The question we get asked most often is a fair one: when money goes into Graft, where does it actually sit, who can touch it, and how does anyone know they will get what they were promised? This is the full answer, with nothing left out.
The short version. You pay the agreed price plus an 8% protection fee. A licensed payment company moves that money, not Graft. The job amount is then held in escrow, where neither you nor the worker can reach it, until the work is confirmed done. The worker is paid the agreed price in full. Our 8% is charged on top and never comes out of their pay.
First, what a payment gateway actually is
When you tap Pay on Graft, Graft does not take your money. We are not a bank and we are not allowed to handle your EcoCash PIN or your card number. What happens instead is that we hand the payment over to a payment gateway.
Think of a gateway as the card machine in a supermarket. The shop does not hold your card details and does not move money out of your bank. The machine does that. It talks to EcoCash or to your bank, gets an approval, and tells the shop one thing: paid, or not paid. The shop only ever sees the answer.
A gateway does the same job online. It is a licensed, regulated company that connects to EcoCash, InnBucks, Visa and Mastercard on one side, and to businesses like Graft on the other. Your PIN is typed into their system, not ours. We get back a yes or a no, plus a reference number.
This matters for two reasons. Your payment details are never stored on Graft, so there is nothing of yours here to steal. And every payment carries a reference at the gateway that both you and we can check, which is what makes a disagreement something we can settle with facts instead of opinions.
Who moves the money on Graft
We work with two gateways, because Zimbabwe runs on two currencies and no single provider covers both well.
- Payonify handles USD payments over EcoCash, and sends workers their money when they cash out their wallet.
- Pesepay handles ZWG, and adds card and InnBucks alongside EcoCash.
You never have to pick one by name. Graft routes the payment to whichever gateway handles the currency and the method you chose, and the total is on screen before you confirm anything.
How the money moves, step by step
Where the 8% goes, and who pays it
Graft charges an 8% protection fee. Two things about it are worth stating plainly, because people usually assume the opposite.
The client pays it, on top of the agreed price. If you agree on $100, you are charged $108. The price, the fee and the total are all shown on the Pay screen before you confirm.
The worker receives the full agreed price. On a $100 job, $100 reaches the worker. We do not take a commission off their side, and the cost of sending them their money is ours, not theirs. A worker who quotes $100 can count on $100.
The fee pays for the escrow account, the gateway charges on the way in and the way out, ID verification, and a team of people to read the evidence when a job goes wrong. Posting a job, browsing, messaging and sending offers stay free. If you are holding a promo or a referral credit, the fee is reduced or waived, and the Pay screen shows that before you commit.
When the worker actually gets paid
Money leaves escrow in one of three ways. Each one is a rule, not a decision somebody makes about you on the day.
- You confirm the work is done. The money is released to the worker's Graft wallet straight away.
- 72 hours pass. Once the worker marks the job complete, you have 72 hours to confirm it or raise a dispute. If nothing is heard from you, it releases automatically. This exists so a client cannot go quiet and keep work they have already received.
- A dispute is decided. Our team rules on the evidence and the money moves to match the decision.
From the wallet, a worker cashes out to EcoCash. That transfer is confirmed by the gateway rather than by us, so it shows as sending until the network confirms it landed. Usually that is minutes, and up to one business day when the network is slow.
What actually stops someone being ripped off
Escrow is the centre of it, but it works because of what sits around it.
If you are the client
- Your money is not in the worker's hands while the work is being done. It is held, and it stays held until you say otherwise or the 72 hour clock runs out.
- Raising a dispute freezes the escrow on the spot. Nobody is paid while a case is open, and that includes the automatic release.
- If a job is refunded, the full job amount comes back to you.
- Every worker has had a government ID checked against a live selfie before their offers can be accepted, so there is a real, traceable person behind the profile.
If you are the worker
- You can see the money exists and is committed before you spend a day or a dollar on the job. A funded job means the client has already paid.
- You are never left waiting on a client's goodwill. If they go silent after you mark the work done, the 72 hour release pays you anyway.
- You are paid the full price you quoted. Our fee is the client's, not a slice of yours.
- Your chat, your photos and the agreed scope are recorded on the job. That is exactly the evidence that decides a dispute in your favour when you have done the work.
Cash jobs work differently, and you should know how
Some jobs are simply cash jobs, and we would rather support that honestly than pretend it does not happen. On a cash job you pay the 8% protection fee through Graft and hand the worker the agreed amount directly. The job is closed with a completion code that the client shows and the worker enters, so the record of who did what still exists.
Be clear about the trade off. On a cash job the main payment never passes through escrow, so we cannot hold it, freeze it or refund it if the work goes wrong. You keep the contract, the reviews and the record. You do not get the money protection. For anything sizeable, fund the escrow instead.
Two rules that keep all of this working
Never pay outside Graft. If somebody asks you to send money to a personal EcoCash number instead of paying on the platform, that single move removes every protection described on this page. There is nothing held, nothing to freeze and nothing to refund. Report it and we will act on the account.
Keep the conversation on the platform. What is agreed in the chat is recorded and can be used as evidence. What is agreed over WhatsApp cannot be seen by anyone reviewing your case.
Still want to check something?
Every payment you make appears on your Payments page with its amount, its status and its gateway reference, and every release and payout is listed the same way. If a number there does not look right, open a support ticket from the Help menu with the job attached and we will trace the payment through the gateway and tell you exactly where it is. There is more detail on escrow and fees, and in the Help Centre.
Money moving between strangers is the hardest part of any marketplace. We would rather show you the plumbing than ask you to trust us.
