Payouts

trackagoat's Payouts feature lets operators define how creators are compensated, track outstanding balances, and record payments: all inside the platform, without spreadsheets.

Setting up payment methods#

Payout methods represent the platforms or channels you use to pay creators: for example Venmo, Cash App, PayPal, or a custom method like "Bank transfer".

Default methods#

Every org starts with three built-in methods: Venmo, Cash App, and PayPal. These are pre-configured and cannot be deleted, but they can be disabled if you don't use them.

Adding a custom method#

1. 1

   Go to Org Settings

   Go to Org Settings → Payout Methods.

2. 2

   Click Add method

   Click Add method.

3. 3

   Enter a name

   Enter a name (e.g. "Zelle", "Bank transfer").

4. 4

   Optionally upload an icon

   Optionally upload an icon (PNG, JPEG, WebP, or SVG; max 1 MB).

5. 5

   Click Add method to save

   Click Add method to save.

Custom methods you create can be edited or deleted at any time.

Disabling a method#

If you stop using a payment platform, you can disable it so it no longer appears in payment dialogs:

1. 1

   Find the method in the list

   Find the method in the list.

2. 2

   Toggle the Active switch to off

   Toggle the Active switch to off.

Disabling a method does not affect historical payments that used it: those records are preserved with a snapshot of the method name.

To re-enable a disabled method, toggle the switch back on. Note: if your org has reached its method limit, you may need to delete a custom method first.

Method limits#

The number of custom payout methods available depends on your plan. Default methods (Venmo, Cash App, PayPal) count toward the limit.

---

Setting up payout structures#

Payout structures define how creators earn money. There are five rule types: recurring (flat per-period pay), goals-based (pay when Creator Goals are met), CPM (per-view, cost per 1,000 impressions), view threshold (a one-time bonus when a video crosses a view milestone), and conversions (pay for signups, purchases and other outcomes you record). A structure also sets the period and, for recurring and goals-based rules, the amount and how a partial-period assignment is prorated. CPM, view-threshold and conversion rules carry their rates in the criteria itself, so they have no flat amount. Structures are project-scoped and versioned: editing a rule creates a new version and only affects future accruals.

Platform scope#

Like goals, every payout structure carries an Applies to scope, set when you create it and stored on the structure version:

Accruals honor the scope: CPM impressions, goals-based compliance, and view-threshold crossings are all measured only from the accounts the scope includes. Changing the scope creates a new version and only affects future accruals, exactly like editing any other rule field. Structures created before Trackagoat 2.0 are scoped to TikTok, so their behavior is unchanged.

Setting up a recurring payout#

A recurring payout pays a creator a flat amount each period regardless of performance. Use it for guaranteed base pay.

1. 1

   Navigate to Payout Structures

   Navigate to Tools → Payout Structures and click New structure.

2. 2

   Basics step

   Give it a name (e.g. "Weekly base pay") and set the Period to Weekly. Enter the Amount in dollars (e.g. 50.00).

3. 3

   Criteria step

   Choose Recurring. No additional parameters are required.

4. 4

   Proration step

   Choose how mid-period assignments are handled:

   • Skip (default): if a creator is assigned mid-period, they don't earn for that period.
   • Prorate: they earn a fraction proportional to how many days they were assigned.
   • Pay in full: they earn the full amount regardless of when they were assigned.
5. 5

   Click Create to save

   Click Create to save.

After creating, assign it to creators from the structure's detail page (Assignments card) or via the bulk-action toolbar on the Creators page.

Setting up a goals-based payout#

A goals-based payout pays a creator only when they meet performance goals. The "criteria" controls whether all goals must be met, any one goal, or a specified minimum number.

1. 1

   Follow steps 1 and 2 above

   Follow steps 1 and 2 above, but set the Period to match your goals: e.g. Monthly if your goals are monthly.

2. 2

   Criteria step

   Choose Goals-based:

   • All goals: creator must meet every active goal in the matching period.
   • Any goal: meeting at least one goal qualifies.
   • N of M goals: enter how many goals must be met (e.g. 2 of 3).
3. 3

   Click Create

   Click Create.

Goals-based payouts and partial periods#

A goal counts only for full weeks or months inside its start and end dates (see Which periods count). A period where the creator's goal starts or ends partway through is not judged, so it pays nothing for that goal, and no accrual is created.

