Payments and Platform Fees

1. Who processes your payments

Payments are processed by Stripe. Stripe is the payment processor and the party that handles card data. Your use of Stripe is governed by Stripe's own agreements, including the Stripe Services Agreement, which you enter into with Stripe and not with us.

VisibleSeed LLC does not store, process, or transmit full payment card numbers. Card data goes from the reader or the checkout page to Stripe.

2. Stripe's fees

Stripe charges its own published processing rates. Those fees are set by Stripe, are paid to Stripe, and are not ours. We deliberately do not quote Stripe's rates on this site: they change, and a stale number in our marketing is worse than a link to the authoritative one. See stripe.com/pricing.

3. Managed: no VisibleSeed platform fee

If you are on the Managed tier, VisibleSeed LLC charges no platform fee, no markup, and no share of your processing. You pay Stripe's published rates and nothing else on top for payments. We are paid for hardware and for the software and support that come with it, which is disclosed separately in your quote.

4. Unlocked: the platform fee

If you are on the VisibleSeed Unlocked tier and you choose to route payments through the VisibleSeed Stripe platform, a platform fee applies:

• 0.25% + 10¢ per successful transaction, charged on top of Stripe's published rates.
• That is 0.25% of the transaction amount plus 10 cents, per transaction.

Worked examples

These figures are the VisibleSeed share only. Stripe's own fees are separate, are additional, and are paid to Stripe.

5. When the platform fee does not apply

The Unlocked platform fee is not charged:

• On the Managed tier, in any circumstance.
• If you process payments on your own payment account rather than through the VisibleSeed Stripe platform.
• On cash, check, or any transaction that does not run through the VisibleSeed Stripe platform.
• On failed, declined, or abandoned transactions.

Where a transaction is refunded, the platform fee is handled in line with Stripe's treatment of the underlying transaction. Where Stripe returns its fee, we return ours.

6. What we do not charge

There is no monthly minimum, no per-terminal payments fee, no statement fee, no PCI compliance fee, no batch fee, no gateway fee, and no early termination or exit fee. If you stop processing through us, you stop paying us. There is nothing to cancel and nothing to unwind.

7. No processor lock-in

We do not require you to use any particular payment processor as a condition of buying hardware or software from us, and we do not penalize you for using your own. This is a commitment, not a promotion, and it applies on both tiers.

8. Payouts and disputes

Payouts, payout timing, reserves, chargebacks, and dispute handling are governed by your agreement with Stripe. We are not a party to a chargeback and cannot decide one. We will help you find the transaction records you need.

9. Taxes

Sales tax on hardware and equipment is calculated at checkout or included in your quote, as applicable. Tax on your own sales to your own customers is your responsibility. We do not provide tax advice.

10. Changes to fees

We may change the platform fee. Any change applies prospectively only, and we will give at least 30 days' notice by email to the address on your account before it takes effect. If you do not accept a change, you can stop routing payments through us at any time and owe us nothing further.

11. Precedence

On anything fee-related, this document controls over marketing pages, including /tiers and /pricing. If you find a discrepancy, tell us and we will fix the marketing page.