
  • We do charge 10% on music sales
  • And either the tippers pay an additional fee on top of the tip, OR the busker loses 7% in fees.
  • On average, buskers lose around 0.49% in total across all tips.

 


 

PRICING ON PAYPAL TIPS

On PayPal tips (i.e. tips that aren’t made with Apple Pay or Google Pay), you will lose whatever PayPal’s fees are on transactions. In other words, you will definitely lose more money, on average, if you only link your account to PayPal, and not to Stripe.

You can see PayPal’s fees here.

 


PRICING ON STRIPE TIPS

On average, you will lose ~0.49% in fees.

Tippers have the option of paying the fees themselves. If they pay the fees, the fee is added to your tip. If they do not pay the fee, you lose 7%. Thankfully, tippers pay the fee 93% of the time!

 

IF THE TIPPER PAYS THE FEE

If the tipper pays the fees, we add an amount on top of the tip. So, on a £1.00 tip, YOU (the busker) receive £1.00, but the tipper will pay a fee on top of it.

Here’s a graphic to explain:

HOW MUCH WE CHARGE THE TIPPER

Regardless of whether you or the tipper pays the fees, WE have to pay Stripe’s transaction fees. That’s an unavoidable part of doing business with them!

Thankfully, the amount they charge is low enough that it shouldn’t put tippers off tipping you. This list demonstrates the amount that Stripe charges on every tip:

Stripe fees for local payments

GBP – 1.4% + £0.20
USD – 2.9% + $0.30
CAD – 2.9% + $0.30
AUD – 1.75% + $0.30
EUR – 1.4% + €0.25

So, we either charge the tipper one of the fixed values above, OR 7%, depending on which is greater:

GBP – £0.20 or 7%
USD – $0.30 or 7%
CAD – $0.30 or 7%
AUD – $0.30 or 7%
EUR – €0.25 or 7%r

In other words:

  • On a £1.00 GBP tip, we charge £0.50, the minimum value.
  • On a £15.00 GBP tip, we charge £1.12 (that’s 7%)

 

IF THE TIPPER DOES NOT PAY THE FEE

If the tipper opts out of paying the fee, you get charged 7% on larger tips. In other words, on a £20.00 tip, you would lose £1.40. This 7% fee is the same across all currencies.

Here’s a graphic to explain:

WHY WE CHOSE “7%”

Normally, 5% was the average amount that Stripe charged across all the tips that have happened on our site since 2015. However, with the recent increase in their security fees, we’re now losing money on each tip. We had to increase the voluntary fees so that, on tips where the busker pays the fees, the amount that we take (7%) is going to be more or less the same as we pay Stripe.

 

HOW MUCH BUSKERS PAY IN TOTAL

Currently, tippers pay the fees 93% of the time (that’s 18 out of every 20 tips). So, the busker gets 100% of the tip, 93% of the time.

Which means the average loss to the busker across all tips, is just 0.49%!

 

Summary

You get 100% of your cash tip, right? So, paying 0.49% in fees might sound terrible to you.

But, depending on how you price your time, that 0.49% is possibly comparable to cash when you factor in things like the number of minutes it takes for you to count through your cash earnings, sort it into denominations, and deposit it into the bank. Not to mention cash thefts/losses and the number of small coins that end up in piggy banks.

Also, the average digital tip is frankly huge, when compared with cash. Last month (Feb 2022), the average tip in Australia was a little over $10 AUD. You’re not going to get that kind of average tip in cash.

And finally, a significant number of people — especially post-covid — are no longer carrying cash at all. And losing 0.50% of cashless tips is better than losing 100% of the tips your audience don’t give. If that makes sense…

 


 

PRICING ON MUSIC SALES

Total commission = 10%

We don’t charge for you to upload albums. But, when you sell music, we take a 10% commission. We split that 10% between us and Stripe – the secure cashless payments processor that handles the transaction – so only around 2-8% ends up in our own pockets.

 


PRICING ON MEMBERSHIPS

We charge £5/month for the membership benefits, or £50/year. We’ve set it at that price partly because we believe the benefits you get are worth it, and partly because we need to raise money to keep the company going. We’re a small arts organisation that refuses to have ads, sponsorships, or other corporate-style commercialism. Membership fees sustain us.

 


 

Let us know what you think of our prices. Are they fair?