Freelancer escrow payment confusion on release

[fa788493]

I posted a job request to hire, and got someone who looked good. They responded, said $900, 450/450 for the milestones. I agreed and put the $450 in the escrow for 'milestone1' and it took money from my card and is in escrow. 

I see in the page it looks like the contract was listed at $500 and accepted, and I have $450 in escrow, and I am unsure what is going on really. Do I need to just deposit $50 more? Freelancer has said they have not been 'paid yet' but I thought funding the escrowed amount, and releasing it on seeing work was how this worked.

[g_vasilevski]

Hi Mark,

You have listed the job posting with a $500 budget, but the milestone was created for $450.

Since you and your freelancers have agreed on a budget of $450, you will need to release only the funded milestone with the exact agreed amount.

If you have any additional questions let me know. To learn more about fixed price contracts, check out our guide Fixed-Price Contracts- How it works and Best Practices. 

[jmeyn]

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@Mark K wrote:

I posted a job request to hire, and got someone who looked good. They responded, said $900, 450/450 for the milestones. I agreed and put the $450 in the escrow for 'milestone1' and it took money from my card and is in escrow. 

I see in the page it looks like the contract was listed at $500 and accepted, and I have $450 in escrow, and I am unsure what is going on really. Do I need to just deposit $50 more? Freelancer has said they have not been 'paid yet' but I thought funding the escrowed amount, and releasing it on seeing work was how this worked.

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 Mark,

Funding escrow is not the same as paying the freelancer. The funds sit in escrow until the freelancer has finished his job, submitted it via the Submit button and you have released it from escrow. Naturally you should only release it if you are happy with the work done. Otherwise return it for the freelancer to work on it. Just be careful, there is an auto-release in place. If you don't object and return the work, the funds will be automatically released 14 days after the freelancer submitted the work. Thus you have 2 weeks to check out the quality of work received.