Tiers: Open and Merchant of Record

Every account starts on Open, including every existing account. There is nothing to apply for and nothing to configure.

Your business is the seller of what you sell through INVO: coins, items and subscriptions. INVO processes the payment, keeps its fee, and pays your share out to you through payouts.

Tax is yours. INVO does not calculate, collect or remit sales tax, VAT or GST on Open-tier sales. If your sales are taxable where your players are, price for it and file it yourself. The tax amounts on quotes and webhooks (tax_usd, tax_refunded_usd and the rest) read 0.00 and tax_rate_pct reads null on this tier, and tax_treatment reads "partner_responsible": you are the seller and INVO charged no tax. See tax_treatment.

You pay the card fee; players pay the listed price. On a card purchase of coins the fee is 3.5% of the listed price (before tax) plus $0.15, charged against your earnings, and the player gets every coin you listed. See the card fee.

INVO becomes the seller on your card sales. INVO calculates, collects and remits consumption tax on your behalf where INVO is registered, and issues receipts to your players.

It requires INVO's approval, given per developer account. INVO reviews the account before approving it. To apply, use the Selling & Tax page in your INVO console, or contact INVO at partners@invo.network.

Fees: 5.0% + $0.15 on every card charge (card purchases of coins, Platform Commerce card sales and subscription charges), paid by you, plus 1.5% on a card issued outside the US. Tax INVO collects is still added to what the buyer pays, worked out on the listed price. Item purchases, the balance leg and transfers are the same as on Open.

A chargeback reserve applies. Part of your share of each card-funded sale is held, then released to you automatically. See the reserve.

1. You apply from the Selling & Tax page in your INVO console (or by contacting INVO, who records the application for you). You confirm that you have read these terms and the refund policy. You need at least one game on the account, and after a decision not to approve, you can apply again after a waiting period.
2. INVO reviews the account. Your identity verification must be approved, INVO may run a sanctions screen, and INVO carries out a risk review and a tax readiness check. You accept the Merchant of Record terms and refund policy.
3. INVO emails you the decision, with the fees that apply from then on.

Approval covers every game on the developer account; it is never per game. Once approved, new card charges in your games are made on Merchant of Record terms. Nothing in your integration changes.

If Merchant of Record is suspended or revoked, your account is on Open for every new charge from that moment. Charges already made keep the terms they were made on, including their refunds. Subscriptions keep running, and each renewal from then on is billed on Open terms. INVO emails you when Merchant of Record is approved, reinstated, suspended or revoked, and when an application is not approved.

On Merchant of Record, INVO issues a receipt for every card sale in your games: coin purchases (direct route and hosted checkout), Platform Commerce card sales and subscription charges. Every card refund of one of those sales gets its own refund receipt. INVO emails each receipt to the buyer when the buyer's email is known; the receipt number is always issued (a pending refund's number follows once it settles) and is always available to you, on the payloads below and in GET /api/dev/receipts. The receipt names Invo Tech Inc. as the seller, on behalf of your game, and shows the tax INVO collected, with INVO's registration number, when tax was collected.

Each receipt has a number (for example IR-2026-00000123; sandbox receipts start with IRS-) and a link to a printable receipt page that needs no login. Treat the link like the receipt itself: anyone with it can read it.

The same number reaches you. On a Merchant of Record card sale, receipt_number and receipt_url are added to:

• • the purchase.completed, platform_commerce.purchased and subscription.renewed webhooks;
• • the refund webhooks purchase.refunded, platform_commerce.refunded and subscription.refunded, carrying the refund receipt's number and link;
• • the success response of /api/currency-purchases/purchase-currency, GET /api/currency-purchases/order-details, the hosted checkout status read once it reads credited, GET /api/platform-commerce/purchase-status/<order_id>, and a paid first_charge on /api/subscriptions/subscribe.

On Open, and on Steam and game storefront sales on either tier, the two keys are absent, so those payloads are unchanged. The reads add them once the receipt has been issued. A refund that is still pending when its webhook is sent carries no refund receipt number yet. From your developer account, GET /api/dev/receipts lists every receipt INVO issued for your games, sales and refunds, with the same numbers and links.

"data": {
  "order_id":       "ORD_...",
  ...
  "receipt_number": "IR-2026-00000123",
  "receipt_url":    "https://invo.network/receipts/<token>"
}

On Merchant of Record INVO is the seller, so a chargeback on one of your card sales lands on INVO first. To cover that, INVO holds part of your share of each card-funded sale for a set number of days, then releases it to your available balance automatically.

