When you get paid

An order’s money is released as soon as your shopper confirms it arrived. Everything below is what happens either side of that.

One order, start to finish

Say you sell a vase on the 1st.

The 1st. The shopper pays. The payment provider’s processing fee (1.5% + 20p on a UK card, more on one issued elsewhere) and Luma’s 7% both come off, and the rest goes to your own account with the provider (Stripe). It shows as Clearing on your Finances page while the payment settles.

The 3rd. You post it and mark the order as posted.

The 6th. It arrives and your shopper confirms delivery. That ends the hold.

The 8th. 7 days after the sale, the payment finishes settling with the provider. The money moves to Ready to pay out.

Every sale settles on that same 7-day clock, so on a delivery quicker than this one it’s the settling you’d be waiting on rather than the hold.

Why we hold it at all

Until somebody has seen the parcel, nobody can say the order went right. Holding it until then means a refund in that window comes out of money that’s still there rather than money already in your bank.

A confirmation ends that question, so it ends the hold. It isn’t a judgement about you: every order on Luma works the same way.

If nobody confirms delivery

We mark the order delivered for you after 14 days, and the money releases 7 days after that, which is 21 days from the day you posted it. Until then it shows as On hold.

So it’s worth asking the shopper to confirm: a line in the parcel, or a message when you post.

Getting it to your bank

Once it’s in Ready to pay out, it’s yours to take out.

• Automatically, monthly, on the 1st, if you have £5.00 or more ready to pay out.
• On request, once a month, from £5.00.

There are no payout fees.

Payouts go out on the 1st of every month. In between, you can take your money early once a month, free, whenever your balance clears the minimum.

If a refund comes after you’ve been paid

Most refunds happen inside the hold, so they come out of money still sitting in your balance. Sometimes one lands later: an issue raised weeks after delivery, or a chargeback.

The refund still comes off your balance, and if there isn’t enough there the balance goes below zero. Your next sales clear it first. If your shop has gone quiet and nothing comes in, the payment provider takes the difference by direct debit from the bank account you gave them.

We’ll email you if a refund takes your balance below zero, and there’s nothing you need to do about it in the meantime.

If an order never gets posted

If an order sits unposted long enough for the shopper to raise an issue, we hold that money and look at it by hand. It won’t release on a timer, because nothing has been made or sent. We’ll either refund the shopper or release it to you, and a person at Luma decides which.

Where to check

Finances shows all of it: what’s pending, what’s available, what’s held and when it releases, and every past payout broken down.