Entry Fee and Payment Policies

Melee Entry Fee and Payment Policies

Updated Augest 31st 2022
Revision: 7

This page describes our policies around organizers taking entry fees and recieving payouts.

Enabling the use of entry fees

To begin accepting entry fees, you’ll first need to connect a PayPal account to your Organization. To do so, go to your Organization’s Dashboard and connect it inside the “Edit Organization” tab. By enabling entry fees you agree to the Melee Terms of Service and agree to follow all of Wizards of the Coast's community guidelines.

Links to Wizard's community guidelines:

Note: Organizers may take entry fees using any method they choose as long as accepting entry fees on the Melee website is one of the methods. It is against our Terms of Service not to have Melee as an option for entry fees in tournaments where they are collected. There is a 5% application fee for entries taken outside of the Melee website. This application fee will be subtracted from the payout for the tournament to the organizer or invoiced later if the payout for the tournament doesn’t cover the fee.

Payment Methods

Players have the ability to pay fees using several payment method options. This feature does not require any additional setup by the organizer. Not all payment methods are available on every device and in every region.

Currencies

Organizers have the option to select the currency of their choice from the ones listed below. The currency selected by the organizer will be the currency all players will pay entry fees in, and the currency organizer payouts will be in.

For all non-USD currencies, players will only have the option to pay through the PayPal portal*. Entry fees for non-USD currencies will remain stored in PayPal until payouts are processed, resulting in no exchange rate fees.

*The PayPal portal allows for users without a PayPal account to pay with a credit/debit card.

Refunds

Refunds are automatically processed whenever a player disenrolls themselves before the start of the tournament or manually by the organizer using the Tournament Controller. For an organizer to refund a player they need to use the Player Card in the Tournament Controller. The refunded amount to the player equals the total amount of money collected including the application fee.

Third-party payment processors, such as Stripe or PayPal, charge a fee whenever a payment is refunded. When a player is refunded or a tournament is canceled, the organizer is responsible for fees charged by a third-party payment processor. Those fees will be deducted from the payout for that tournament or invoiced if the payout amount is not sufficient to cover them.

If a player requests a refund once a tournament has ended, please email us at contact@melee.gg to process this request. An invoice will be issued to an Organization for any refund that takes place after the tournament has already been paid out to the Organization.

Default Application Fee Policies

An application fee is applied to all entry fees and is charged in addition to entry fees set by the organizer. The default application fee policies are subject to change and are outlined here:

Currency	Type	Application Fee Percentage	Per-Transaction Fee	Min. Application Fee	Min. Entry Fee
US Dollar	MTGA/MTGO Tournament Entry Fees	8.49 %	$0.49	$1.00	$1.00
US Dollar	Paper Tournament Entry Fees	8.49 %	$0.49	$1.00	$1.00
US Dollar	No Fees	0.00 %	$0.00	$0.00	$1.00
US Dollar	Registration Only Fees	5.49 %	$0.49	$1.00	$1.00
US Dollar	No Melee Fees	3.98 %	$0.49	$0.00	$1.00
Canadian Dollar	Paper Tournament Entry Fees	10.99 %	$0.59	$1.30	$1.30
Canadian Dollar	MTGA/MTGO Tournament Entry Fees	10.99 %	$0.59	$1.30	$1.30
Canadian Dollar	Registration Only Fees	7.99 %	$0.59	$1.30	$1.30
Canadian Dollar	No Melee Fees	5.99 %	$0.59	$0.00	$1.30
Australian Dollar	Paper Tournament Entry Fees	10.99 %	$0.59	$1.50	$1.50
Australian Dollar	MTGA/MTGO Tournament Entry Fees	10.99 %	$0.59	$1.50	$1.50
Australian Dollar	Registration Only Fees	7.99 %	$0.59	$1.50	$1.50
Australian Dollar	No Melee Fees	5.99 %	$0.59	$0.00	$1.50
Euros	Paper Tournament Entry Fees	10.99 %	€0.39	€1.00	€1.00
Euros	MTGA/MTGO Tournament Entry Fees	10.99 %	€0.39	€1.00	€1.00
Euros	Registration Only Fees	7.99 %	€0.39	€1.00	€1.00
Euros	No Melee Fees	5.99 %	€0.39	€0.00	€1.00
Japanese Yen	Paper Tournament Entry Fees	10.99 %	¥49	¥140	¥140
Japanese Yen	MTGA/MTGO Tournament Entry Fees	10.99 %	¥49	¥140	¥140
Japanese Yen	Registration Only Fees	7.99 %	¥49	¥140	¥140
Japanese Yen	No Melee Fees	5.99 %	¥49	¥0	¥140
Pound Sterling	Paper Tournament Entry Fees	10.99 %	£0.39	£1.00	£1.00
Pound Sterling	MTGA/MTGO Tournament Entry Fees	10.99 %	£0.39	£1.00	£1.00
Pound Sterling	Registration Only Fees	7.99 %	£0.39	£1.00	£1.00
Pound Sterling	No Melee Fees	5.99 %	£0.39	£0.00	£1.00

Explaination of terms:

Application Fee Percentage & Per-Transaction Fee: Melee charges a base application fee plus a per-transaction fee in addition to the entry fee set by the organizer for online payments. All transaction fees from third-party payment processors, such as Stripe or Paypal, are taken out of these application fees.
Min. Application Fee: Melee doesn't charge less than the minimum application fee for online payments. This minimum application fee is inclusive of the percentages and per-transaction fee.
Min. Entry Fee: An entry fee cannot be less than this minimum.

Payouts

Entry fee payouts to organizers are automatically distributed roughly a week after a tournament has ended. Every Tuesday morning eastern time each tournament that has ended more than a week before will be paid out. Payouts go to the PayPal account connected to your organization. The total amount of the payout for each tournament equals the total amount of money collected in entry fees minus the Melee application fee, cash/promo fees, and any refund fees for each entry.

Currently, there is no transfer fee for organizer payouts.

Tournaments whose status is not set to “Ended” will not be paid out. Typically, tournaments automatically end whenever the last pairing result is submitted. Note, tournaments will not end if there are additional rounds or phases following the final result that was submitted. Registration-only tournaments must be manually ended by the organizer through the Tournament Controller.

Reporting

Reports containing information about tournament entries can be downloaded from your organization's dashboard.

Tournaments for Charity

For tournaments where entry fees primarily go to charity, Melee will only apply an additional fee to cover the transaction and handling costs associated with third-party payment processors. To have this reduced fee applied to your charity tournament, please contact us at contact@melee.gg.