Getting paid
A photographer's guide to connecting payouts and receiving booking payments.
Photography is a business, and LensCycle treats it as one. Your bookings are contracts, your offers are quotes, and your payments are professional income — so getting paid here works the way it does with any serious client: agreed terms, a paid deposit, and money in your bank account.
Set up your Studio
Your Studio is your business office on LensCycle. Create your photographer profile with your portfolio, rates, specialties, and availability before anything else — clients can only book an artist whose profile tells them what they need to know.
Open your Studio →Connect your payout account
In your Studio profile, find the Payment account section and press Connect Stripe. You'll be taken to Stripe's secure onboarding, run separately from LensCycle — we never see your bank details or passwords. Once approved, client payments are routed straight to your bank through your own Stripe account.
Go to Payments →Send the offer
When a client inquires, you discuss the project in your booking conversation. When the details are agreed, send an offer with your price and deposit terms. An offer is a quote for professional work — set it at what the job is worth to your business.
Get paid
Your client pays the deposit or the full amount by card, right in the app. The payment lands in your Stripe account — LensCycle deducts a 5% platform fee from each booking, and you keep the rest. The booking is confirmed the moment the deposit clears, and both of you receive a confirmation email.
Track your earnings
Your Stripe Express dashboard shows every payment, your available balance, and scheduled payouts to your bank. Open it anytime with the Manage payouts button in your Studio's Payment account section.
Open my Studio →What Stripe will ask you for
Onboarding takes a few minutes. Because this is a business account in your name, Stripe is required to verify your identity — the same as any bank would. Have these ready and you'll be done in one sitting:
LensCycle keeps 5% of each booking payment. That covers card processing by Stripe, and everything that keeps clients finding and booking you. You keep 95% of every euro you earn.
Cancelling a confirmed booking refunds your client automatically, including the fee. Treat confirmed bookings as commitments — your completion rate feeds your platform ranking.
Stripe handles your identity and bank details under its own banking standards. LensCycle only ever sees your account status — connected and payouts enabled, or not.
Ready to get paid for your work?
Connect your payout account from your Studio profile — it takes a few minutes, and every booking after that pays out straight to you.
Open my Studio →