The creator's Payouts tab (and the expanded row in the Payouts tracker) lists these periods as No payout with the reason, for example "No payout this period: goal starts mid-period (Sun Sep 6). First eligible period: Oct 2026." The current period is listed too, marked Current period, so you can see it before it closes. These rows have no amount and nothing to approve.

Partial completion payouts (All goals mode only)#

When mode is All goals, you can enable partial completion so creators earn a fraction of the amount even when they miss one or more goals.

Toggle Allow partial completion payouts in the criteria form. Two additional fields appear:

How the partial amount is calculated:

1. For each active goal in the period, trackagoat measures actual / target (capped at 100% per goal).
2. Those per-goal fractions are averaged across all relevant goals → completion%.
3. If completion% is below the minimum threshold, no accrual is created.
4. Otherwise: payout = structure amount × completion% × multiplier.

The multiplier can't be above 1, so a partial payout is never more than the full amount. A creator who misses a goal can't earn more than one who meets them all.

Example: $500/month structure, partial enabled, multiplier 1.0, minimum 40%.

• Creator hits views goal (100%) but misses posts goal (60%) → avg 80% → payout = $400.
• Creator hits views goal (30%) and misses posts goal (20%) → avg 25% → below 40% floor → no payout.
• Creator hits both goals fully → full $500 (partial logic is skipped when all goals are met).

Setting up a CPM payout#

CPM (cost per 1,000 views) payouts pay creators for the views their videos get. Each period pays for the views the creator's videos gained since they were last paid, so a video keeps earning in later periods, not just the period it was posted in. Use it for performance-driven pay tied to reach.

Example (weekly, $0.50 per 1,000 views, views count forever): a video posted on Saturday has 20,000 views when the week closes, so that week pays $10.00. It reaches 500,000 views the following week, so the next week pays $240.00 for the 480,000 new views. Every view is paid once.

Only videos accepted into the program count: auto-tracked, included and directly added videos. A video still waiting in the Tracking Inbox (pending review) or excluded from tracking earns nothing until it is approved, and once it is approved the next period pays all of its views. Only videos posted while the creator is assigned count, and views stop counting when you unassign them.

CPM = (views gained in the period ÷ 1,000) × rate

1. 1

   Follow steps 1 and 2

   Follow steps 1 and 2, setting the Period to Daily, Weekly or Monthly. CPM structures have no Amount or Proration field: earnings come entirely from the tiers you set in the next step, and the period is how often new views are paid out.

2. 2

   Criteria step

   Choose CPM. Additional fields appear:

   • Count views for: how long after posting a video keeps earning. Forever (the default) pays for every view a video gets while it is tracked. Pick 7, 30, 60 or 90 days, or a custom number, to stop paying a video after that. A video earns in every period that starts before its window ends. Views also stop counting when a video stops being tracked (for example, when your organization's video age rule stops tracking it), so with Forever a video earns for as long as it is tracked.

   • Minimum views per period: the views a creator must gain in a period before it pays (e.g. 10,000). Views from a period below the minimum are not lost: they carry into the next period.

   • Max payout per period: an upper cap on earnings per period per creator (e.g. 500.00 to cap at $500/month).

   • CPM tiers: define rates by impression volume. Add rows to create tiered pricing:

     Up to (impressions)	Rate per 1,000
     1,000,000	$0.50
     (no cap)	$0.75

     In this example: views up to 1M earn $0.50/thousand; views above 1M earn $0.75/thousand. The final tier must have no cap.

3. 3

   Click Create

   Click Create.

When a CPM payout is final#

trackagoat calculates a CPM accrual once the period closes and the account has been reconciled. It pays each video's views up to that moment and records the count it paid up to. The accrual does not change after that: views the video gets later are paid by the next period, so you can pay a CPM accrual as soon as it appears without cutting the creator short.

Setting up a view-threshold payout#

View threshold incentives pay a creator a one-time bonus the first time any of their videos crosses a specific view count. Thresholds are per-video and per-milestone: they fire exactly once, permanently, regardless of future assignment changes.

Example: a $20 bonus when any video reaches 1,000,000 views, and a $100 bonus when any video reaches 2,000,000 views. Both can fire on the same video; they are independent.

How to set one up:

1. 1

   Go to Payout Structures

   Go to Project → Payout Structures → New structure.

