How to pay your accepted Creators

Modified on Mon, 10 Aug at 6:39 PM

When your creators have completed their deliverables and the brief is ready to close, use Cohley’s payment workflow to send compensation.

Where payments happen

Payment actions are available in the Completed stage of each brief. Creators should be moved to Completed after their deliverables have been reviewed and approved.

From the Completed stage, you can:

Send Mass Payment to pay all unpaid creators in the Completed stage at once.
Send Payment to pay an individual creator.
Adjust a creator’s payment amount when necessary, such as when a negotiated rate differs from the original budget.

Important: Make any individual compensation adjustments before using Mass Payment. Mass Payment uses each creator’s budgeted compensation amount.

Once payment has been sent to all applicable creators, the brief is officially complete.

The creator payment deadline

Cohley automatically sets a pay-by date for each accepted creator. Creator compensation must be paid within 30 days of the brief’s content due date.

All creators participating in the same brief share the same pay-by date. A creator submitting content early does not change the brief’s payment deadline.

You may send payment at any time before the pay-by date. We recommend requesting creator compensation funds as soon as creators are accepted so the funds are available when payment is due.

Checking your available funds

You can view upcoming creator compensation in two places:

On the brief: View Cohley funds and expected funds for accepted creators.
On your Cohley homepage: View total upcoming creator compensation across your active briefs.

If you do not have enough funds available when you are ready to pay, you will see an Add Cohley Funds button. See How to add funds to your Cohley account for information about available funding methods.

If your Cohley balance does not contain enough creator funds to cover a required creator payment, Cohley will add the equivalent amount of creator compensation to your brand’s Cohley balance through an invoice or credit card, as applicable. This ensures that the required creator payment can be completed on time.

How to send Mass Payment

Open the applicable brief.
Go to the Completed stage.
Select Send Mass Payment.
Confirm that the total amount and number of creators are correct.
Confirm and send the payment.

Mass Payment includes every unpaid creator in the Completed stage and pays each creator their budgeted compensation amount.

How to pay an individual creator

Open the applicable brief.
Go to the Completed stage.
Select Send Payment next to the creator’s name.
Confirm or adjust the payment amount.
Confirm and send the payment.

Use individual payment when you need to pay one creator at a time or apply a different compensation amount.

Splitting payment across deliverables

If a creator has multiple deliverables, you may pay them in installments. For example, you can pay part of the compensation after one deliverable is approved and pay the remaining balance after the rest of the work is complete.

Payments can only be sent from the Completed stage. To split a payment:

Move the creator to the Completed stage.
Select Send Payment.
Change the payment amount to the portion you are paying.
Confirm and send the payment.
Move the creator back to Content to Review or Pending Post while they have remaining work.
After the remaining deliverable is approved, move the creator to Completed again and send the balance.

Important: Do not leave a creator in Completed after making a partial payment if they still have work outstanding. Otherwise, the creator may not be triggered for the remaining deliverable, and your Completed count may include creators whose work is not finished.

The creator receives each installment as a separate payout and is notified each time. Cohley does not track which payment applies to which deliverable, so maintain your own records for installment payments.

Tax forms and 1099s

Your brand does not need to issue 1099 forms directly to creators for payments processed through Cohley. Payments are made through PayPal, and PayPal is responsible for issuing applicable tax forms. See creator tax forms and 1099s for more information.

What happens if a payment is late?

If creator compensation has not been paid within 30 days of the brief’s content due date, the payment is considered overdue. Cohley’s creator support team may contact you by email to notify you of the late payment and request that you resolve it.

Please respond to the late-payment notice within 48 hours. In your response, confirm when payment will be completed or provide any relevant information about the payment status.

If you do not respond within 48 hours of Cohley’s notice, Cohley reserves the right to pay the creators directly using the available creator compensation funds in your Cohley account. If there are not enough funds available, Cohley will add the equivalent creator compensation amount to your brand’s Cohley balance via invoice or credit card, as applicable.

If there is a legitimate reason you cannot complete payment on time, contact the creator support team as soon as possible and include the brief name, affected creator or creators, reason for the delay, and expected payment date.

Does Cohley take a percentage of creator compensation?

100% of the payments goes to the creator. Cohley does not charge a fee or commission on creator payments.

What do I do if I accidentally paid a creator twice?

If a duplicate payment has been sent, start a conversation with the creator in the brief chat so there is a record of the request. Let the creator know that they were paid twice and that the duplicate amount must be returned. Ask the creator to contact support@cohley.com for instructions.

Cohley Support will guide the creator through returning the duplicate payment and monitor the repayment so the amount can be credited back to your Cohley account. Please do not arrange a direct transfer outside of Cohley, because unexpected funds may not be matched to your account.

How to avoid late payments

To keep creator payments on schedule:

Monitor the content due dates for all active briefs.
Keep sufficient creator compensation funds available.
Review and approve submitted content promptly.
Request funds before the payment deadline.
Use Mass Payment when paying multiple creators.
Make sure the appropriate finance and marketing team members receive Cohley payment notifications.
Respond promptly to any payment-related communication from Cohley.

Creator payment terms are also addressed in Cohley’s applicable terms and conditions.