Charge platform fees

Rootline offers platforms streamlined fee and platform revenue management. With every (split) payment you can configure your fee to be charged. The platform_fee is the default fee that you can book on your sellers' payments.

Rootline only charges your platform account for Rootline fees, never directly from sellers. We give you the tools to earn your own margins on payments through our Payments API.

Foundational to the Rootline product is the principle of double-entry bookkeeping. A fundamental accounting method where every financial transaction affects at least two accounts, creating a system of checks and balances that naturally prevents errors.

Platform fees are a good example: the consumer of platform services is being debited with a fee, while the provider's account, usually you as a platform, receives a credit.

	Provider's account	Service consumer's account
Platform fees		- € 1.00
Platform revenue	+ € 1.00

How to charge platform fees

To charge one or multiple fees simply send in the fees array with a split payment. In the example below, a €1.00 platform fee is charged to the hotel's account, and credited to its parent, the platform's account.

Example request

POST /payments

curl 'http://payment-api.staging.rootline.com/v1/payments' \
  --request POST \
  --header 'content-type: application/json' \
  --header 'x-api-key: [paste-your-api-key]' \
  --header 'rootline-version: 2024-04-23' \
  --data '{
    "account_id": "[platform-account-id]",
    "reference": "Platform Payments Made Easy",
    "amount": {
        "currency": "EUR",
        "quantity": "10.00"
    },
    "return_url": "https://rootline.com/[PAYMENT_ID]",
    "splits": [
        {
            "account_id": "[hotel-account-id]",
            "amount": {
                "currency": "EUR",
                "quantity": "10.00"
            },
            "reference": "your-reference",
            "fees": [
                {
                    "flat_rate": {
                        "amount": {
                            "quantity": "1.00",
                            "currency": "EUR"
                        }
                    }
                }
            ]
        }
    ]
}'

Example response

Rootline returns a fee_id and a fee_type

{
    "id": "pmt_pFJdPDzn97ASbwJQnydJQ",
    "object": "payment",
    "created_at": "2025-02-21T11:06:40.610140Z",
    "account_id": "platform-account-id",
    "reference": "your-reference",
    "amount": {
        "currency": "EUR",
        "quantity": "10.00"
    },
    "checkout_status": "open",
    "next_action": {
        "checkout_url": "https://checkout.staging.rootline.com/payments/pmt_pFJdPDzn97ASbwJQnydJQ/checkout"
    },
    "return_url": "https://rootline.com/pmt_pFJdPDzn97ASbwJQnydJQ",
    "splits": [
        {
            "account_id": "hotel-account-id",
            "amount": {
                "currency": "EUR",
                "quantity": "10.00"
            },
            "reference": "your-reference",
            "id": "pmt_pFJdPDzn97ASbwJQnydJR",
            "fees": [
                {
                    "flat_rate": {
                        "amount": {
                            "currency": "EUR",
                            "quantity": "1.00"
                        }
                    },
                    "id": "fee_pFJdPDzn97ASbwJQnydJS",
                    "fee_type": "platform_fee"
                }
            ]
        }
    ]
}

Fee IDs

Rootline returns a fee_id for every fee that is created. If you need to update the fee at a later point in time, you can do so by using the fee_id.

Net payment balances

The payment breakdown for the accounts involved in this payment will be slightly different from Splitting a payment without fees.

Platform account: pmt_pFJdPDzn97ASbwJQnydJQ

+ Gross amount: 		€ 10.00
- Platform fees: 		€  0.00
- Rootline fees*: 		€  0.30
- Split amounts:		€ 10.00 -
+ Platform revenue: 		€  1.00
+ Remaining balance:		€  0.00
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
= Net payment balance		€  0.70

While the hotel-account is left with:

Hotel account: pmt_pFJdPDzn97ASbwJQnydJR

+ Gross amount: 		€ 10.00
- Platform fees: 		€  1.00
- Split amounts:		€  0.00
+ Platform revenue: 		€  0.00
+ Remaining balance:		€  0.00
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
= Net payment balance		€  9.00