Billing & refunds

Wallet & billing

Fund your prepaid wallet, manage auto-refill, and understand daily campaign charges, creation costs, and automatic credits.

Where your campaign budget goes

1. 01Fund your wallet

   Review the deposit and any card fee at checkout.

2. 02Run your campaign

   Your daily budget is charged once per active day.

3. 03Check delivery

   Undelivered spend is credited back, usually the next morning.

Pausing stops future daily charges. Any charge for today is settled against delivery.

On this page

How do I add funds?

Each workspace has its own wallet. Top-ups, campaign charges, and optional extra-ad charges apply to the workspace you have open. Your Individual workspace and any team workspace do not share a balance.

• Add any amount from $30 to $50,000 (quick picks: $100, $250, $1,000).
• Card payments run through Stripe Checkout, so your card details never reach Adwave's servers. Agents and API clients use wallet checkout on the API or the MCP tool create_wallet_checkout and open the returned link.
• Card top-ups add the card processing fee on top of the amount you enter, so your wallet receives the full amount you chose. Before you leave for checkout, the form shows what your wallet receives and what your card is charged. Bank (ACH) top-ups have no added fee.
• Every movement appears in wallet activity: deposits, campaign days, refunds, and credits.

New accounts start with an empty wallet. See Do new accounts get starter credit?

How are campaigns charged?

Each live campaign charges its daily budget once per active day, on the US Eastern Time calendar. A campaign can't be charged twice for the same day. Your daily budget covers all media costs.

If the wallet can't cover a campaign's day, that campaign pauses automatically and you get an email. Add funds and the campaign starts again on its own within the hour, or press Resume to restart it right away. Campaign charges never overdraw your wallet.

Low delivery never pauses a live campaign. If nothing can serve on a day, the campaign stays live, that day is not charged, and Autopilot keeps working to restore delivery. See Will my campaign pause if it isn't delivering?

How does auto-refill work?

The wallet page, Home, and each campaign's Billing tab show how long your funds will last, for example "Funds last about 14 days at $65.00/day". That is your balance divided by the daily budgets of your live campaigns. When it drops under three days, it also appears in Signals.

Auto-refill is optional. When it is on, Adwave tops up your wallet when the balance drops below about 3 days of live campaign spend, charging your saved card the amount you chose (default $100, minimum $100).

• Like card top-ups, each refill charges your card the refill amount plus the card processing fee, and your wallet receives the refill amount. The wallet page shows both numbers.
• 3 failed charges in a row turn auto-refill off until you turn it back on.
• You can turn it off anytime in the wallet.

Without auto-refill, keep about 10 days of daily budget in the wallet so live campaigns don't pause unexpectedly.

How do agencies pay?

Agencies pay a license. Ad creation is billed to the agency at published unit prices. Managed client media is billed at cost from one agency wallet. Self-serve clients pay for their own ads. Campaigns pause only if the paying wallet can't cover the day, never because of a license spend band. See Agencies.

When do I get money back?

• Nothing goes live on launch day: the full day's charge is refunded automatically.
• A launch is charged before any ad reaches a channel: the day is refunded in full. You may see a charge and a matching refund more than once while a launch waits. They add up to zero.
• A launch is stopped for review: if no ad had reached a channel, the charge is refunded right away. Otherwise the ads are paused and whatever didn't run is credited back the next morning.
• A Resume can't serve yet: if the charge is made but the Resume is turned down because no ad can serve, that charge is refunded.
• Under-delivery: when channels deliver less than your daily budget allowed, the difference is credited back to your wallet automatically, usually the next morning. You only pay for ads that ran.
• Only some channels go live: the day's charge stands, the live channels keep running, and anything that doesn't run is credited back.
• Monthly caps: if a campaign has a monthly cap (or your agency set one for the workspace), the Billing tab shows this month's charges against the cap and the reset date, the first of the next month, Eastern time. Days pause at the cap and pick up again after the reset.
• Budget changes: no proration. Today's charge stands, and the new budget applies from the next day.
• Pausing or ending: stops all future charges immediately.

Every refund and credit in wallet activity shows a one-line reason, such as "the launch did not happen" or "ads ran less than planned". The API returns the same as reasonCode and reason. The campaign's Billing tab draws each day as one bar against the daily budget: dark is what you were charged, amber marks a day that ran under budget, and green appears on days that credited money back. More detail: When do I get a refund or credit?

Is there starter credit?

New accounts no longer get starter credit. If your wallet still shows starter credit from an earlier grant, you can spend it like the rest of your balance. Unless you have added funds, it expires on the date shown in your wallet. See Do new accounts get starter credit?

What if I dispute a payment?

If your bank reverses a wallet payment (a chargeback), the disputed amount is removed from your wallet. This is the one case where a balance can go below zero. Auto-refill turns off, all campaigns in the workspace pause until our support team clears the dispute, and you get an email explaining what happened. If the bank returns the disputed funds to us, the wallet credit is restored automatically. The Wallet page lists every disputed payment and where it stands. See What happens if I dispute a card payment?