• • Default terms: 10% of your share, held for 90 days. Terms may differ per account: INVO can set other terms, or waive the reserve, for a developer account.
• • What is held: your share of Platform Commerce card sales and of subscription charges paid by card. Card purchases of coins, purchases paid from a balance, Steam and game storefront sales and transfers are not held.
• • Each hold keeps its own date and is released on it, automatically. A change of terms applies to later sales only; holds already taken keep their terms.
• • Per developer account. The reserve covers every game on the account.
• • Open accounts have no Merchant of Record reserve. A sale made on Merchant of Record terms stays held until its date, even if the account later moves to Open. Separately from this reserve, INVO can apply a reserve to any account on either tier, as described under account standing.

Other reserves, both tiers. Under the Developer Terms of Service (Section 6B.10), INVO can require a reserve on any account at any time, not only at suspension: a rolling percentage of your earnings, a fixed amount, or your full balance, including amounts you have already earned. When your chargeback rate reaches the warning level (currently 0.5%), INVO applies a rolling reserve automatically: currently 10% of your earnings, each amount held for 90 days, for as long as your rate stays at or above the warning level. These reserves come on top of the Merchant of Record reserve and the holds on open disputes. Your withdrawable balance is already net of every reserve, and the balance reads carry account_reserve_held_usd and account_reserves (additive). See the withdrawable balance for the fields.

What you see. The balances you can withdraw are already net of the reserve: available_balance on GET /api/withdrawals/available-balance, available_balance_usd and requestable_usd on GET /api/dev/withdrawals/summary. Those two reads also carry these fields (additive):

{
  "reserve_held_usd":           "42.10",
  "reserve_next_release_at":    "2026-12-30T12:00:00+00:00",
  "reserve_release_schedule": [
    { "release_date": "2026-12-30", "amount_usd": "9.65" },
    { "release_date": "2027-01-02", "amount_usd": "32.45" }
  ],
  "balance_before_reserve_usd": "512.40",
  "reserve_terms":              { "pct": "10.00", "days": 90 },
  "in_flight_payouts_usd":      "0.00"
}

On an account that has never been on Merchant of Record, the reserve fields read "0.00", null or [], and balance_before_reserve_usd equals the available balance. An account reserve under account standing, on either tier, is also deducted from the available balance and is not added back into balance_before_reserve_usd; it is reported as account_reserve_held_usd. in_flight_payouts_usd is not a reserve field: it can be above "0.00" on Open too, while a partner payout is being sent. If the reserve cannot be read the fields are null: show nothing then, never $0.00. A withdrawal request refused for insufficient balance while something is held carries the same fields. A partner payout request refused for insufficient owed balance carries them too, with reserve_scope: "developer_account", whenever something is held or a payout is being sent. Read the fields, not the message.

tax_treatment says why the tax on a sale is what it is. It appears in the breakdown of the /api/currency-purchases/quote response and on the purchase.completed webhook.

• • Open: "partner_responsible". You are the seller and INVO charged no tax. The tax amount is 0.00, tax_rate_pct is null, tax_note reads "No tax is charged on this purchase.", and tax_jurisdiction still carries the buyer's place (for example "GB" or "US-CA") when it is known. On Open card sales it replaces not_registered, unknown_jurisdiction and uncollected.
• • Merchant of Record: how INVO handled the tax, for example "collected" (INVO collected it and remits it) or "not_registered" (INVO has no registration for that place, so none was charged).
• • Steam and the game storefront rail: "external_mor" on both tiers. The storefront handles the tax.

Treat a value you do not recognise as informational, never as an error.

When a player pays through Steam or through the game storefront rail (rail: "game" on hosted checkout), the storefront is the seller, on both tiers. It charges the player, shows and collects any tax at its own checkout, and remits it. INVO adds no tax and no card fee to those purchases. The card pricing, the minimum card purchase and the chargeback guarantee do not apply: purchases through a third-party storefront or payment rail are unaffected.

A chargeback is a buyer disputing a card charge with their bank.

Chargeback guarantee. Fraud screening runs on every INVO card charge, on both tiers. Merchant of Record: a fraud-coded chargeback on a card sale is covered by INVO's chargeback guarantee and costs you nothing, including the dispute fee. Open: card payments made before October 21, 2026 keep the guarantee; from that date a chargeback on an Open card payment is yours whatever the reason. When a dispute on a covered card payment is coded as fraud (reason fraudulent or unrecognized: the cardholder says they did not authorize the payment), INVO absorbs it: nothing is held while the dispute is open, your share of the sale is not taken back, the value of coins the player had already spent is not charged to you, and no dispute fee is charged to you. On a lost dispute on a Platform Commerce card sale or a subscription charge, the purchase.disputed webhook carries guarantee_covered (true when the guarantee covered it), and every dispute in GET /api/dev/disputes carries it too. The guarantee applies to card payments on INVO's hosted checkout only; purchases through a third-party storefront or payment rail are unaffected. A dispute that is not coded as fraud (for example product not received) is yours on both tiers, as described below.

