Your account's Payment History page will indicate every payment issued to you from Zazzle, and the status of any pending payments. It is important to understand the following information in order to determine why a particular month’s payment has been delayed or not issued for some reason.
An earnings payment is “Pending” once earnings have cleared and are ready to be processed for payment. This processing period will generally start around the beginning of each month (that is, at the end of the preceding month’s earnings cycle), and will last until the middle of that month, when the accounting process is finalized and payments are issued. For example, payments for March earnings will be processed in early April and paid in mid-April. At that point, the status of the transaction will be updated to “Cleared.” Please note that the date a payment is updated to “Cleared” does not represent the date when you will receive your check in the mail – mailing usually takes up to 7 business days.
Please check the following list and make sure your account(s) are set up properly for you to receive your earnings in a timely fashion. The vast majority of payment delays and processing issues are the result of missing or inconsistent payee information.
Please make certain of the following:
- For US Creators/Affiliates (US citizens, US corps or US residents), please ensure that the legal name in your account(s)’ settings matches your Tax ID (SSN or EIN). There are several reasons why your legal name and Tax ID might not match what the IRS has on file, including:
- Your Legal Name is not filled out or is not correct;
- Your Tax ID is not filled out;
- A number might be mistyped in your Tax ID (SSN); or;
- You forgot to change your legal name (for example, after marriage).
- For non-US Creators/Affiliates, please ensure that your payee name matches the W-8BEN form that you were asked to submit in order to get paid.
- Please double check your account settings to verify that the payment method is set as you expected (PayPal or check format).
- If you intend to be paid through PayPal, please make sure your current PayPal email address has been entered correctly.
- Please make sure your current physical address is up to date.
- If you are being paid (i) via check and you change your physical address, or (ii) via PayPal and you change your associated email address, doing so after the first day of any month when a payment is scheduled to clear will cause your payment to go to the older email and/or address. To avoid this, you must update your email and/or address before the 1st of any month when a payment is scheduled to clear. If you aren’t able to update your email and/or before then, you’ll need to contact Zazzle Customer Service so we can cancel the old payment and return those funds to your account. Please be aware that those returned funds won’t be paid to your from your account until the next payment cycle – that is, if you would originally have been paid in February but changed your address after the 1st of February, you can immediately call customer service to have that month’s payment canceled and the funds returned to your account, but you will not be paid those funds from your account until March payments are sent out (per our user agreement).
- Please double check that you've entered the correct Tax ID number and/or you’ve submitted the correct W-8BEN.
- If you have multiple Zazzle accounts, please make sure the above information is consistent across all the accounts.
- Please note that, if you make any of the above changes to your account settings after the payment processing period has started, that month’s earnings payment will be held until the following month’s payment is made. For example, if you make account changes in early April, you will not receive payment of your earnings for March in mid-April – instead, those March earnings will be paid together with your payment for April earnings (in mid-May). The timing of the payment processing period may fluctuate slightly each month.
- Please note these important reminders regarding payouts:
- Payments for accounts that do not have a valid payee name, address, and tax ID (and/or W-8BEN) will not be processed.
- Accounts linked for volume bonus purposes must reflect the same payee information as the primary account for proper processing to occur. Variances in payee information between accounts may result in payment delays.
- All currencies other than US Dollars are paid only through PayPal, as Zazzle does not have the ability to print checks in foreign denominations.
- Zazzle is not responsible for any transaction, conversion or exchange fees that you may incur as a result of being paid in a non-native currency.
- Any changes to your account settings require up to a 30 day processing period and may delay payments.
- If one of your monthly payments has been canceled, any payments for that account will continue to be held until the outstanding situation (e.g., incorrect or missing information) is resolved. When a payment is canceled for a particular month, that payment amount is automatically rolled over and included in the following month’s payment amount, and that total amount will be paid once the account settings are complete and correct.
Possible reasons for earnings being less than expected:
Payment may be less than expected if the Creator/Affiliate…
- …sold a product featuring their design to a customer who then canceled and/or received a refund for his/her order.
- …is living outside the United States and is being taxed up to 30%.
- …has used a portion of their earnings on an order that they placed and the amount is being deducted from the total.
- …has requested a payment that is under the payment threshold so that fees are deducted from the total amount.
Other reasons for canceled payments:
Payments will not be made to an account that has been suspended due to a breach of Zazzle’s User Agreement.