Step 8: Getting Paid

You’ve created your story, you’ve successfully promoted it, and you're tracking audience engagement and your earnings for their reads and pledges through Stats. Now how do you tap into ALL of your earnings?

What's in Your Wallet?

Your Vocal Wallet is all things money: Tips, pledges, monthly earning per reads, bonuses, Top Stories, your current balance, and the links to your Stripe dashboard or to request a Stripe payout. Find your Wallet by clicking on your profile avatar in the upper right corner of a page, and choosing Wallet from the dropdown that appears.

Tips and Pledges: Sent once a month

Reminder: Stripe must be connected to receive any and all Vocal creator earnings, tips, and pledges. Two of your earnings are sent directly once a month: Tips and Pledges.

• Stripe allows your readers to send you Tips, using Apple Pay or their credit or debit card.
• Think of Pledges as recurring tips: they sign up to have $2.99 deducted once a month, and after Vocal and Stripe fees you will receive $2.30 a month per pledge deposited automatically into your Stripe account.

Reading Your Wallet

Aside from tips and pledges, Vocal also pays you for the engagement your stories receive. Every time your story is read, it’s calculated by Vocal, tracked in your Stats, and the earnings automatically accrue in your Wallet where you’re able to check them at any time.

Your Vocal Wallet keeps track of the following:

• Earnings from Reads reflects the information from Stats and displays the views and engagement you have received from your stories, and how much that's generated in earnings.
• Withdrawn keeps track of how much money you have withdrawn from your earnings into your Stripe account.
• Current Balance shows you how much money you currently have available in your Vocal account. In order to request a withdrawal, you will need to reach your withdrawal minimum of $35, (or just $20 for Vocal+ creators.) Your Withdrawal minimum and current balance will include all money that is in your Vocal account count including any bonuses (such as for a Top Story) that you have received since any previous withdrawals.
• Tips and pledges keeps track of the micro-transactions you have received. Tips and pledges do not show in your Current Balance as they are transferred directly into your account.
• Your Transaction History includes any tips from your audience, withdrawal logs, bonuses, and weekly earning round-ups.

Learn more about your Vocal Wallet here.

How your read earnings are calculated

Your reads are calculated on a CPM (cost per thousand) basis. Free Vocal creators earn $3.80 per every 1,000 reads; Vocal+ members earn $6.00 per every 1,000 reads. Once your earnings and any bonuses received reach your withdrawal minimum ($35 for free Vocal creators, or just $20 for Vocal+ creators), the “Request Withdrawal” button becomes available to you.

Requesting a withdrawal

Before you request your withdrawal, double check your Stripe Dashboard, which you can access through the Dashboard link in your Wallet. Always be sure that all of your information is kept up to date—you wouldn’t want your withdrawal to be sent to an expired debit card or closed bank account.

To make the request click on the Request to Withdraw box and complete the request for the withdrawal to be sent to your Stripe account.

Once the withdrawal has been requested, the request will be included in your Transaction History, and you can track the progress with status changes until you see the funds reflected in your bank account. It can take 10-20 days to move to Stripe and to show up in your bank account, converted to your local currency. For much of that time you will see 'Pending' as the status of the withdrawal.

Congratulations! You Won a Challenge!

Challenges work a little bit differently. If you’re one of our selected winners or runner-ups, you’ll receive an email notification to the address associated with your account. Someone from our team will also reach out to you via your email address to collect any necessary tax or shipping information that we’ll need before we can send over payment. Once we have any applicable info we’ll need from you, we can provide your prize.

If the Challenge had a cash prize, we’ll send the prize money to your Stripe account, and it’ll be automatically exchanged to your local currency if necessary. If the prize you’ve won is an item, we’ll send it to whatever shipping address you provide.

Challenge monetary payments are, as per industry standards, typically concluded within 90 days after the winners have been announced.

What about taxes?

At the end of each year, if your earnings total the threshold required by law for us to provide you with tax forms, we'll do so. If you've already provided us with your tax information, we'll send the applicable forms to you by mail; if we're missing any required information, we'll reach out to you via email and ask you to complete a quick form to give us any additional information we need. Then you'll receive the required documentation in the mail.

Any other questions about getting paid? You can find a section all about how payments work in our Help Center here.

Congratulations! You’ve shared your stories, grown your fan base, and earned some money. Now, let’s do it again. And Again. And Again!

Step 9: Staying Inspired→