Effective as of August 14, 2026
This page explains, in plain terms, what actually happens with your money at each stage of a request. For the broader promises this policy sits inside, see our Guarantees page.
Posting a request costs nothing. You aren't charged until you personally choose a bid and hire that specialist — so if you never hire anyone, there is nothing to refund, because nothing was ever paid.
Once you hire a bid, that amount is held by Fieldwork Technical — not released to the specialist — while the request is in progress. If you need to cancel before it's delivered, submit a cancellation request from your dashboard. This isn't an automated instant refund: it goes to a real admin review, since a specialist may have already put in work.
Admin resolves every cancellation with two numbers: what percentage of the payment goes to the specialist (based on how much work was actually done — 0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, or 100%), and what percentage comes back to you. These two numbers are independent — a specialist being paid a share for partial work doesn't reduce what you're owed by the same amount, since the platform's own fee is what absorbs the difference.
Refunds are credited to your Fieldwork wallet balance, not reversed back to your original payment method. Wallet credit doesn't expire, and can be used toward any future request — paid automatically first before any new charge, whenever you hire again.
Once work is delivered, you're not left choosing only between "accept" or "lose your money." You can request a revision — free, unlimited, for 14 days after delivery — directly from your dashboard. Cancelling is still possible after delivery too, and goes through the same admin review described above, weighing how much of the request was actually fulfilled.
There's no single fixed rule (e.g. "always 50/50") because requests differ too much — a cancellation an hour after hiring is not the same situation as one after a specialist has delivered a near-complete draft. Admin looks at what was actually delivered, what stage the request was at, and the reason given, and resolves it individually. If you disagree with how a cancellation was resolved, contact support and ask for it to be reviewed again.
If a coupon or discount was applied to a request, a refund is calculated on what you actually paid — the discounted price — not the original list price.