- How does tipping work?
- Why would I give money to people?
- Who can I tip?
- Why would people give money to me?
- Why is Tipit.to better than other ways of giving money?
- Why would I trust you?
- How do I link to Tipit.to?
- What are the options to pay my tips?
- What are the options to receive money from Tipit.to?
- How come everything I see is in euros / dollars / pounds?
Why do numbers seem to fluctuate a bit? - When will you support my currency?
- What kind of exchange rates do you use?
- Does tipit earn any money from finances?
- Why does payout take 48 hours or more?
- Does Tipit integrate with Twitter?
How does tipping work?
We have done our best to make tipping as easy as possible for visitors of your site. Tipping works as follows:
- A visitor sees a Tipit.to button on your website and, intrigued, clicks on it.
- The visitor is taken to our website where we show them this dialog:
If they don't have an account yet, all they have to do is fill in their e-mail and we will provide them with an account later on. They only have to fill in the amount they want to tip you and an optional comment.
That's all there is to it. After this dialog, whichever button they press, your visitors are returned to your site.
Why would I give money to people?
Because you may want to show your support to the people creating content you love in a more tangible way. With Tipit.to you can do that in the easiest possible way.
Who can I tip?
You can tip any site or twitter user. Site owners that have created tipjars will put them on visible places on their websites, so odds are that you will reach Tipit.to via their referral.
You can also tip site owners that have not yet created tipjars. Tipit.to allows you to leave a tip for any domain using either a bookmarklet (see the bookmarklet help page) or by constructing a URL of the form: http://tipit.to/DOMAIN.
This works exactly like the current domain tipjars feature except that the tipjar does not have an owner yet. The owner of the domain can claim their domain tipjar and the tips in it whenever he wants.
Tipping domains that do not use Tipit.to yet is a good way to show a site owner that you appreciate their site and that it could be a good idea for them to put a tipjar on their site. It is also a good way to show your friends on Tipit.to which sites you thought were cool enough to give some money to.
If money tipped to a domain is not claimed by the holder of the domain within six months, it is refunded to your wallet and you can use it to tip any other tipjar.
Why would people give money to me?
People usually give money to your site because they appreciate the experience or content your site gives them.
You can however create incentives for your users to give you money. First you should post the Tipit.to link in a clear and visible place and sollicit a contribution from your users. Making clear what you need the money for also helps a great deal. Additionally you can promise to give your users back something special if your tipjar reaches a certain amount.
There are of course lots of other ways possible but these are some suggestions to get you started. We also blogged about this.
Why is Tipit.to better than other ways of giving money?
Tipit.to uses real money while simultaneously keeping the barrier to entry as low as possible. We do the heavy lifting on banking and foreign exchange conversions, so all you have to be concerned with is making great content.
Why would I trust you?
Because we're nice people trying to help other people receive money. You don't have to go all in right away. You can start by trying it out with a small amount and see if it ends up where it should.
How do I link to Tipit.to?
There are three main types of pages in Tipit.to to link to.
- Tip page
-
A link of the form: http://tipit.to/TIPJAR
points to the screen where you can tip money to the TIPJAR specified. This is the link to spread if you want people to give money to your tipjar. - Tipjar page
-
A link of the form: http://tipit.to/tipjar/TIPJAR
is the tipjar detail page with the description of the tipjar, its owner and recent tippers to that tipjar.
What are the options to pay my tips?
We offer credit card payment and iDeal and we're working to add more options.
What are the options to receive money from Tipit.to?
We pay out using the following methods:
- Amazon gift certificates from a minimum of €5 (or equivalent)
- IBAN Bank transfer within the European Union from a minimum of €50 (or equivalent)
- Forthcoming: Check mailed to an address within the United States
- Wire transfer anywhere in the world from a minimum of €500 (or equivalent)
We are working on more options to send money to tipjar owners. If you are not covered by these options, get in touch so we can work together to figure out the easiest and cheapest way of getting your money to you.
How come everything I see is in euros / dollars / pounds?
Why do numbers seem to fluctuate a bit?
Actually, tipit natively supports three currencies: Euros, US Dollars, and British Pounds. Anytime you see an amount, tipit will calculate the value in your preferred currency you supplied during signup according to the current exchange rates. Because exchange rates fluctuate all the time, the value of things in your preferred currency also changes a little as time passes.
When will you support my currency?
Tipit supports Euros, US Dollars, and British Pounds. You can pay and get paid in any of these currencies. We may add other major currencies in the future, such as the japanese Yen, but because tipit handles its own currency exchange market, smaller, more volatile currencies will not be added any time soon. You can still use tipit though; your bank will simply convert your payment to one of the supported currencies when you pay up, and the same thing happens for payout. These exchanges are subject to standard banking exchange rates and fees.
What kind of exchange rates do you use?
Tipit runs an internal currency exchange market to save on banking fees. For example, if "Joe American" has a tipjar with 10 pounds and 20 dollars in it, and "John Blightey", a brit, has a tipjar with 10 pounds and 20 dollars in it as well, tipit can simply take the 40 dollars and hand it to Joe, and the 20 pounds, and give that to John, without relying on a bank to do currency exchange.
For those times when currency exchange is necessary, tipit converts in bulk and when the market is favourable. Therefore, tipit does not employ the usual 'buy/sell' exchange rate system, whereby you get quoted a different exchange rate depending on which way you want to convert.
Does tipit earn any money from finances?
No. Tipit is a free service. However, we use various financial providers to accept and pay out money, and those providers charge a fee for each transaction.
To keep things simple, if you tip 10 cents, the tip is displayed as 10 cents, but when we pay out tips, a small charge is taken out to make sure we break even in regards to banking fees. The charge to break even on payment fees currently is pegged at 6.00% and could be subject to minor changes in the future reflecting current prices for payments.
Why does payout take 48 hours or more?
Most importantly because we need to manually verify it.
If the percentage of tips that are part of the payout have been paid up very recently, we delay the payment to combat fraud. Every dime lost to fraud is a burden borne by every tipjar owner in the system; it's in the best interest of everybody if we keep fraud to a minimum. Unfortunately it does mean we need to delay payouts for a week or two if you recently received a big boost in income.