2. 2

   Enter a name

   Enter a name, then on the Criteria step choose View Thresholds.

3. 3

   Add one or more milestones

   Add one or more milestones: each with a view count and a bonus amount.

4. 4

   Duplicate view counts in the same structure are not allowed

   Duplicate view counts in the same structure are not allowed.

5. 5

   Toggle Apply to existing videos

   Toggle Apply to existing videos if you want videos that already pass a milestone to trigger accruals immediately when you assign the structure to a creator. Leave it off if you only want future crossings to count.

6. 6

   Review and click Create structure

   Review and click Create structure.

Key differences from other structure types:

• There is no payment period, period amount, or proration mode: the bonus fires once per milestone per video.
• Accruals appear in the Creator's Payouts panel with a "Milestone" badge instead of a period range.
• On the video's detail page, you can see which milestones the video has triggered and how much it has earned.
• The Program Health dashboard shows a 30-day summary of threshold accruals across all threshold structures in the project.
• Only videos accepted into the program fire milestones (auto-tracked, included and directly added). A video pending review in the Tracking Inbox fires once it is approved, if it is still over the milestone.
• With Apply to existing videos off, a milestone a video had already passed before the creator was assigned does not fire. This is judged from the view counts trackagoat had recorded for the video by the assignment: a video with no recorded views from before the assignment (for example, one first found after you added the creator) is treated as new, so its milestones fire. After you unassign a creator, only milestones the video is recorded as passing by the time of the unassignment are paid.

How it differs from the Goals "views" metric: Creator Goals track aggregate views across all posts in a period. View threshold incentives track a single video's lifetime view count crossing a milestone. Both features coexist and serve different incentive patterns.

Setting up a conversion payout#

Pay creators for the outcomes they actually drive, using the conversions you already record.

1. Make sure the project has at least one conversion event (Tracking → Conversions → Manage events).
2. Create a structure and choose Conversions.
3. Pick a roll-up cadence:
   • Every conversion: each conversion becomes its own payout line as soon as it arrives.
   • Daily / Weekly / Monthly: a creator's conversions are summed into one line per period. Weekly can start on any day, so "every Tuesday" works.
4. Add the conversion events that count, and give each one a rate:
   • a flat amount per conversion (say $5 a signup), or
   • a percentage of the conversion's value (say 10% of every purchase).

There is no period amount to set: the rates carry the money.

Assigning a structure: when earning starts#

Assigning a structure asks two questions before it takes effect.

Start on period picks which period earning begins on. The options are real period boundaries in your org's analytics timezone: the period in progress, the next one, and the two after that. Choosing a later period means nothing accrues for the period already underway, which is the clean way to move a creator from one structure to another without the two overlapping.

First period only appears when you start on the period in progress, because that is the only case with a partial period to decide about. It has two settings, and what they do depends on the structure type:

The CPM row is the one worth pausing on. CPM earnings come from views, so "prorate" cannot mean a fraction of an amount, because there is no fixed amount. It moves the start of the window instead, and that start holds for every later period: with Include the whole period, videos posted earlier in the first period keep earning in later periods too.

Both questions appear wherever you assign: the bulk-action toolbar on the Creators page, the unassigned-creators banner, and the Add Creators dialog on a structure's own detail page.

Structures with no period (view-threshold, and conversion structures on the every conversion cadence) skip both questions. They fire per video or per conversion rather than per period, and their Apply to existing videos / backfill toggle already decides whether history counts.

Pro-ration mode#

The proration mode controls what happens when a creator is assigned or unassigned partway through a period:

Proration applies to recurring and goals-based structures only. CPM earnings already count only the views gained while the creator is assigned, so there is nothing to prorate; view-threshold and conversion structures pay per event and always use Skip.

The pro-ration mode set on the structure is the default for every period. The First period choice made when assigning a creator overrides it for that creator's first period only, so a structure set to Skip can still pay a prorated first period if you assign it that way.

Editing a structure and version history#

Editing rule fields (period, amount, criteria, proration) creates a new version. Editing only the name is cosmetic and doesn't create a version.

