Marketplace, Arbitration, and Protocol Fees
There are three different fees that can be charged by the escrow:
- Marketplace fee - any platform that integrates Unicrow can set their own fee as a % of the value of the escrow
- Arbitrator fee - if an escrow includes an arbitrator address, the arbitrator can charge a fee for their service.
- Protocol fee - a fee charged by the protocol. It is defined by the governance and capped at 1%
All these fees are written into each escrow upfront, therefore even if any of these parties decides to increase its fees, they can only do so for the newly created escrows - the existing escrows will be processes with the existing fees in such a case.
As a rule of thumb, fees are deducted from the seller's (payee's) portion of the escrow. See below for for details.
Fee Calculation
The fees are calculated when the balance is being sent out of the escrow (which can be triggered by claim, release, refund, settlement, or arbitration actions).
The fees are charged only based on the seller’s portion of the payment. The only exception to this rule is the arbitrator fee in case the arbitrator is deciding the payment.
Here’s how that works in detail:
- The protocol takes fee from the seller’s portion
- A marketplace takes fee from the seller’s portion
- Arbitrator’s fee depends on how the payment was concluded:
- If the payment was released/claimed/refunded/settled by buyer and/or seller, same rule as with other fees apply, i.e. the fee is calculated and deducted from the seller’s portion
- If the payment is released/refunded/settled by the arbitrator, the arbitrator takes the full fee, which will get calculated proportionally from the buyer’s and seller’s share
- Buyer’s share (in case the payment wasn’t fully released to the seller) depends on whether the arbitrator stepped in
- If the payment was refunded by the seller or settled between the buyer and seller, the buyer gets their full share (100% in case of refund, or the full share defined in the settlement)
- If the payment was refunded or settled by the arbitrator, the respective portion of the arbitrator fee will be deducted from the buyer’s share (i.e. if the arbitrator refunds the payment, the buyer receives 100% - arbitrator fee; if it was settled, buyer receives their share minus pro rata share of the arbitrator fee)
- Seller receives what remains of his split after all the fees
Examples
How the fees will be calculated based on different escrow scenarios.
0.69% protocol fee, no arbitrator, no marketplace fee
| Final state | Protocol | Seller | Buyer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Released no dispute | 0.69 | 99.31 | 0 |
| Split 50/50 | 0.345 | 49.655 | 50 |
| Split 80(seller)/20(buyer) | 0.552 | 79.448 | 20 |
| Refunded by seller | 0 | 0 | 100 |
10% marketplace fee, 0.69% protocol fee, no arbitrator fee
| Final state | Protocol | Marketplace | Seller | Buyer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Released no dispute | 0.69 | 10 | 89.31 | 0 |
| Split 50/50 | 0.345 | 5 | 44.655 | 50 |
| Split 80(seller)/20(buyer) | 0.552 | 8 | 71.448 | 20 |
| Refunded by seller | 0 | 0 | 0 | 100 |
10% marketplace fee, 5% arbitrator’s fee, 0.69% protocol fee
| Final state | Protocol | Marketplace | Arbitrator | Seller | Buyer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Released no dispute | 0.69 | 10 | 5 | 84.31 | 0 |
| Arbitrator splits payment 50/50 | 0.345 | 5 | 5 | 42.155 | 47.5 |
| Arbitrator splits 80(seller)/20(buyer) | 0.552 | 8 | 5 | 67.448 | 19 |
| Refunded by arbitrator (0/100 split) | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 95 |
| Refunded by seller | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 100 |
| Buyer and seller agree on 50/50 | 0.345 | 5 | 2.5 | 42.125 | 50 |