How commissions work on openmog

This is the whole commission system in one place, for both seats. If you are an artist with a client already asking, the playbook is the short version. If you are a client looking for someone to draw for you, finding an artist starts from your side of the table. The rules below are the ones the Terms, section 10, make binding.

Where does a commission start?

In one of two places. An artist posts a commission post, a listing that says what they make and what it costs, and clients send it requests or place orders. Or a client posts a “Looking for artist” post, a brief with a budget and a date, and artists send it proposals. Either way the job runs under the same rules once it is paid: milestones, 5-day clocks, held money, disputes. What the work is, and what it covers, is agreed between the two of you; openmog runs the payments and the clocks, screens the files, and decides disputes when they are opened.

What is in a commission post?

A starting price, the priced options and licences a client can add, a turnaround of 1 to 5 days on instant orders and skebs, and the artist’s terms, which the client accepts before they ask. A listing can cap how many jobs it takes at once; when those slots are full it either closes or keeps a waitlist, and a client who finds it closed can ask to be told when it reopens. A listing takes work in up to three ways, and the artist chooses which:

• Request. The client answers the artist’s form, and the artist replies with a proposal. This is the default, and the only way that lets the artist price the job after reading it.
• Instant order. The client orders at the listing’s price plus the options and licence they pick, and the artist accepts or declines.
• Skeb. The client names their own offer at or above the artist’s minimum. A skeb has no change rounds and no message thread: the artist accepts, makes the work, and delivers, and the job completes on delivery.

What does a request cost?

Nothing. The client fills in the form (or openmog’s default questions if the listing has none), can attach up to four private reference files, gives a budget of $5 to $1,000 and the date they need the work by, within 90 days, and accepts the terms. The form and the terms are saved with the request, so a later edit to the listing changes nothing for a request already sent. A client can have one open request per listing, three with the same artist and twenty in all.

The artist then has 5 days to answer, with a proposal, by moving the request to their waitlist, or by declining; a request nobody answers in 5 days expires. A waitlisted request costs nothing and can be withdrawn at any time. When the listing has room again, waitlisted requests become requests on their own, oldest first, and the artist has 5 days to answer each.

What is a proposal?

The artist’s answer, and the shape of the whole job. A proposal splits the work into one milestone or up to six, and for each milestone says what it covers, what it costs ($5 to $1,000), how long it takes (1 to 5 days from when it starts) and how many change rounds it includes, from none to three. The client has 5 days to accept it by paying its first milestone, or it expires. Until it is paid the artist can revise it, and a revised proposal replaces the old one.

A single-milestone proposal is the common case: one price, one delivery, one approval. A longer plan is for work with stages the client should sign off on as they land, a sketch before the line art before the colour, and each stage is paid only when the one before it is approved.

How is a milestone paid, held and released?

• Paid up front, one at a time. The client pays the first milestone to accept the proposal. A milestone starts, and its due date is set, when its payment goes through. Once the client approves a delivered milestone, the next one is ready to pay and they have 5 days to pay it, or to end the job there with the approved milestones standing.
• Held by openmog while the work is in progress. The money is not yet the artist’s and not yet spent by the client. It waits on the delivery.
• Released on approval. When the client approves the delivered milestone, or their 5-day review window runs out, the artist is credited its full price. Credits land as pending, become withdrawable seven days later, and withdrawals start at $50.
• Deposits. In a plan of two or more milestones the artist can make the first one a deposit, released the moment it is paid, before anything is delivered. It is refunded only if the artist cancels, if that milestone misses its due date, if a block ends the job before it is delivered, or if a dispute is decided that way.

How do instant orders and skebs work?

As card holds. Placing an order or a skeb offer puts a hold on the client’s card for the all-in amount; it is not a charge, and the order reaches the artist only once the hold is in place. The artist has 5 days to accept. If they do, the hold is captured and the work starts, due within the listing’s turnaround. If they decline, if 5 days pass, or if the client withdraws first, the hold is released and nothing is paid. An accepted instant order then runs like any one-milestone job, with a message thread, the change rounds its listing includes and the review clock. A skeb completes, and is released, the moment the artist delivers, and a skeb that runs 5 days past its due date without a delivery is refunded in full.

Why is every clock 5 days?

So that nobody has to remember a different number for each step. The artist answering a request or an order, the client paying a proposal, the client reviewing a delivery, the client answering a paid change-round quote or an extension ask, the client paying the next milestone, the grace a milestone gets past its due date before the late rules apply, the other side replying to a dispute, and the review window after the job completes: each is 5 days. And each clock has a default when it runs out. A delivery nobody reviews is approved and released. An unanswered quote is declined and the milestone approved as delivered. An unanswered extension ask is approved. A next milestone nobody pays ends the job with the approved milestones. A dispute nobody replies to is decided as it stands. While a dispute is open, every other clock on the job pauses.

What about changes, extensions and late work?

• Change rounds. Each milestone includes the number of change rounds its proposal states, from none to three. Once those are used the artist can quote a paid change round, $5 to $1,000, and the client pays it or declines; a milestone takes at most three paid rounds. A change round, paid or included, is due within 5 days.
• Extensions. While a milestone is in progress the artist can ask for 1 to 5 more days, one ask at a time and at most three asks per job. The client approves or declines, and an ask left unanswered for 5 days is approved.
• Late work. A milestone 5 days past its due date with no delivery and no extension ask waiting gives the artist a late mark, and both sides are told. From that point the client can cancel the job and that milestone is refunded in full. Three late marks in a row close every listing the artist has open.

What if something goes wrong?

Before anything is paid, either side can step away for free: a request, a waitlisted request or an unpaid proposal can be withdrawn or declined. Once work is paid, the artist can cancel a job that is not under dispute, and every paid milestone the client has not approved is refunded in full, the deposit included. A refund returns the whole charge, fee included, to the card that paid it.

For everything else there is a dispute. Either side can open one on paid work, while the job is under way or within 5 days after it completes, with a reason (not delivered, not as described, no response, late, or something else), an account of what went wrong and up to four files. Every other clock pauses and the artist’s credits from the job that have not yet matured are held. The other side has 5 days to reply once, and then openmog decides: split the money still held between a release to the artist and a refund to the client, set a new due date so the work continues, let the job resume, or close the case as it stands. Both sides can read the note that comes with the decision. A card chargeback joins the dispute and pauses the job until the bank decides, so it is always better to open the dispute first; the client’s guide says why.

What does the artist receive?

What they set, all of it. openmog’s fee is 10% of each payment with a 75 cent minimum, included in the price the client sees rather than deducted from the artist: a $30 milestone shows the client $33.34 on their confirm button and credits the artist $30.00. Each milestone, paid change round and tip is its own payment with its own fee, so a $60 job paid as a $20 deposit and a $40 milestone charges the client $22.23 and then $44.45, while the same job as one payment charges $66.67. After a job completes the client can add a tip of $5 up to the price, with the same fee inside: a $10 tip charges $11.12 and credits the artist the full $10.00.

Two things close a job. Both sides can review each other within 5 days, and reviews are double-blind: yours stays hidden until the other side posts theirs or the window ends. And every job has a receipt that lists each payment and refund, which either side can print. With the client’s consent the artist can also link the finished work to a portfolio post on their profile, which is how a commission becomes the next client’s reason to ask. The FAQ carries the money answers in one place, and the glossary defines every word used above.