• Old accruals remain linked to the version that was active at the time they were computed: they are never retroactively changed.
• A confirmation dialog shows field-level diffs before you save.
• Version history is visible on the structure's detail page.
• The period and criteria type are fixed once a structure is in use (it has any accruals, or a creator has ever been assigned to it). Changing either would re-create pay for periods that were already computed under the old setup. To move creators to a different period or criteria type, create a new structure, assign them to it starting on the next period, and archive the old one. The amount, criteria settings and proration can still be edited.
• When you switch a structure that isn't in use yet to recurring, goals-based or CPM, you choose its period (and, for recurring and goals-based, its amount) as part of the switch; both appear in the confirmation diff.

Common patterns#

Base + bonus: assign two structures to the same creator: a Recurring weekly base pay, and a Goals-based monthly bonus. Accruals from both structures are separate and can be settled in a single payment.

Top-creator bonus: create a Goals-based monthly $200 structure with Any criteria, backed by a high-reach goal (e.g. 500K views). Assign it only to top-tier creators.

Tiered CPM with a floor: set min_impressions = 50,000 so a creator is paid once they gain 50,000 views (smaller periods carry over until they get there), and a two-tier CPM that rewards high-reach creators more per view.

Effort-based partial payout: create a Goals-based monthly structure with All goals mode, enable partial completion, set multiplier to 1.0 and minimum to 50%. Creators who come close but miss earn proportionally instead of nothing: reduces churn on near-misses without eliminating the incentive to fully meet goals.

Viral video incentive: create a View Threshold structure with a $20 milestone at 1M views and $100 at 5M views. Assign alongside a Recurring base pay structure. The threshold accruals fire once per video per milestone, permanently: creators are rewarded the moment any video crosses the bar, regardless of when it was posted.

---

Recording payments#

If your org pays creators through Dots, connect it and pay from trackagoat instead: the payment is sent and recorded in one step. See Paying creators with Dots.

Once accruals have been computed (the system runs hourly for all active assignments), organization admins can settle them by recording a payment. (Any organization member can view payouts; recording and voiding payments requires an org admin.)

How to mark accruals as paid#

1. 1

   Navigate to the creator's Payouts tab

   Navigate to a creator's detail page and click the Payouts tab.

2. 2

   Click Mark a payment as paid

   Click Mark a payment as paid. The sheet is a single form: every earned accrual arrives already checked and the running total is in the footer.

3. 3

   Uncheck anything you're not paying

   Uncheck any accrual you want to leave outstanding. Unchecking all of them records an ad-hoc payment instead (see below).

4. 4

   Click Record payment

   The total in the footer is what will be recorded.

Everything optional lives under Payment details, collapsed by default with its current values summarised on the header line:

• Amount: follows the checked accruals. Edit it to round, add a tip, or record a partial payment; Reset puts it back on the accrual sum.
• Payout method: Venmo, Cash App, and so on. Leave blank for cash or informal payments.
• Date paid: defaults to today. Backdate it to record a payment that was already sent (useful for backfilling historical payouts).
• Tracking URL, Receipt (a file: PDF, image, spreadsheet), and a free-form Note.

The section opens on its own when it holds something you have to fill in: an adjustment reason, or an amount when the creator has no outstanding accruals.

The selected accruals move from Earned to Paid and are locked. The payment appears in the per-creator payment history. Every open payouts view refreshes on its own: the tracker row, an expanded row's accruals list, and the creator's Payouts tab all reflect the new status without a reload.

Recording an ad-hoc payment#

Uncheck every accrual and enter an amount under Payment details. The system creates a payment row with an adjustment line for the full amount. This is useful for one-off bonuses, advances, or any payment not tied to a specific accrual period.

Adjustments: what they are and when they're created#

An adjustment is automatically created whenever the payment total differs from the sum of the selected accruals:

• Overpayment (+): you pay more than the accrual sum: e.g. adding a $5 tip to a $50 accrual creates a +$5 adjustment.
• Underpayment (−): you pay less: e.g. partial payment pending dispute.

When an adjustment is created, a reason is required. This keeps the audit trail meaningful. Good examples: "tip", "tax deduction", "underpayment pending bank clearance".

Adjustments do not create separate payments. They are attached to the payment row and visible in the payment history.

Supplemental amounts: owed on top of a paid accrual#

Sometimes a creator turns out to be owed more for a period you have already paid, for example when posts from that week are found after the payment. A paid accrual is never changed, so record the difference as a supplemental amount:

1. 1

   Find the paid accrual

   Expand the creator in the Payouts Tracker (or open their Payouts tab) and find the paid accrual for that period.

