💵 Why Doesn’t the Math Always “Add Up”?
(It Actually Does!)
🧠 TL;DR
If your payout looks like $353.05, and you’re thinking:
“Hmm… I was charged $363.90, and the fees were $10.86 — but that should leave $353.04, not $353.05…”
You’re not wrong to ask! But this isn’t a mistake — it’s just how tiny fractions of a cent work in payments. Here’s what’s really happening 👇
🧩 What You See
Let’s look at your payment:
Total charged: $363.90
Fees: $10.86
Payout: $353.05
If you subtract: $363.90 - $10.86 = $353.04
But your payout says $353.05.
🧠 What’s Actually Happening
Behind the scenes, that $10.86 fee isn’t just one number. It’s made up of several smaller fees, like:
An authorization fee
A discount rate (percentage of the charge)
Other platform or network fees
Each one is calculated separately. These tiny parts sometimes come out like:
$0.305
$10.555
$0.0002
They get rounded individually before they’re shown to you as a single fee total ($10.86).
But when we calculate your final payout, we use the original exact values (before rounding). That’s why you might see a one-penny difference in your payout.
🍕 Pizza Example Time!
Let’s say you split a pizza into three parts, and each person gets about 33.33%.
That totals 99.99%, not 100%.
One tiny crumb of pizza is left over.
That crumb has to go somewhere.
Same thing happens with money. Tiny fractions of a penny (crumbs!) are part of the real math, and when the system totals them up, one extra penny may go to the payout — even if the fees look like they already added up cleanly.
✅ The Bottom Line
No money is lost or missing.
The math is correct, even if it doesn’t look perfect at first glance.
We use high-precision math behind the scenes, then round for display.
This is how modern payment systems handle real-world money — and it’s all industry standard and compliant.
🧾 Want to double-check?
If you’re ever curious about a specific transaction, reach out and we’ll gladly walk through it with you. We can show you exactly how those pennies were sliced!