Refund Policy
Creator Scout Technologies Pvt. Ltd. | Version 4.0
This Refund Policy sets out when Creator Scout refunds subscription payments and campaign escrow payments, how much, and where the money goes. In short: brands pay the creator’s price (plus the creator’s GST where applicable) and nothing else; every refund lands in the brand’s Creator Scout wallet instantly, can be spent at once, and can be withdrawn to the original payment method after 24 hours with no fee.
1Subscription Fees
This applies regardless of reason — including but not limited to unused days, inactivity, feature dissatisfaction, downgrading plans, or early cancellation. You may cancel your subscription at any time from your account settings; cancellation will stop future renewals but will not trigger a refund for the current active period. You retain access to your plan until the billing cycle ends.
By purchasing a subscription on Creator Scout, you explicitly acknowledge and agree to this no-refund policy.
2Creator Non-Performance — Full Refund Guarantee
Creator Scout holds every campaign payment in escrow until the work is done. Where a creator does not perform, the brand gets 100% of what it paid back — the creator’s price, the creator’s GST where charged, everything. Nothing is withheld; Creator Scout absorbs the payment-gateway cost.
The following situations qualify:
Order not accepted within 5 days
The creator has 5 days (120 hours) from your payment to accept. We remind them at 24, 72 and 108 hours. If they have neither accepted nor declined by the end of day 5, the order is cancelled automatically and the full amount is credited to your wallet. No action is required from you.
Creator declines or cancels
If the creator declines the order, or cancels after accepting it, you receive a full refund immediately — whatever stage the work had reached. Creators carry a penalty for cancelling accepted work (see Creator-Initiated Cancellations).
Missed deadline — nothing submitted
If the agreed deadline passes with no script, B-roll or content submitted, the order is cancelled automatically 24 hours after the deadline and you are refunded in full. You may instead extend the deadline from the order page at any time before that.
Missed deadline — some work submitted
Where the creator submitted a script or B-roll but the final content is late, the order is not cancelled automatically. You can extend the deadline, agree a partial refund with the creator (Section 3), or raise a dispute. In a dispute, Creator Scout decides the split on a milestone basis: a submitted script represents 30% of the creator’s price, submitted B-roll 60%.
Creator goes silent (ghosting)
If the creator stops responding for 5 consecutive days after accepting, raise a dispute from the order page. Once confirmed, you are refunded in full.
Substandard delivery
Partial delivery — multi-deliverable orders
Where a package contains several deliverables and some are delivered and some are not by the deadline, the undelivered ones are treated as a missed deadline for that portion. You are entitled to a refund proportional to the value of the undelivered deliverables as recorded at booking. This is not automatic — raise a dispute from the order page and Creator Scout’s team will decide the split from the submission record.
3Brand Cancellations, Kill Fees and Partial Refunds
What you get back when you cancel depends on how far the collaboration has got. Every kill fee below is a percentage of the amount you paid (the creator’s price plus their GST, if any), is inclusive of GST, and is invoiced to you by Creator Scout. Any kill fee is deducted from your refund; the remainder is credited to your wallet.
Before the creator accepts
Cancel within 5 days of paying and a 3% kill fee applies — the creator has blocked time for you and the platform has processed a payment. Cancel after day 5 (the creator still hasn’t responded) and there is no fee; in fact the order cancels itself at that point and refunds you in full (Section 2). The creator receives nothing either way, as no work has been done.
Accepted, nothing submitted yet
The creator has accepted and started, but has not submitted a script, B-roll or content. A 6% kill fee applies. The creator receives nothing; the remaining 94% is refunded to you.
Work submitted — standard deal
Once the creator has submitted anything — a script, B-roll or content — a standard (non-milestone) deal can no longer be cancelled outright. You have two routes:
- Partial refund by agreement. Either you or the creator proposes an amount from the order page; the other side accepts, declines or counters within 48 hours. Up to 6 offers can be exchanged per order. On acceptance the creator is paid the rest of their earnings and the agreed amount is credited to your wallet. The creator’s share is the ceiling — the platform fee is not refundable at this stage.
- Dispute. Raise a dispute from the order page. Creator Scout reviews the work against the brief and decides: full refund to you (nothing withheld — see Section 2), full payment to the creator, or a split.
Work submitted — milestone deal
Packages that include both a script and B-roll stage are booked as milestone deals (the package page and the booking summary say so). These can still be cancelled after a submission, and the creator is paid for the stage they reached exactly as if it were a small deal of its own — with their GST, the platform fee, TDS and GST TCS applied to that stage amount:
- Script submitted: the creator is paid 30% of their price for the script stage, plus a 6% kill fee on the amount you paid. The rest is refunded to your wallet.