2. 2

   Add the amount

   Open the row's ⋯ menu and choose Add supplemental amount. Enter the amount owed and a reason, for example "Posts found after the week was paid". Only org admins see this option.

3. 3

   Pay it

   The amount appears in the creator's list labelled Supplemental: <reason> and counts toward their outstanding balance, the tracker totals and the CSV exports. The next time you click Mark as Paid for the creator it is listed and checked with their earned accruals, and recording the payment marks it Paid.

The original accrual and its payment stay exactly as they were. Voiding the payment that settled a supplemental amount makes it owed again. An owed one added by mistake can be voided from its row. Supplemental amounts can't be added for a removed creator: restore the creator first.

Voiding a payment#

To undo a recorded payment:

1. 1

   Find the payment

   Find the payment in the creator's payment history or the Payouts Tracker.

2. 2

   Click Void payment

   Click Void payment.

3. 3

   Confirm in the dialog

   Confirm in the dialog.

Voiding reverts the linked accruals back to Earned so they can be re-paid. The original payment record and audit trail are preserved: voiding never deletes data.

If voiding is blocked: you'll see an error explaining that one or more accruals have been re-paid in a newer payment. Void the newer payment first, then void the original.

Receipts#

Receipt files (attached in the Receipt field under Payment details when you record a payment) are stored privately: they are not publicly accessible. Only members of the organization can view them. Download links are available in the Payouts Tracker and the per-creator Payouts tab.

Note on tax reporting: trackagoat does not generate 1099s or tax documents. The CSV export gives you a full payments ledger you can share with an accountant.

---

Tracking payouts#

The Payouts Tracker is found under Payouts → Payouts in the project navigation. It gives you a creator-grouped view of what has been earned, what has been paid, and what is still outstanding: across your whole project in one place.

Totals#

Under the toolbar, three totals show Earned, Paid and Outstanding for whatever the toolbar is filtering. When anything is owed, Outstanding is highlighted in amber and shows how many creators it is owed to; select it to switch the table to outstanding creators only.

If some creators in the project have no payout structure, a blue note above the table names them, because they can't appear in the tracker until one is assigned. Assign a structure opens the assign dialog for them.

Filtering and date ranges#

Use the toolbar to narrow the view:

• Outstanding / All: toggle between creators with unpaid balances only (default) and all creators. All also lists creators who are assigned to a payout structure but have not earned anything yet (for example a creator added mid-week whose first weekly period has not closed, or a view-threshold creator with no video past the first threshold). They appear with $0 earned and their structure count, and expanding the row shows the in-progress periods that will settle next.
• Date range: filter which accruals and payments are included in the totals. Dates are calendar days in your org's analytics timezone. Defaults to all time.
• Search: type to filter creators by name or handle in the current view.
• Structure: filter to a specific payout structure to see only earnings from that rule. Paid then counts only payments applied to that structure's accruals; adjustments and ad-hoc payments can't be attributed to a structure, so they are left out of a structure-filtered view.
• Campaign: limit the tracker to creators represented by a campaign. This includes creators added directly, creators who own individually added videos, and creators reached through nested campaigns.
• Show removed creators: creators you removed from the project are hidden by default, and their balances are left out of the totals. When any of them still has unpaid earnings, a note under the totals says so, for example "15 removed creators have $3,661.23 unpaid. Show". Turn the switch on (or click Show) to list them, labelled Removed, and include them in the totals. A removed creator has no Pay button: restore the creator to record a payment for them.

All filters are reflected in the URL, so you can bookmark or share a filtered view.

Campaign filtering is creator-scoped because payments are recorded against a creator rather than a campaign. Selecting a campaign shows the matching creators' payout totals; it does not split or allocate one payment across campaigns.

Creator-grouped table#

Each row represents one creator. The columns are:

Every row, and the totals above the table, add up: Earned − Paid + Adjustments = Outstanding. The expanded row spells this out for the creator. With a date range set they can differ, because accruals are filtered by their period and payments by the date they were paid. With a structure filter, Adjustments shows $0: an adjustment belongs to a payment, not to a structure.

