Your wallet and payment methods

Your wallet sits between your card and escrow. Understanding the two balances it shows removes most of the confusion clients have about where their money is.

The two balances

Available is money you have loaded that is not committed to anything. You can spend it on funding work.

Reserved is money committed to specific work in progress. It is spoken for and cannot be spent on anything else, moved, or withdrawn while the work it funds is live.

The most common question is why a balance cannot be spent. Almost always: it is reserved against a live contract. Reserved money is not stuck — it is doing exactly what you funded it to do, and it releases to the freelancer on approval or returns to you if the work does not proceed.

Your full history is under Billing, showing every load, reservation, fee and release with a running balance.

Why the wallet exists

You do not have to think about it — funding work charges your card directly if you have no balance. It earns its place in three situations:

Refunds land here. A cancelled contract, an unused hourly buffer, a declined offer: the money returns to your wallet rather than taking days to reach your card. From there you can spend it immediately or take it out.

Fewer card charges. If you fund work often, holding a balance means one card charge instead of many, which is simpler for reconciliation and cheaper in fixed fees.

Failed cards do not stop everything. A balance covers a weekly hourly refill even if your card has a problem, which stops a contract pausing over an expiry you had not noticed.

Saved cards

Add a card under Billing. It is stored with our payment processor, not by Open Lance — we never hold your full card number.

You can hold several and set a default. The default is used for automatic charges: hourly weekly refills and monthly reserve top-ups.

Keep it current. An expiring card is the single most common cause of an hourly or monthly contract pausing unexpectedly. You are notified, but a note in your calendar for the expiry month is worth more.

Card verification, and why it matters

Before you can publish work, your card is verified with a small charge that is credited to your wallet. You do not lose it — it becomes spendable balance.

Two reasons this exists. It confirms the card is real and yours, which stops the most obvious kind of fraud. And it is visible to freelancers deciding whether to spend a bid on your job.

That second point is worth dwelling on. Freelancers pay to apply. A client with an unverified payment method might never fund anything, so applying is a bad bet — and experienced freelancers filter those jobs out. A verified payment method measurably improves the proposals you receive. It is the cheapest thing you can do to be taken seriously.

When a card is declined

Cards fail for ordinary reasons far more often than for alarming ones.

Insufficient funds or a limit. Check the limit, particularly for a large first funding.

The bank blocked it. A first payment to a new international merchant is a classic trigger. A call to your bank usually clears it in minutes, and once approved subsequent charges normally pass.

Expired. Update the card.

A 3-D Secure step was not completed. Some banks require you to confirm in their app. If a window appeared and you closed it, the payment did not complete.

Address mismatch. The billing address should match what your bank holds.

If a card fails on an automatic refill, the contract pauses rather than continuing unfunded, and you are notified. Fix the card and reactivate.

Getting money back out

An available balance is yours. If you want it back on your card rather than spent on the platform, contact support and it can be arranged. It is not a self-service button because returning money to a card has to be matched against the original payment, which is a manual check rather than an obstruction.

Reserved money cannot be withdrawn while it is committed. End or cancel the work it is funding and it returns to available first.

Paying in your own currency

Amounts are shown and charged in your currency, so your bank does not add its own conversion. Your wallet balance is held in US dollars underneath and displayed to you converted. See Paying in your own currency.

Security

We never store your full card details. We will never ask for your card number, CVV, or your password in a message, a ticket or a call. Anyone who does is attacking you.

If you see a charge you do not recognise, check your billing history first — the most common answer is an automatic hourly or monthly refill. If it is genuinely unrecognised, open a ticket with the receipt number rather than disputing with your bank first. A chargeback restricts funding on your account while it is investigated, so raising it with us is faster for you.

Why a small balance is often worth keeping

You do not need one. But there are three practical reasons clients keep a working balance.

Automatic charges never fail. Hourly refills and monthly reserve top-ups come from the balance first. A card that expires or gets blocked does not pause a contract if there is balance to cover it.

Fewer, cleaner charges. One larger card charge a month rather than eight small ones is easier for your finance team and produces fewer statement lines to reconcile.

Refunds are immediately reusable. A returned buffer or a cancelled contract lands in the wallet and can be spent straight away rather than waiting to reach your card.

The amount worth holding is roughly one funding cycle: a week of hourly, or a month of a retainer, or your typical milestone.

Reading your billing history

Everything is under Billing, and the history is more useful than people expect when a charge looks unfamiliar.

Each entry shows what it was, what it related to, the amount, and the running balance. Fundings show the reservation against a specific contract. Fees show separately from the amounts they were charged on. Refunds show what came back and from where.

If a card charge looks wrong, find it here first. The entry names the contract or order, which usually answers the question immediately.

Multiple cards and who pays

If you are hiring on behalf of a company, it is worth setting this up properly at the start rather than after an expense claim goes wrong.

Use the company card as the default so automatic charges go to the right place. Make sure the billing profile carries the company name and address, because that is what appears on invoices, and an invoice in the wrong name is a problem for your finance team rather than for you. See Invoices and receipts.

Chargebacks, and why to talk to us first

If a charge looks wrong, the instinct is sometimes to dispute it with your bank. It is worth understanding what that does.

A chargeback opens a formal process with the card issuer that takes weeks, and while it is open, funding on your account is restricted — which means live contracts can pause and you cannot start new work. The outcome is decided by the issuer, not by us, and neither side controls the timing.

Raising it with support instead is nearly always faster. If it was our error, it is corrected directly. If it was an automatic charge you had forgotten about, that is answered in one reply. If it was genuinely unauthorised, that is treated seriously and investigated immediately.

The chargeback route remains available and nobody will criticise you for using it. It is simply slower and more disruptive to you than asking first.

Keeping company billing tidy

If you are hiring for an organisation, three things set up once will save your finance team repeated questions.

Set the company name and address on your billing profile, because that is what appears on invoices. Set the company card as the default, so automatic charges do not land on somebody's personal card. And decide whether you want a wallet balance, which turns many small charges into fewer larger ones and is usually easier to reconcile.

The short version

Available balance is spendable. Reserved balance is committed to live work and releases or returns when that work concludes.

Add a card, verify it, keep it current. A verified payment method visibly improves the proposals you receive, because freelancers check before spending a bid on your job.

If a charge looks unfamiliar, check your billing history before anything else. The entry names the contract or order it belonged to, which answers the question in most cases without a ticket.

Common questions

Can I pay by bank transfer instead of a card? Funding is by card. A wallet balance can be used once it is there.

Why was a small charge made when I added a card? Verification. It is credited to your wallet, so you keep it.

Can I remove a card? Yes, provided it is not the only one covering active automatic charges.

Does my balance expire? No.

Related

• What hiring costs, and what the fees are for
• How escrow works
• Invoices and receipts