Open and the guarantee. On Open your business is the seller, so chargebacks are your responsibility. On card payments made on or after October 21, 2026 that is every dispute, whatever the reason, fraud included. Card payments made on Open before October 21, 2026 keep the chargeback guarantee for fraud disputes; any other dispute on them is yours. Which terms apply follows the tier and date of the sale, not your account's tier when the dispute arrives: a sale made on Merchant of Record stays covered if the account later moves to Open.

Held while a dispute is open, both tiers. While a dispute you are responsible for is open, the disputed amount is held from your earnings so it cannot be paid out: on a Platform Commerce card sale or a subscription charge, your share of that payment; on a coin purchase, the price paid before tax, less anything already refunded, and never more than the disputed amount. Your withdrawable balance already excludes it: GET /api/withdrawals/available-balance reports the total held as dispute_holds_usd and the number of disputes holding money as disputes_on_hold. If the dispute is won, the hold is released. If it is lost, the hold is released at the same moment the loss is booked, so the amount is taken only once.

The card fee on a lost chargeback, both tiers. A chargeback that is lost and not covered by the guarantee costs you what a refund of the same charge would. On a Platform Commerce card sale the card fee stays charged to you, as on a card refund. On a subscription charge the same is true, on every charge: your share is reversed and INVO's card fee on the lost amount is charged to you. The lost purchase.disputed reports it as card_fee_charged_to_partner_usd, with partner_debited_usd (your share reversed plus that fee); processing_fee_usd reads 0.00. The international card fee is not returned. On a coin purchase INVO's card fee is not returned either. A Platform Commerce sale made before the 2026-09 pricing keeps the terms it was sold under.

Open. You are the seller. While a dispute is open the disputed amount is held (above). If it is lost, the disputed amount is recovered as described under what a lost dispute takes back, and the card network's dispute fee applies as described under the dispute fee below. Open card payments made before October 21, 2026 keep the chargeback guarantee they were made with.

Merchant of Record. INVO is the seller and manages every dispute. A fraud dispute on a card payment is covered by the chargeback guarantee. Any other dispute is yours, as on Open: the disputed amount is held while it is open (above), and a lost dispute is recovered as described under what a lost dispute takes back. The card network's dispute fee on any other dispute is passed through to you, as described next. A sale the chargeback guarantee covers never carries a dispute fee.

The dispute fee, both tiers. From October 21, 2026, on both the Open and Merchant of Record tiers, the card network's dispute fee is passed through to you at cost on every card dispute opened from that date, whatever the date of the sale. INVO adds no administrative fee. If the dispute is won and the network returns the fee, it is credited back to you. INVO's own card fees are not returned on a chargeback. No dispute fee is charged on a dispute covered by the chargeback guarantee. The closing purchase.disputed reports it as dispute_fee_usd (a string, or null) and dispute_fee_charged_to_partner (true, false or null). Only card payments are part of this pass-through; a bank-debit payment's dispute fee is not passed through.

• • Your chargeback rate. For each payment rail, your chargeback rate is the number of disputes opened on your account in the last 30 days, excluding inquiries on which no money has moved, divided by the number of charges completed on that rail in the same 30 days (for card payments, card charges: coin purchases, Platform Commerce sales and subscription charges). It counts every game on your account and both tiers together, and it counts fraud disputes the chargeback guarantee covers: the guarantee decides who pays for a dispute, not whether it counts. INVO calculates the rate from its own records, and INVO's records control. The levels are set by INVO and can change at any time without notice: watch 0.4%, warning 0.5% and cutoff 0.6%. What each level means is under account standing. At the warning level INVO may also review your Merchant of Record approval.
• • The chargeback reserve is how INVO covers disputed amounts on sales whose share has already been paid out.

The lifecycle of a chargeback

What a lost dispute takes back, unless the chargeback guarantee covers it:

• • A card purchase of coins: the coins the player still holds from that purchase are taken back from their available balance, never below zero. The value of any coins the player had already spent is charged to your earnings at the price the player paid per coin (before tax), reported as spent_coins_charged_usd ("0.00" if none). INVO's card fee is not returned.
• • A Platform Commerce card sale: your share of the sale is reversed. If it has already been paid out to you, the amount is netted from your next payout. INVO's card fee stays charged to you, as on a card refund.
• • A subscription charge: that period is reversed as if it had been refunded in full. The subscription is not cancelled. See subscription refunds and chargebacks.
• • Steam: a Steam chargeback arrives once, already lost, as purchase.disputed with dispute_status: "lost", and takes back the coins the player still holds from that purchase, never below zero. It has no evidence step and does not appear on the Disputes page.

