Billing, USD balances, and USDC

You paid $1,000 by card. Billing now shows $1,000 available in USD and, next to it, a USDC balance of 0. You want to launch a Campaign this afternoon. Do you have to convert something first?

No. A Campaign is funded from USD, and a USDC balance of zero does not block a launch. The rest of this page explains why, and what each figure on the Billing screen means, so that you never pay twice for a payment that already went through or convert money you did not need to convert.

Three things this guide does not claim, because they are not true today: that USDC can be converted back to USD, that any balance can be withdrawn to a bank account from the portal, and that a conversion is free, instant, or one-to-one. Each is covered below with what you can do instead.

The short version

USD and USDC

Your Organization can have two separate balances on Humanbased.

Platform USD is a prepaid balance in US dollars. You add to it by card, and you draw it down as you use Humanbased: usage charges and Campaign budgets both come out of it. It is an advance funding balance recorded in Humanbased's platform accounting. It is not a bank account, a deposit, or money kept in escrow for you.

Platform USDC is a separate balance denominated in USDC, a digital dollar issued by Circle. On Humanbased it is also a figure in platform accounting. Having a USDC balance here does not mean tokens are sitting at a blockchain address you control.

The two are never added together. Total USD is available USD plus reserved USD, and nothing else. If a screen shows USDC, it shows it on its own line in its own currency.

Balances belong to the Organization, not to you personally, and live and test mode each have their own. Check the Organization name and the mode indicator before you read a number.

Understand your balances

Two things move money from Available to Reserved. The first is a Campaign launch or budget increase, described next. The second is a card dispute: if your card issuer opens a dispute on a payment, the disputed amount leaves Available until the dispute closes, and returns if it is resolved in your favour.

Reserved Campaign budgets

When you launch a Campaign, Humanbased reserves its budget from your available USD. If available USD is less than the budget, the launch is refused and nothing is reserved. The launch screen calls the figure it checks Wallet available; that is your available USD.

1. Add USD until Available covers the budget.
2. Set the budget in Test, budget, and launch.
3. Launch. The budget moves from Available to Reserved.

You do not convert anything to launch. Contributors on your Campaign see their Earnings in USDC (see the contributor guide to Earnings and withdrawals), but getting from your USD budget to a contributor's USDC is Humanbased's job to operate, not a step you perform.

A reservation is a bookkeeping lock, so the same dollars cannot be spent twice. As accepted work is paid for, the reservation is drawn down and shows up under Spent. Budget that is not spent on accepted work can be released back to Available. Pausing a Campaign does not by itself release its reservation.

A reward that has been posted to a contributor is a credit in their Earnings. It is not the same event as a payout leaving the platform, and this page does not tell you when a contributor was paid out.

Adding USD

1. Open Billing and choose Add USD (labelled Top up on some screens).
2. Enter an amount. The field is prefilled with $1,000. That is a starting suggestion, not a minimum: type any amount you need. Preset buttons are shortcuts and are not limits either. A single card payment can be at most $100,000.
3. Pay on the Stripe-hosted checkout page. Your bank may ask you to verify the payment.
4. Return to Billing and read the payment status.

Three things happen in order, and only the last two are visible to you:

1. Payment confirmed. Stripe tells Humanbased the card payment succeeded.
2. Balance credited. Humanbased credits your available USD, once per payment. A repeated or late notification from Stripe does not credit it twice.
3. Receipt issued. A payment receipt for that payment becomes available.

A separate event, which you never see and do not wait for, is Stripe settling the money to the collecting company's bank account days later. Your balance is credited on confirmation, not on bank settlement.

Adding USD fixes a balance shortage and nothing else. It does not complete the Pipeline, eligibility, dry-run, or any other launch requirement.

Who you are paying

Payments for Humanbased are received and processed by Outtrain AI Limited via Stripe. Humanbased AI PTE. LTD. is an affiliate of Outtrain AI Limited. Humanbased remains your point of contact for platform access, support, and billing questions.

Your card or bank statement may show Outtrain AI Limited or OUTTRAIN AI LTD. That is expected, and it is not a second or third-party charge.

Billing entities

Three different parties appear around one payment. Keeping them apart saves an awkward conversation with your finance team later.

If the payment screen lets you choose or edit the customer's legal details, a change made there applies to that payment. It updates your Organization settings only if you explicitly say so. Whichever details a receipt was issued with stay on that receipt: editing your Organization later changes future receipts, not past ones.

Payment methods

Today you pay by card on Stripe's hosted checkout page each time you add USD. Humanbased does not see or store your card number.

Saving a card for later is not available yet. When it is, saving a card will be a choice you make, and it will not by itself authorize any automatic charge.

Auto-load

Auto-load is not available yet. Nothing on Humanbased charges your card automatically today; every payment is one you start yourself.

Because the question comes up with the $1,000 prefill: a one-time payment, a fixed-amount automatic refill, and a target balance are three different things, and only the first exists. When auto-load ships, this section will describe how to set, edit, pause, and resume it, and the consent it requires.

Payment status

After checkout, Billing reports where the payment stands. Read it before doing anything else.