- B-roll submitted: the creator is paid 60% of their price, plus the 6% kill fee. The rest is refunded.
- Final content submitted: the deal can no longer be cancelled. Approve it, use your revision allowance, agree a partial refund, or raise a dispute.
Multi-deliverable orders
For orders with several deliverables, the stage is the furthest stage reached on any deliverable. If a script is in for one video and nothing for another, the order counts as “script submitted”. If final content is in for any deliverable, the order is no longer cancellable — use the partial-refund or dispute route for the undelivered pieces (Section 2).
Quick Reference — What Happens When You Cancel
| Stage | When It Applies | Kill Fee | Creator Gets | Brand Refund (to wallet) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Not accepted | Creator didn’t respond within 5 days, or declined | None | Nothing | 100% |
| Before acceptance | You cancel within 5 days of paying | 3% of amount paid | Nothing | 97% |
| Nothing submitted | Accepted; no script, B-roll or content yet | 6% of amount paid | Nothing | 94% |
| Work submitted — standard deal | Any script, B-roll or content submitted | — | As agreed / decided | Partial refund or dispute only |
| Milestone — script submitted | Milestone deal, script in, no B-roll yet | 6% of amount paid | 30% of their price (net of fee & taxes) | Remainder |
| Milestone — B-roll submitted | Milestone deal, B-roll in, no final content yet | 6% of amount paid | 60% of their price (net of fee & taxes) | Remainder |
| Final content submitted | Any deal, final content in (any review status) | — | Full price on approval | Not cancellable — revise, partial refund or dispute |
“Amount paid” is the creator’s price plus their GST where they are registered. Creator payments are always net of the platform fee (12% of the creator’s price, GST-inclusive, on the creator’s side — never added to your bill), TDS under Section 194-O (0.1% with PAN, 5% without) and, for GST-registered creators, GST TCS under Section 52 (0.5%). Kill fees are GST-inclusive and invoiced to you by Creator Scout.
!Creator-Initiated Cancellations
- Brand refund: You receive 100% of what you paid, credited to your wallet immediately. Creator Scout absorbs the payment-processing cost.
- Creator compensation: None, whatever stage the work had reached. Partial work submitted before a creator cancellation does not earn a milestone payment.
- Creator penalty: The creator’s platform fee on their next paid deal rises by 3 percentage points (for example 12% → 15%), once per cancellation. It is shown on that deal’s platform-fee invoice.
- Repeated cancellations: Creators who cancel more than 3 orders in any rolling 6-month period have their profile visibility reduced. Creator Scout may suspend or remove accounts that show abusive cancellation patterns.
A cancellation reason is required. You are notified immediately and the refund is credited automatically. Referral commissions tied to a cancelled order are reversed.
4Where Refunds Go and How Long They Take
Every refund is credited to your Creator Scout wallet — automatic refunds the moment they are triggered, dispute refunds the moment the decision is issued. You can see it on your Billing page straight away.
- Spend it immediately. At any checkout, tick “Use wallet balance” and only the remainder (if any) is charged to your card, UPI or netbanking.
- Withdraw it after 24 hours. From the Billing page, choose Withdraw. The money goes back to the payment method it originally came from — card, UPI or netbanking — through our payment gateway. There is no withdrawal fee. Banks typically show the credit within 5–7 business days of the withdrawal; Creator Scout is not responsible for delays on the bank’s side once the refund has left us.
- If the original method no longer exists (an expired card, a closed UPI handle), you can register a bank account as a fallback and withdraw to that instead.
The 24-hour hold applies only to withdrawing to your bank; it exists so a refund cannot be cycled through a card and out again in minutes. Wallet money is never held back from bookings.
5Non-Refundable Items
The following are non-refundable:
- Kill fees under Section 3, once a cancellation is confirmed
- Milestone stage payments already made to a creator (script 30% / B-roll 60%) on a cancelled milestone deal
- The platform fee on a deal that ends in a partial refund or a split dispute decision — it is retained on the creator’s side (a full-refund dispute decision returns everything, fee included)
- All subscription fees, without exception (Section 1)
- Extra revision payments once the offer is confirmed (Section 7)
- Add-on features or one-time purchases once activated
- GST already remitted to the government on a completed deal
6How to Request a Refund
Refunds on Creator Scout are self-serve. You do not need to contact support for standard cancellations, partial refunds or disputes.