Seeing disputes and adding evidence

When a buyer's bank disputes a card payment made in your game, INVO handles the dispute with the card processor for you. You can see every dispute on your games in the INVO console: the amount, the reason, the date a response is due, any dispute fee, and the amount held from your earnings while the dispute is open. The hold is released if the dispute is won.

If you have anything that shows the buyer received and used what they paid for (usage logs, receipts, your terms as the buyer saw them), add it to the dispute in the console before the answer-by date. INVO decides what to include and files the response with the card network; you never need to contact the card processor. Send evidence well before evidence_due_by, at least 3 business days ahead. Keep files small. You can add evidence until INVO responds, and each addition is kept. Purchases through a storefront have no disputes in INVO.

API: GET /api/dev/disputes, GET /api/dev/disputes/{dispute_id} and POST /api/dev/disputes/{dispute_id}/evidence, with your developer sign-in (the developer login token, not the game key).

• • List: GET /api/dev/disputes takes the query parameters outcome (inquiry, open, won, lost or unknown; several separated by commas), game_id, page and per_page.
• • Each dispute returns dispute_id, game_id, game_name, order_id, transaction_id, order_type, seller_tier, amount_usd, currency, reason, status, outcome, response_needed, evidence_due_by, evidence_past_due, opened_at, closed_at, dispute_fee_usd, dispute_fee_charged_to_partner, held_usd, spent_coins_charged_usd, guarantee_covered, invo_response and can_add_evidence.
• • Add evidence: POST /api/dev/disputes/{dispute_id}/evidence as multipart/form-data, with a Content-Length header. Send a note (up to 4,000 characters), any of the text fields product_description, customer_name, customer_email_address, customer_purchase_ip, billing_address, service_date, access_activity_log, refund_policy_disclosure, cancellation_policy_disclosure, cancellation_rebuttal, refund_refusal_explanation and uncategorized_text (up to 20,000 characters each and 150,000 in total), and up to 5 files as files (PDF, JPEG or PNG, up to 4.5 MB each).

Losing a payment processor account would stop payments for every developer on INVO, so INVO acts on high chargeback rates quickly. The full terms are in Section 6B of the Developer Terms of Service. In short:

• • Watch (currently 0.4%). INVO may alert you. Nothing changes on your account.
• • Warning (currently 0.5%). INVO may alert you by email and in the console. A rolling reserve starts automatically: currently 10% of your earnings, each amount held for 90 days, for as long as your rate stays at or above the warning level.
• • Cutoff (currently 0.6%). INVO can suspend your account automatically, with no prior notice and no cure period. INVO may require a minimum number of disputes and charges before suspending automatically.

INVO can also suspend or terminate an account at any rate, including below the warning level, for example for excessive disputes, fraud risk, or a warning from a payment network or processor. INVO is not required to alert you before acting.

When an account is suspended. From that moment:

• • all payouts stop, including scheduled payouts, on-demand withdrawals and partner payouts;
• • new payments in your games stop, and subscription renewals are paused and not charged;
• • INVO emails your account email. The email says the account was closed for exceeding risk thresholds under the terms, without detailed reasoning, and gives the appeal deadline, the appeal link and the date the hold is expected to end.

Players keep their balances. Your players' coin balances are theirs. They are never held or reduced because of your suspension or termination, and players can still move them to other games.

One appeal, 14 days. You can file one written appeal through the link in the email, within 14 days. INVO decides it at its sole discretion. If you are reinstated, a rolling reserve applies (currently 10% of your earnings, each amount held for 90 days). If you do not appeal, or the appeal is denied, the termination becomes final, INVO cancels the live subscriptions in your games, and the account is added to INVO's do-not-onboard list.

The 180-day hold. INVO holds your balance and pending payouts for 180 days from the later of the suspension date and the date of the last payment in your games. The hold is extended while disputes, investigations, network reviews or legal holds remain open, or while INVO believes further exposure exists. Open disputes currently extend it automatically, 30 days at a time. No interest is paid on held funds.

Refunds to your customers. You remain responsible for refunding your customers for anything you have not delivered. INVO may issue refunds from held funds where that reduces chargeback risk, and deducts them.

Release after review. The held balance is not paid out automatically. At the end of the hold INVO checks that no disputes are open, re-verifies your identity, runs a sanctions screen and confirms a verified bank account in your name. It then pays the remainder, less chargebacks, refunds, dispute fees, network fines and assessments, fees, taxes and costs, in one payout to that bank account.

If the held balance is not enough. You remain liable for any shortfall, including chargebacks that arrive after the hold ends. INVO can debit your bank account under the bank debit authorization you give when you add a payout bank account (with at least 10 days' notice of each debit), then send a written demand, then refer the balance to collections. Collection costs are added to what you owe.

Linked accounts. Accounts that share an owner, a taxpayer ID or a bank account are treated as linked. INVO can set off what one owes against what INVO owes another, and a termination can affect linked accounts.