Sending your first guide payout? This walkthrough covers exactly how to schedule direct deposit (ACH) payments to your guides — and, just as importantly, what happens after you hit Send so you can be confident it's done right.
Before you start
Two things need to be in place before you can pay anyone:
Each guide has connected their bank account and shows as Automatic. On your Guide List, a ready guide shows Connected with an Automatic payment method. If a guide hasn't connected yet, you won't be able to send them money — have them finish connecting first. This is the single most important step. Understanding guide bank account status
ACH debit is set up in your Payment Settings. How to set up ACH debit for guide payments
Check your payout schedule
In Payment Settings, review your guide payout schedule so you know your cutoff dates. For example, if you pay on the 1st and the 15th, those are the dates your scheduled payments will go out.
To set or change your payout schedule, see Understanding Payment Settings.
Important cutoff: Schedule your payments before 11:59 pm MT on your payout date (e.g., the 1st or the 15th). Anything scheduled after the cutoff processes in the next cycle.
Schedule your payments in bulk (recommended)
The Guide Payments tab is the fastest way to pay everyone for a pay period at once.
Go to the Guide Payments tab.
Filter to the pay period you're covering — for example, June 1–15 — so everything you owe is on one page.
Click Submit payments in the top right.
Review each guide's total. To change what a guide receives, enter the difference in the adjustments column — adjustments are added to the base payout, not substituted for it, and can be negative. Confirm the row total before you send.
Select the payments you want to process, then click Send.
Pressing Send schedules the payment — it does not send money right away. Your guides are paid out on your next scheduled payout date (for example, the 15th at 11:59 pm MT), not the moment you click Send. You can schedule payments any time during the pay period and they'll all go out together on that date.
Prefer to pay trip by trip?
You can also schedule payments one booking at a time from the Invoice Summary — some outfitters do this at the end of each trip or each day. Just like the bulk method, these are scheduled, not sent immediately.
When your guides get paid
Scheduled payments process overnight after your payout-date cutoff.
Funds typically reach your guides within 3–5 business days.
Your very first payout can take a little longer — sometimes into the following week — and then speeds up for future cycles.
One 1.2%, capped at $8 Stripe processing fee applies per payout batch, no matter how many guides are included.