What Fee-Lion’s Platform Fee Means for Your Payouts

When a client taps Pay on your invoice, the money lands in your own Stripe account, not ours. Fee-Lion charges a small platform fee on top of Stripe’s processing, and this article lays it out plainly so you always know exactly what hits your bank.

Where your money actually goes

Fee-Lion uses Stripe Connect, which means card payments flow straight into your Stripe account, the one you linked at Settings → Preferences. We never hold your funds. We’re just the software that built the invoice and pressed the button.

Every successful card payment has two pieces taken out before it settles:

• Stripe’s processing fee — the standard card-processing rate Stripe charges any business that takes payments online. This goes to Stripe, not to us.
• Fee-Lion’s platform fee — a small percentage that keeps the lights on so we can keep building. This is the only cut we take, and it only applies when you actually get paid.

That second point is the important one: the platform fee is success-based. No payment, no fee. Your monthly plan covers the app itself; the platform fee only shows up when a client’s card clears.

Bank payments (ACH): capped

Clients can also pay from their US bank account in the portal. It takes 3–5 business days to clear, and it’s much cheaper on big invoices:

• Stripe’s ACH fee is 0.8%, capped at $5.
• Fee-Lion’s platform fee is the same percentage as on cards, but capped at $10 per payment on Solo and $5 on Studio.

So a $10,000 invoice paid by bank costs you about $15 all-in on Solo, instead of hundreds on a card. Turn it on under Settings → Preferences → Invoices → Bank Payments (ACH) once your Stripe account shows bank payments as active.

Reading your payout

Want to see the real numbers on any paid invoice? Here’s the quickest path.

1. Open Invoices from the left sidebar and click a paid invoice.
2. Look at the payment record on the invoice — it shows the amount the client paid.
3. Open your linked Stripe dashboard to see the exact processing fee and your net deposit for that charge.
4. For the bigger picture, head to Reports and use Drill down your revenue to track what you’ve collected over time.

Tip: The platform fee only applies to payments taken through Fee-Lion (card, or bank with the cap above). If a client pays you by check, wire or cash outside Fee-Lion, just log it with Record an offline payment — no platform fee, no Stripe fee, the full amount is yours.

Keeping more of every invoice

A few habits help your take-home number stay healthy:

• Build fees into your pricing. When you set rates on an estimate, you can quietly account for processing costs the same way any business does. Your tax and deposit defaults live at Settings → Preferences.
• Collect a deposit up front. Setting a deposit percentage on an estimate gets cash in the door early and reduces the awkward chase later.
• Use auto-pay for recurring work. Recurring invoices with auto-pay turned on settle on schedule without anyone lifting a finger — predictable income, predictable fees.
• Log offline payments honestly. Anything paid outside the card flow stays fee-free and still shows up correctly in your reports.

The whole point of being transparent here is so there are no surprises. You see the gross on the invoice, Stripe shows you the net deposit, and the small platform fee in between is the only thing Fee-Lion takes for turning your work into a paid invoice. That’s it.

What’s next

• Connect Stripe to get paid
• Record an offline payment
• Take a partial payment
• Drill down your revenue