Booking & payments
How escrow holds work and what happens when you cancel.
MatchBase handles money through Stripe, with an escrow model that protects both sides of every booking.
For VAT invoices and downloadable PDFs, see Invoicing & VAT.
Escrow hold on checkout
When you book a coach session or a court, you complete a Stripe Checkout payment. This doesn't pay the coach or facility immediately — instead it places an escrow hold on the funds.
You can pay by card or iDEAL (toggle the payment method on the booking's payment panel).
Hold
On checkout, funds are held in escrow against the booking.
Capture
When the session completes (or is a captured no-show), the hold is captured, a ledger entry is recorded, and a payout is queued to the coach's or facility's connected Stripe account.
Release
If the booking is rejected, expires, or is cancelled, the hold is released back to you.
Cancellation policy
Coaches and facilities set a cancellation policy on their listing. When you cancel, MatchBase shows a partial-refund notice based on that policy before you confirm, and the backend enforces the refund amount. The exact amount returned depends on how close to the session you cancel.
Because money moves through escrow, you're never charged for a session that doesn't go ahead — releases happen automatically on rejection, expiry, and eligible cancellations.
Open games
Open games use the same escrow path: you pay your share when you join, and the hold is settled the same way as a booking.