Headline News:

We are increasing the voluntary transaction fees that people pay when they tip you.

Why the change?

Increased security fees that we’re paying mean we’re now losing money on each tip, especially on small to medium ones. So, we’re increasing the voluntary fees that tippers pay on those smaller tips.

What is the increase?

The difference is small, at least as far as the tipper is concerned. For them, there shouldn’t be much of a psychological difference between tipping an extra £0.37 or an extra £0.50 (or $0.50 / €0.50 etc, depending on your currency).

And yet, the difference for us is whether we can pay our bills.

How will this affect you?

We will pay close attention to how this change affects the tips street performers receive. If there is a significant change (and I have to repeat: we don’t think this is likely), we’ll consider other options.

Country-by-Country Breakdown

Unfortunately, the transaction fees Stripe charges in each currency differ. This means that we can’t have a one-size-fits-all approach.

So, here’s a breakdown of the voluntary fee we add on top of tips in each currency. Click on your country/region flag to view the new fees.

Tip amount New transaction fee
From 1 to 4 AUD 0.50 AUD
From 5 to 9 AUD 1.00 AUD
From 10 to 15 AUD 1.20 AUD
From 16 to 800 AUD 7% of the amount
Tip amount New transaction fee
From 1 to 4 CAD 0.50 CAD
From 5 to 9 CAD 1.00 CAD
From 10 to 15 CAD 1.20 CAD
From 16 to 700 CAD 7% of the amount
Tip amount New transaction fee
From 1 € to 4 € 0.50 €
From 5 € to 15 € 1.00 €
From 16 € to 500 € 7% of the amount
Tip amount New transaction fee
From £1 to £4 £0.50
From £5 to £15 £1.00
From £16 to £500 7% of the amount
Tip amount New transaction fee
From 1 to 4 USD 0.50 USD
From 5 to 15 USD 1.00 USD
From 16 to 500 USD 7% of the amount
Tip amount New transaction fee
From kr 5 to kr 24 kr 3
From kr 25 to kr 85 kr 6
From kr 86 to kr 3500 7% of the amount
Tip amount New transaction fee
From 1 to 24 HKD 4 HKD
From 25 to 114 HKD € 8 HKD
From 115 to 4000 HKD 7% of the amount
Tip amount New transaction fee
From 100¥ to 75,000¥ 7% of the amount
Tip amount New transaction fee
From 5 to 24 RM 2 RM
From 25 42 RM 5 RM
From 43 to 2000 RM 7% of the amount
Tip amount New transaction fee
From 1 to 4 NZD 0.50 NZD
From 5 to 15 NZD 1.00 NZD
From 16 to 900 NZD 7% of the amount
Tip amount New transaction fee
From kr 10 to kr 39 kr 4
From kr 40 to kr 114 kr 8
From kr 115 to kr 5500 7% of the amount
Tip amount New transaction fee
From zł 4 to zł 24 zł 2
From zł 25 to zł 71 zł 5
From zł 72 to zł 2000 7% of the amount
Tip amount New transaction fee
From 1 to 4 SGD 0.80 SGD
From 5 to 22 SGD 1.60 SGD
From 23 to 700 SGD 7% of the amount
Tip amount New transaction fee
From kr 10 to kr 24 kr 3
From kr 25 to kr 85 kr 6
From kr 86 to kr 5500 7% of the amount
Tip amount New transaction fee
From Fr 1 to Fr 4 Fr 0.50
From Fr 5 to Fr 15 Fr 1.00
From Fr 16 to Fr 500 7% of the amount

Again, we don’t believe that this will affect the tips you receive. However, we will be monitoring our data, and if there’s a big change we’ll look at other options!

Why is there a voluntary fee?

Stripe charges a fee to process transactions. In other words, every tip made on our platform has a transaction fee deducted by Stripe. We would also like to earn enough from tips to cover our costs. So, we add a voluntary fee on top of the transaction — so that you lose less money from your tips.

Our logic is this: Paying $0.50 extra on a $4.00 tip won’t make a huge difference to the tipper. But if you were losing a significant amount of money on every tip, that would make a big difference to you.

How much you'll earn

This means that you will lose a lot less money. In fact, currently, tippers pay the fees 93% of the time. So for every £10.00 you are tipped, you should earn an average of £9.95. To read more about it, see our “Pricing on The Busking Project explained” blog post.

But let’s say, for example, that twice as many people chose not to pay that fee. Then, instead of people paying the fee 93% of the time, that dropped to 86% of the time. In that case, you’d still earn an average of £9.90 on every £10 tipped — a change of 0.5% overall.