Campaign payout reference: eligibility, periods, held funds, and outside payments

How campaign payouts work

Adding money to Creator Community → Payments funds your community balance. It does not automatically transfer money to creators. Review the earned amounts, then use the campaign's Pay controls or bulk payout dialog to release eligible cash payments.

1. Add funds and check the available balance, not only pending deposits.
2. Open the campaign and select the relevant period if it recurs or uses dynamic retainers.
3. Review approval, qualifying content, earned rewards, prior payments, and payout availability.
4. Review the payment dialog and confirm the selected creators and amounts.
5. Check the result and payment history. A bulk action can have different results for different creators; retry only the payments that failed.

A campaign budget or race pool is a reward limit, not money already deposited into your community balance.

When payouts become available

There is no single “all campaigns must be Completed” rule:

• Leaderboards: placement payouts unlock when the campaign is completed, after its configured collection/finalization window.
• Bingo: an unpaid creator with a qualifying winning line can have a payout available without waiting for everyone else to finish.
• Races: payout controls use the allocated amount and the campaign finishing or exhausting its pool.
• Contests and retainers: review the relevant campaign/period, earned or assigned reward, and available payment controls. Recurring and dynamic campaigns track payments by period; the whole campaign need not end before every previous period can be paid.

For fixed/dynamic schedules that support it, the grace period allows delayed metrics to settle. Recurring contests/retainers are configured without grace. It allows new late posts only when Allow new posts during the grace period is enabled. See dates and content tracking.

A live amount-owed forecast is not necessarily an unlocked payment. Use the actual payout controls and period status to determine what can be released.

Payment methods and physical prizes

• Stripe: the current cash payout flow, where supported.
• PayPal: appears on some legacy campaigns; it is not selectable for new campaigns.
• None / prize-only: there is no cash transfer for a physical-prize-only reward. The brand arranges fulfillment.

Where a campaign offers both cash and prizes, review the cash payment and physical-prize fulfillment separately. Paying cash does not ship an item.

Creators who have not finished Stripe setup: held payouts

A missing or incomplete creator payout account does not always prevent the brand from paying. The payment dialog identifies payments that will be held:

• The amount is deducted from the brand's balance now and recorded against the creator's reward.
• It is held until the creator connects a usable payout account; no Stripe transfer has happened yet.
• Once the creator finishes the required setup, the held payment can be released automatically.

A creator can therefore be marked paid on the brand side while their money is still held for setup. Check the transfer/held status before claiming money has reached their bank or paying them a second time. Use the payout-setup reminder controls where needed.

Require Stripe setup before joining is a separate campaign access setting. With it enabled, onboarding is a joining prerequisite; with it disabled, a creator may join first and complete setup later.

Record an outside payment

If you paid a creator outside Cruva, use Record outside payment to record that settlement for the correct creator and period. Recording it does not send another payment through Stripe. Review the amount and period carefully to keep the outstanding balance accurate.

See Adding funds and payment history for the basic payments workflow.