Fees and Payouts
Exactly how the Vwaza Merch Store makes money, how your earnings flow through escrow, and when the cash hits your account.
The commercial model in one paragraph
Vwaza takes a flat 15% commission on the gross item value of every merchandise order. The remaining 85% is yours. Buyer payments are held in escrow until the order has been Shipped and a 14-day buyer dispute window has cleared. After that, your portion is released into the next bi-weekly payout, which runs on the 1st and 15th of each month at 08:00 UTC. Funds are converted from USD into your settlement currency (for example, MWK for mobile money) using the day's exchange rate.
Commission: 15%
What the commission covers
- Payment processing (PayChangu and PawaPay).
- Currency conversion from buyer currency to USD and back to your payout currency.
- Escrow infrastructure that protects both you and the buyer.
- Hosting, bandwidth, and the storefront experience on store.vwaza.com.
- Buyer support during disputes.
- Anti-fraud and chargeback handling.
Commission applies to items, not shipping
Escrow and the 14-day dispute window
When a buyer pays, the money does not go straight to you. It goes into a Vwaza escrow hold. The hold moves through these states:
Escrow lifecycle
- AWAITING_PAYMENT. Order placed but payment not yet confirmed by the provider.
- HOLDING. Payment confirmed. The order is paid and protected. The seller can ship.
- DISPUTE_WINDOW. The seller marked the order as Shipped. A 14-day countdown starts.
- ELIGIBLE. The 14 days have passed with no dispute. Your share is queued for the next bi-weekly payout.
- PAID_OUT. Your share has been disbursed.
- REFUNDED. The buyer was refunded; your share for this order goes back to them.
The dispute window protects buyers and gives them confidence to spend with you. It also means you should mark orders as Shipped quickly: the 14 days only start counting down once you do.
Payout cadence: 1st and 15th
Vwaza runs the bi-weekly payout job twice a month: on the 1st and the 15th, at 08:00 UTC. The job aggregates every escrow hold of yours that is in the ELIGIBLE state and disburses one combined payment via your chosen mobile money provider or bank account.
What gets paid
- Every order whose dispute window cleared before the cycle's cut-off.
- Each payout is one transfer with one record on the Studio dashboard, even if it covers many orders.
- You can drill into a payout to see the underlying orders and the exchange rate used.
When will I see my money?
Currency conversion at payout
Vwaza's internal accounting is in USD. At payout time we convert your USD net into your settlement currency (typically MWK for mobile money) using the day's rate. The exchange rate used is snapshotted on the payout record so you always know exactly what rate you got and what the original USD amount was.
Failed payouts and retries
If a payout fails (for example, a temporary mobile money outage or a wrong account number), Vwaza automatically retries once a day for up to 5 attempts. After that, the payout is paused and our team contacts you to fix the underlying issue. You will see the failed status in Studio along with the provider's reason.
Worked example
From sale to payout
- A fan in Malawi pays the MWK equivalent of $20 for one of your t-shirts. They also pay your $5 flat shipping fee. Total charge: $25.
- Vwaza records the gross item value as $20 USD. Commission: $20 x 0.15 = $3. Your net on items: $17.
- Shipping ($5) is yours in full. Total owed to you for this order: $22.
- You ship the order and mark it Shipped on day 2. The 14-day dispute window starts.
- On day 16, no dispute has been raised. The escrow hold becomes ELIGIBLE.
- On the next 1st or 15th, the payout job aggregates this and any other eligible orders, converts $22 to MWK at the day's rate, and sends it to your Airtel Money account.
Open question