These terms cover how payment is arranged today, and the platform fees, GST, milestone funding, release and refund mechanics that apply once the in-platform payment step is switched on. They form part of the terms of use.
Payments are arranged directly between you and the provider. Serproz does not collect or hold the payment. The milestone mechanics on this page describe the in-platform payment step, which is not switched on yet.
The funding, release and refund mechanics are set out in full so they can be read before they go live. Until they do, no Serproz-held milestone exists on a job and nothing on this page describes money Serproz is holding today.
Where a fee does apply, the fee schedule in force is snapshotted onto the job before any charge exists. A later change to the schedule does not reach back into a job already priced.
Last updated 15 September 2026. Terms version payment-terms-2026-09-15-v2. These terms apply to payments made through Serproz.
Current payment arrangement
Payments are arranged directly between you and the provider. Serproz does not collect or hold the payment.
The milestone funding, release and refund mechanics below are published in advance and apply to a job only once the in-platform payment step is switched on. Until then no milestone is funded, Serproz holds nothing, and the price you agree with the provider is settled between the two of you.
All amounts are in New Zealand dollars.
Money is held and calculated in whole cents throughout. There is no floating-point arithmetic anywhere in the money path, so a total never drifts by a cent between what you were shown and what was charged.
Every fee calculation uses one rounding rule, applied consistently, and the resulting lines always sum to the total shown.
No platform fee is charged to a customer in the current phase, because Serproz does not take the payment. This is how a fee behaves wherever one does apply: fees are held as versioned data rather than written into the product, and the version that applies to your job is fixed at the moment the job is priced.
Snapshotted, not floating: The active fee schedule is copied onto the milestone before a charge is created, together with its version number. Changing the schedule afterwards does not change a job already priced under an earlier version.
Two separate fees: A customer platform fee, and a provider service fee. They are calculated independently and shown separately. One party's fee is never quietly recovered from the other.
The provider fee is capped per job: The provider service fee is calculated across the job as a whole and is subject to a maximum for that job, so a job with many milestones is not charged as if it were many jobs.
Shown before you confirm: The exact fee amounts and the GST on them are displayed at checkout and on the milestone. Nothing on this page overrides the figures you were shown at that moment.
Current rates are not printed on this page because they are configuration, not policy — publishing a number here would make the page wrong the first time the schedule is versioned. The commitment that does not change is the one above: what you were shown is what applies.
GST is charged on Serproz platform fees at the New Zealand rate and is shown as its own line, separate from the fee it applies to. It is not folded into the fee to make the fee look smaller.
GST on the work itself is a matter between you and the provider, and depends on whether that provider is GST registered. Serproz does not collect or account for GST on the provider's own charge for the work.
When a fee is refunded, the GST charged on that fee is refunded with it, in the same proportion.
The operating entity’s GST registration number is not published on this site yet. Until it is, a job’s fee lines and their GST are shown in the job workspace, and a request for the tax details of a specific payment can be made through the support page. The number will be published on the contact page and repeated here once it is set.
A job is broken into milestones that match the work, and money is designed to follow the same shape. None of this is in use in the current phase: there is no funding step in the product today, and the paragraphs below describe what happens on a job only after the in-platform payment step is switched on.
Funded before the work starts: Where the step is in use, you fund a milestone before the provider begins that stage. Funding is what turns an agreement into a commitment on both sides.
Held, not paid out: A funded milestone would be held: not with the provider, and not spendable by Serproz as revenue. It is released, refunded or split, and always for a recorded reason. No milestone is funded or held today.
One stage at a time: Milestones are funded in sequence, so you would never be asked to commit the whole job before the first stage of it has been delivered.
Card handling: When the step goes live, card details are entered into a payment field rendered by the payment provider. Serproz does not receive or store your full card number, and cannot charge your card outside the amount you confirmed. In the current phase Serproz takes no card details for a job at all.
Once a milestone can be funded, there are exactly three ways money leaves it. Nothing else moves it. Again, this describes the step that is not yet switched on.
You accept the work: The provider submits completion with evidence, you review it, and accepting releases that milestone.
Auto-release after seven days: If completion has been submitted and you neither accept nor dispute it, the milestone releases seven days later. You are notified when the clock starts and told the date it will release on.
A dispute outcome: A dispute can end in a full release, a full refund, a defined split, or a rework plan with a new acceptance date. That outcome, and not the seven-day clock, then governs the money.
What release means for the provider: A released milestone becomes payable to the provider, less the provider service fee and its GST, and is paid out through the payout process in the provider dashboard.
Opening a dispute before the seven days elapse freezes that milestone. Other milestones on the same job are unaffected and continue on their own timeline.
A refund is something Serproz can only issue against money it took. In the current phase it never takes the payment, so a refund is a matter between you and the provider under your own arrangement and your statutory rights. The mechanics below apply once the in-platform payment step is switched on.
What comes back: A refunded milestone returns the milestone amount plus the customer platform fee and the GST on that fee. You are not left paying a platform fee for work that did not happen.
Where it goes: Back to the original payment method. A refund cannot be redirected to a different card or account.
How it is recorded: A refund is a durable, recoverable money operation with balanced ledger entries, not a one-off call. If a step fails it is retried and completed rather than lost, and it is never applied twice.
Partial amounts: A part-refund is a dispute split with a written rationale. Cancellation refunds the milestone in full or not at all.
Timing: Serproz issues the refund immediately. When it lands on your statement is determined by your bank and card scheme.
The stage-by-stage cancellation rules are on the cancellations and refunds page.
Payments are arranged directly between you and the provider. Serproz does not collect or hold the payment. This is how every job on Serproz is paid for in the current phase, so be clear about what it means.
A payment made directly to the provider is not held, cannot be released or refunded by Serproz, and is outside the milestone dispute process, because Serproz never had the money.
Agree the price, the scope and the payment timing with the provider in writing before the work starts, and keep the provider's own invoice and receipt. That record is what a Disputes Tribunal or a Consumer Guarantees Act claim runs on.
The job workspace still holds the written scope, the messages, the quote you accepted and any photographs. Serproz keeps that record whether or not it handles the money.
Once the in-platform payment step is switched on, taking a job introduced through Serproz off-platform specifically to avoid fees, while still relying on the platform's records or protections, is a breach of the terms of use.
Serproz charges nothing for a job in the current phase, so there is no Serproz charge to fail or to reverse. These are the rules for a charge Serproz does make, including once the in-platform payment step is switched on.
A failed charge: If a card is declined the milestone simply stays unfunded and the work does not start. Nothing is held and there is no penalty.
Raise a dispute here first: If you are unhappy with the work, the dispute process is faster than a bank chargeback and produces a reasoned outcome. Going straight to your bank does not speed anything up and can freeze the job while it is investigated.
If Serproz gets a charge wrong: Report it through support with the job reference. A charge that should not have been made is refunded, and the correction is recorded against the job like any other money movement.
Every movement is auditable: Funding, release, refund, split and fee capture each write a balanced, append-only record. Serproz can always show you why a number is what it is.
These payment terms carry a version string so a job can be read against the text that applied to it. The current version is payment-terms-2026-09-15-v2. A change takes effect for jobs priced after it is published; a job already priced keeps the fee schedule version snapshotted onto it.
These terms form part of the terms of use and do not limit the statutory rights described on the your rights page.
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