Refunds & Disputes
Get your money back when creators fail to deliver, and understand how disputes are resolved.
Yes, that is the whole point of escrow. If the creator misses the deadline, ghosts, blatantly ignores the brief (wrong product, missing tags, no disclosure), or refuses required revisions, you can cancel the deal and the escrowed funds refund to your wallet automatically.
For ambiguous cases (e.g. delivered but lower quality than expected), open a dispute and the arbitration team reviews the chat log to make a ruling.
If the creator clearly defaulted (deadline passed, no delivery), the refund is typically instant once you cancel the deal from your dashboard. For disputed cases where the arbitration team reviews, expect 3-7 business days.
Refunds always go back to your wallet, not your original payment method. Funds stay usable for future campaigns.
Yes. Standard sequence:
- Funds are safe in escrow.
- Message in the platform chat first; if no response, DM them on Instagram/TikTok.
- If they stay silent past deadline, contact support to cancel the deal, and funds auto-refund to your wallet.
- Unresponsive creators frequently get suspended.
Refunds return to your Ainfluencer wallet balance, not to the bank or card you originally used. You can see every refund in Profile → Payments & Transactions. The funds are immediately usable on the next campaign. See Withdrawals & Wallet Limits for what you can’t do with wallet funds.
Nothing here needs a support ticket. The platform walks through it on its own, roughly once a minute:
- The agreed publish date passes, or the creator submits their delivery.
- A countdown starts. Its length depends on what the creator submitted, which is the part most brands miss (see the next question).
- If you approve inside that window, the money leaves escrow and goes to the creator. The refund path closes here.
- If nobody approves, the deal is marked failed.
- About one day after that, the money moves out of escrow and back into your Ainfluencer wallet.
- You get an email and an in-app notification. The creator is notified too.
The money returns to your wallet, never to your card or PayPal. Open Payments & Billing and look at Where your money is; the figure you want is Refunded to you.
Between two and ten, and the difference comes down to whether our system could read what the creator posted.
| What the creator submitted | You have | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A public Instagram, TikTok or YouTube post we can read | about 10 days from submission | We can verify the post exists, so the clock is generous |
| Content files uploaded in chat | about 10 days from upload | Same, the delivery is on the platform |
| A story, a private post, or a link on a site we do not support | 2 to 3 days from the agreed publish date | We cannot verify it, so the short clock applies |
| Nothing at all | 2 to 3 days from the agreed publish date | There is nothing to review |
Row three is the trap. An Instagram story expires in 24 hours and we cannot read it, so a creator can deliver in good faith and still leave you only two days from the agreed date. If a creator tells you they are posting a story, agree in chat that they will also send a screen recording through the chat upload, which puts you back on the ten day clock.
Payment is released when you approve. An automatic refund means the approval never came inside the window above.
Two things make this confusing, and both are worth knowing in advance:
- The deal keeps showing as Published on your side the whole time. The visible label does not change when the clock runs out.
- There is no warning before it fires. Neither you nor the creator is reminded that approval is due.
If the creator genuinely delivered, this is recoverable. Approve the post after the refund and the price is simply charged to your wallet again. Message the creator first so they know the payment is coming.
Because a refund returns the creator’s fee, not your whole checkout total. Three parts behave differently:
| Part of what you paid | Comes back? |
|---|---|
| The agreed price with the creator | Yes, in full, to your wallet |
| The Ainfluencer platform fee on top | No. It is charged for running the collaboration and is not returned |
| Any coupon or promotional credit you applied | No. That portion was never your money, so it returns to Ainfluencer rather than to you |
Content insurance, if you bought it, is handled as its own line and is shown separately on the transaction breakdown.
To see the split for any single deal, open Payments & Billing, click the row in Transactions, and read Amount, Platform fee, Content insurance, Coupon discount and Total paid by you.
Not automatically, no. Approval is the moment the money is handed over, and it is deliberately the last reversible step in the flow.
What happens next depends on timing:
| Where the money is | What the deal shows | Can it be returned? |
|---|---|---|
| Still in escrow | On Hold in Escrow | Yes, by approving nothing and letting the clock run, or by asking support to cancel |
| Released to the creator’s wallet | Transferred To Influencer Wallet | Only as a manual finance decision. Contact support with the offer link |
| Already paid out to the creator | Paid Out to Influencer | No. The money has left the platform |
Practical consequence: check the live post before you approve, not after. Open the link, confirm the caption, the tags and the mention are what you agreed, and only then approve. Approving quickly to be polite is how brands lose the one lever they have.
Act before you approve, because approval ends your options.
- Do not approve the delivery.
- Say so in the offer chat, so there is a timestamped record.
- Ask them to repost. Most will, and the deal continues normally.
- If they do not, let the approval window close. The deal is marked failed and the money returns to your wallet without you doing anything.
- If you had already approved before you noticed, contact support with the offer link and the date you saw the post disappear.
Set this up front rather than afterwards. The offer carries a Duration term, Permanent or Temporary, and a temporary post must stay up for more than four hours. Choose Permanent when you expect the post to stay. Our system confirms a post existed at submission but does not keep checking afterwards, so the agreed Duration is what you have to point at.
No, and refusing is usually the wrong first move. There is a revision step between approving and rejecting.
- Open the offer chat and request a revision, saying precisely what is wrong and what you want instead.
- The creator can accept the revision, or counter with a price change if the work is beyond the original brief.
- If a price change is agreed, the extra amount is added to the same deal, so you do not start again from a new offer.
- Approve once the revised delivery is right.
Watch the clock while you negotiate. A revision conversation does not pause the approval window, so a long back and forth can hit the deadline and refund the deal underneath you. If the discussion is going to take days, tell support so the timing can be handled.
Both of you, at different moments. The money passes through three places and the creator’s app names each one differently from yours:
| Stage | What you see | What the creator sees | Reversible? |
|---|---|---|---|
| You paid, nobody has approved | On Hold in Escrow | Payment Escrowed | Yes |
| Approved or the timer released it | Transferred To Influencer Wallet | Payment Released | Only by finance |
| Ainfluencer has sent the money out | Paid Out to Influencer | Payout Made | No |
| Returned to you | Refunded To Brand Wallet | Refunded Payment | Final |
A creator who says they were paid usually means the money reached their wallet, which is stage two. That is not the same as having received it, and it is still visible to our finance team.
Common, and the trend is clearly in the right direction. Refunded collaborations on the platform, by month:
| Month | Deals refunded |
|---|---|
| October 2025 | 242 |
| December 2025 | 86 |
| March 2026 | 55 |
| June 2026 | 14 |
| September 2026 | 14 |
The fall reflects tighter delivery checks rather than fewer collaborations. The practical point for you is that the refund path is well worn and fully automatic, so a deal that goes wrong is an inconvenience rather than a loss.
Almost every one of those refunds was a non delivery, not a quality dispute. Refunds after a creator genuinely delivered are rare, in the low tens across a full year.
These five things, in one message. Sending them together is the difference between an answer the same day and a week of back and forth:
- The offer link, or the campaign name and the creator’s handle.
- The agreed publish date.
- What the creator submitted, and when, as it appears in the chat.
- What you want: the money back, or the deal reopened so you can approve it.
- A screenshot of the live post, or of its absence, with the date visible.
Do not approve the delivery while you wait. Approval releases the money and moves the case from something support can fix to something only the finance team can review.
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