- Open the Order Details page for the order.
- To cancel: tap Cancel Order. The page shows the kill fee (if any) and exactly what will be credited to your wallet before you confirm.
- To agree a partial refund after work has been submitted: tap Propose partial refund, enter an amount and a note; the creator can accept, decline or counter within 48 hours.
- Confirm. The refund is credited to your wallet immediately; withdraw it from the Billing page after 24 hours if you don’t want to keep it for your next booking.
For billing errors, duplicate charges, or issues that cannot be resolved from the order page, contact contact@creatorscout.in with your registered email and transaction ID. Our team will acknowledge within 2 business days.
7Extra Revision Payments
When a brand purchases additional revision rounds beyond the original package allowance, payment is processed immediately and is non-refundable once the offer is confirmed (status: Booked). This applies regardless of whether the extra revision has been submitted or used.
Extra revision payments are separate from the original package payment. If an order is cancelled after extra revisions have been purchased, the refund calculation applies only to the original package amount. The extra revision payment is retained by the creator and is not affected by the cancellation stage or kill-fee structure.
8Rights & Cancellations
Content rights (ad rights, usage rights, exclusivity) are tied to order completion status. The following rules apply:
- Rights are only granted when an order reaches ‘completed’ status. If an order is cancelled at any stage before completion, no content rights are granted to the brand — regardless of how much was paid or how much work was submitted.
- If an order is cancelled after completion and a refund is issued under our dispute process, any rights previously granted are considered revoked from the date of the refund decision.
- Partial refunds issued under dispute resolution do not affect already-granted rights unless explicitly agreed otherwise in the dispute decision.
Version history
| Version | Summary of Changes |
|---|---|
| 1.0 | Initial release |
| 1.1 | Minor amendments |
| 2.0 | Full rewrite. Aligned with campaign lifecycle flowchart. Added milestone-based refund logic for partial submissions. Separated Stage 2 into three sub-cases. Corrected creator compensation to 0% where no work submitted. Updated auto-approval window to 72 hours. Substandard delivery clarified as dispute-triggered, not automatic. Ghosting defined as 5 consecutive days. Processing timelines standardized. |
| 2.1 | Removed Scout Wallet as refund destination. Kill fees unified to bank-refund rates. Stage 1 (pre_accept) always applies 3% kill fee to bank. Stage 2A (post_accept_early_no_script) always applies 6% kill fee to bank. |
| 3.0 | Removed 24-hour time window from cancellation stage logic. Stages are now determined entirely by the approval status of submitted work. Collapsed 8-stage model to 6 stages: no_accept, pre_accept, no_work, script_pending, script_approved, post_broll. no_work (6% platform kill fee) distinguished from script_pending (15% creator kill fee). Added quality clause for script_pending payout. Added quick reference summary table. |
| 3.1 | Added Stage 7 (final_submitted): any final content submission — regardless of approval status — results in 0% brand refund and 100% creator payout (net of TDS), with platform fee retained. Stage 6 (post_broll) narrowed to b-roll approved only. Brands seeking recourse after final content submission must use the revision allowance or raise a dispute. |
| 3.2 | Added multi-deliverable order clauses. Section 2: partial delivery rule — undelivered deliverables treated as missed deadline; refund proportional to booked deliverable value; dispute-only route; admin decides split. Section 3: stage for multi-deliverable orders determined by highest milestone reached across any deliverable; kill fee applies to total package price at that stage. Stage 7: auto-approval window starts only when all deliverables submitted; Stage 7 reached on first final submission regardless of remaining deliverables. |
| 4.0 | Rewrite for the v3 commercial model. Brands pay 0% platform fee; the platform fee sits on the creator’s side. All refunds now land in the brand wallet (spend immediately, withdraw after 24 hours, no withdrawal fee). Creator acceptance window extended from 72 hours to 5 days with automatic full refund. Kill fees simplified: 3% before acceptance (within 5 days of payment, 0% after), 6% after acceptance with nothing submitted; both on the amount paid, GST-inclusive, invoiced Platform → Brand. Standard deals are no longer cancellable once work is submitted — replaced by two-way partial-refund negotiation or dispute. Milestone deals pay the creator 30% (script) / 60% (B-roll) of their price as a normal settlement plus a 6% kill fee; final content stays non-cancellable. Creator-cancel penalty (+3% on next deal) documented. Missed deadline with no submission auto-cancels 24 hours after the deadline with a full refund. |
Billing or refund queries?
Email us at contact@creatorscout.in
Creator Scout Technologies Pvt. Ltd., India