Payout hold and refund window

What is being held

When a buyer pays, your share of the sale is recorded straight away but flagged as held until the refund window for that sale has closed. While the money is held it is counted in your projected earnings but is not yet available for payout to your bank account.

The hold is not a penalty, it is a buffer. Most refund requests happen within the refund window, and holding the matching amount means a refund can be issued without asking you to return money that has already landed in your account.

How long is the hold

14 days by default, counted from the buyer's licence creation date. The hold matches the buyer's refund window exactly: see Refunds and disputes.

The hold is per sale, not per vendor. Each sale has its own release date. Sales from different days release on different days; you are not waiting for a single timer to expire.

Where you see held earnings

On your earnings page the Sales card has a row of filter chips. The chips that matter here are:

Pending release - sales still within the refund window. Each row shows the package, your net share, and the date the hold ends.
Released - sales whose window has closed. Packagento has paid your share out to your bank, or has the payout in flight.
Refunded - sales where a refund was approved during the hold. Your share for that sale is zero.

A fourth chip, Paid by Stripe, appears for vendors in Brazil, India, and Japan where Stripe enforces its own automatic payout schedule. Those rows are paid out by Stripe directly rather than through the per-sale release flow.

Release is automatic

You do not need to do anything to release held earnings. Once the window for a sale ends, Packagento pays your share out from your Stripe connected account to your bank on the next release run.

If a release ever cannot complete (for example because your Stripe account has paused capabilities or has an outstanding balance shortfall), the row stays visible on the Pending release chip. Open your Stripe Connect dashboard, resolve any outstanding items, then contact support to retry the release.

What happens on a refund

If a refund is approved while a sale is still being held, your share of that sale is taken back out of the held amount and the row moves to the Refunded chip. No money has to be returned from your bank account because it was never paid out yet.

Refunds approved after the window are rare, but when they happen the refund is taken out of your Stripe connected balance rather than from a held row.

Subscriptions

Each subscription renewal creates its own held entry with its own release date. If a buyer requests a refund on a specific renewal, only that renewal's entry is affected. Earlier renewals that have already cleared the window are not touched.

Troubleshooting

A held amount does not look familiar: check the creation date against the buyer's purchase. The held entry may belong to a subscription renewal rather than a fresh sale; your activity feed shows the original purchase.
The release date has passed but the row is still pending: release runs once an hour, at the top of the hour. A row whose release date passes mid-hour rolls over to the next run. If it is still pending several hours after the date, contact support.
Release failed: most commonly the Stripe account has outstanding requirements. Open your Stripe Connect dashboard, resolve them, then contact support to retry.

Stuck on a release? Get in touch through our contact form with your vendor slug and the date of the sale.