Money

Payouts and fees

Customer payments settle into Hlawula's FirstRand account. Each payout takes everything settled since the last one, holds back the tax we owe, deducts card processing and our fee, and sends you the rest over the RMB API.

Fees

Fee	Amount	Charged on
Hlawula fee	5%	The amount the customer paid, tax included
Card processing (PayFast or Peach)	2.9% + R 5.00 per payment	The amount the customer paid, passed through at cost
Monthly or setup fees	None

A worked example

A buyer in South Africa pays for the Pro plan at R 999.00.

Line	Amount
Customer is charged (R 999.00 + VAT 15%)	R 1,148.85
VAT held back for SARS	− R 149.85
Card processing, 2.9% + R 5.00	− R 38.32
Hlawula fee, 5%	− R 57.44
Your payout	R 903.24

Run a payout

Payouts run weekly. You can also run one now from the dashboard or the API:

bash

curl -X POST $HLAWULA_URL/api/payouts/run

Response

{
  "id": "po_14",
  "periodStart": "2026-11-08",
  "periodEnd": "2026-11-09",
  "grossCents": 4340620,
  "aggregatorFeesCents": 145878,
  "morFeesCents": 217031,
  "taxRemittedCents": 498120,
  "netCents": 3479591,
  "status": "processing",
  "bankRef": "RMB-API-284713",
  "createdAt": "2026-11-09T12:02:11Z"
}

grossCents is what customers paid, tax included. netCents is gross less the three deductions. If nothing has settled since the last payout you get 400 nothing_to_settle.

Every payout moves from scheduled to processing to paid, and carries the RMB bank reference you'll see on your statement.

Planned

Real RMB API transfers, a rolling reserve while chargeback history builds up, and refunds deducted from the next payout. The demo creates the payout record without moving money.