The rule behind the table: if there is any chance your card was charged, look for the payment in Activity before you start another one. A second payment for the same shortage is the most expensive mistake on this page, and it is fixable only by a refund.

Convert USD to USDC

This section is for the uncommon case where you want a platform USDC balance. You do not need one to launch a standard Campaign.

A conversion takes an amount out of your available USD and adds USDC to your platform USDC balance. Reserved USD cannot be converted.

1. Enter the USD amount.
2. Read the confirmation: the rate, any fee, and the USDC you will receive. Those figures, not this guide, are the terms of the conversion.
3. Confirm. A completed conversion reduces available USD and increases USDC together, and appears in Activity showing both currencies.

What to know before you confirm:

• It lowers what you can spend on Campaigns. Converted dollars are no longer available USD.
• It is one direction. You cannot convert the USDC back to USD today. Convert only what you intend to keep in USDC.
• Do not assume a rate. This guide does not promise one USDC per dollar, a zero fee, or an instant result. If a quote has expired by the time you confirm, ask for a new one rather than expecting the old figures.
• It is an accounting change on the platform. It does not send tokens to a blockchain address and it does not move money at a bank.
• If the result is unclear, do not repeat it. Check Activity first. If no conversion is listed, none happened.

Convert USDC to USD

Not available yet. There is no self-service way to turn platform USDC back into platform USD, and no standard support procedure for it has been published. Where the portal shows the control, it is locked and says why.

What that means in practice: treat USD → USDC as final when you plan your funding. If you converted by mistake, write to hello@humanbased.ai with the conversion reference from Activity. We will tell you what is possible; we cannot promise a reversal.

Converting USDC to USD, when it exists, will still not be a bank withdrawal. It would move value between two platform balances. Getting money to a bank is the next section.

Bank withdrawals and refunds

Withdrawing a balance to a bank account is not available yet, for USD or for USDC. There is no payout destination to configure for an Organization today, and converting between currencies does not create one.

A refund is a different thing, and it is available on request. Unused, unspent prepaid USD can be returned, subject to the refund terms. Amounts already spent on accepted work, or committed to a reserved Campaign budget for work in progress, are not returnable while committed. Refunds are processed by Outtrain AI Limited, through your original payment route where possible. To start one, write to hello@humanbased.ai from an address on the Organization, and include the Organization name and the payment reference.

Activity and statements

Activity (labelled Transactions on some screens) is the record of everything that changed a balance: USD added, usage charges, Campaign reservations and releases, conversions, refunds, and dispute holds.

• Times and period boundaries are in UTC. A charge at 23:30 UTC on the 30th belongs to that month even if it was already the 1st where you are.
• A reservation is not spending. It moves USD from Available to Reserved. The spending appears as the budget is used.
• A conversion shows both sides: the USD that left and the USDC that arrived.
• Where many small usage charges are grouped into one row per day, the group is a summary. Expand it to see each underlying transaction with its own ID and full-precision amount. Totals are summed before rounding, so a group total can differ by a fraction of a cent from the rounded rows added up by hand.
• An export contains the underlying records for the period you chose, not only the rows on screen.

Receipts and statements

A statement for the month in progress is a draft: it covers the month so far and changes as the month goes on. Once a month has closed, its statement is issued once and stays fixed. If a statement for a month that has only just closed is not ready, try again shortly.

Download saves the document to your computer. If it opens in your browser as a web page rather than as a PDF, use your browser's Print → Save as PDF.

When you ask support about a discrepancy, send the Organization, the month, the transaction time, its type, and its reference. Never send full card details or access credentials.

Publisher earnings

Income from Data Assets and Agents you publish appears in the Earnings section of Billing, in its settlement currency. It is separate from the USD you add for spending, and it is not included in Total USD.

An empty Earnings section means nothing has been earned yet. It does not mean a payout failed. Withdrawal options for publisher earnings are not available in the portal today; the bank withdrawal limits above apply here too.

Paying is not verification

Adding a card, completing a payment, or entering a tax ID that passes a format check does not verify your Organization. None of them is KYB, and none of them unlocks a capability that requires verification. A tax ID can be valid without establishing that it belongs to the legal name and address you entered.

Organization verification is its own process with its own evidence. See Organization verification and tiers. There is also no spending threshold, $1,000 or otherwise, at which paying turns into verification or verification becomes required.

Troubleshooting

I paid but Available did not change. Do not pay again. Refresh Billing, then look for the payment in Activity. If your card statement shows a charge from Outtrain AI Limited and Activity shows no credit after a few minutes, contact support with the payment reference.

Launch says my balance is too low, but Total looks large enough. Launch checks Available, not Total. Reserved USD is already committed to other Campaigns.

My USDC is 0. Is something broken? No. USDC is 0 until you convert into it, and you do not need it to launch.

Available dropped and I did not spend anything. Look in Activity for a reservation (a launch or a budget increase), a conversion, or a dispute hold.

The total of a grouped row does not match my spreadsheet. Export the underlying records and sum the full-precision amounts, then round once.

For anything else, write to hello@humanbased.ai. You do not need to contact Outtrain AI Limited or Stripe directly.