Also called settlement
A payout is the transfer of collected sales revenue from the payment processor to your own bank account.
Money taken at checkout is not money you hold. It sits with the processor for a settlement period — commonly a few days, longer for new accounts — before it is transferred, and that gap is the difference between revenue and cash.
New accounts and sudden volume spikes both extend holds, which means a successful launch is precisely when the delay bites. Planning a launch that spends its own revenue on advertising usually discovers this on day three.
Reserves are the other surprise: some processors retain a percentage against future disputes, released months later.
In practice
A rolling seven-day payout means launch-day revenue arrives after the advertising invoice it was meant to cover.
Common mistake
Treating revenue as available cash. Payout schedule, not sales volume, determines what you can actually spend this week.
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