Click a row, or its arrow button, to expand it and see a detailed breakdown. On a phone the table shows the creator, Outstanding and the Pay button; expand a row for its accruals and payments.

Drill-down: accruals and payments tabs#

Expanding a creator row shows two tabs:

Accruals: one row per computed earning period. Each row shows:

• The structure name, period type (daily/weekly/monthly), and computed date
• The amount and current status (Earned, Paid, Rejected, Voided)
• Actions for earned accruals: Mark as Paid (opens the payment dialog pre-filled for this creator) and Reject (removes the accrual from outstanding totals without payment)

Payments: one row per recorded payment. Each row shows:

• Total amount, method, and date
• Number of accruals covered by the payment
• A receipt link if one was attached
• A Void action to undo the payment (restores linked accruals to Earned)

Mark a payment from the tracker#

You can record payments in two ways from the tracker:

1. 1

   Row-level Pay button

   Click Pay on a creator row that has outstanding accruals. The Mark as Paid dialog opens pre-filled for that creator.

2. 2

   Toolbar Mark as Paid button

   Click the button at the top-right of the toolbar to open the dialog without a pre-selected creator. The dialog asks who the payment is for first: search for a creator, or choose Ad-hoc (no creator) for a payment that isn't tied to one.

Charts#

Below the toolbar, two charts give a macro view of your spend:

• Spend over time: a daily line chart showing paid amounts and accrued amounts over the last 90 days (adjusted by active filters).
• Top creators by total paid: a horizontal bar chart of the 10 creators who have received the most in total payments.

Both charts update when you change the active filters.

Export to CSV#

Click Export in the toolbar to download data in CSV format. Three export types are available:

All exports respect your active filters (date range, creator selection, structure, campaign, and outstanding-only toggle). The tracker and accruals exports also follow Show removed creators, and every export has an Is Removed column. Amounts are in dollars (e.g. 12.50), not cents. Timestamps are UTC ISO 8601. The files are UTF-8 with a BOM so they open correctly in Excel and Numbers. The same files are available from the API at GET /api/v2/exports/payout_tracker, payout_payments and payout_accruals, and coding agents get them with the MCP tool export_csv.

---

Per-creator payouts tab#

The tracker is the macro view: one row per creator across a whole project. When you need to focus on a single creator's full financial history, use the Payouts tab on their detail page.

Navigate to Creators → [creator name] → Payouts to open the tab.

Summary totals#

At the top of the tab, three totals show the creator's all-time figures:

Outstanding amounts are highlighted in amber when greater than zero.

Charts#

Two charts give a visual breakdown:

• Spend over time: daily paid vs. accrued amounts over the last 90 days.
• Earnings by structure: horizontal bar chart showing how much this creator has earned under each payout structure (all time, top 10 by total earned).

Three subtabs#

The tab is divided into three subtabs. The active tab is preserved in the URL (?tab=accruals|payments|assignments), so you can share or bookmark links to a specific view.

Accruals (default): every computed earnings record for this creator, newest first. Each row shows:

• Amount, status badge (Earned / Paid / Rejected / Voided), period label, structure name, and period start date.
• For earned accruals: a Reject action via the ⋯ menu. Rejected accruals are excluded from outstanding totals. A voided rejection restores the accrual to earned.

Payments: every recorded payment for this creator. Each row shows:

• Amount, status badge, payment method, date, linked accrual count.
• Receipt link: if a receipt URL was provided, it opens in a new tab. If a receipt file was uploaded, a Receipt (or File) link fetches a 60-second signed URL and opens the file.
• For paid payments: a Void button. Voiding reverses the accrual statuses back to earned.

Assignments: the active payout structures currently assigned to this creator. Each row links to the structure's detail page. Org admins see an Unassign button on hover; unassigning takes effect immediately (with a 5-second undo window) and stops new accruals from being computed.

Mark as Paid#

The Mark as paid button at the top of the tab opens the settlement sheet pre-filled with this creator, so no creator picker is shown. The Accruals subtab also has a Mark as Paid button inline for quick access when you're reviewing outstanding rows.

Per-creator CSV export#

Click Export to download accrual or payment data scoped to this creator:

• Accruals CSV: all accruals for this creator (earned, paid, rejected and voided) in the same format as the tracker's accruals export.
• Payments CSV: all payments for this creator in the same format as the tracker's payments export.

---