Cash · Brand Credit · Bullmark Credit
Three kinds of money, one direction .
Every balance on Bullmark is one of three things: cash a business earned, Brand Credit a brand issued, or Bullmark Credit the platform issued. This page says what each one is, where it spends, and which way it can move.
Why a brand issues credit at all: small payments
A card payment costs 2.9% + $0.30 , every time. On a $50 sale nobody notices. On a $1 sale the 30¢ alone is nearly a third of the price, which is why most products never offer a $1 anything — the processor would earn more from it than the brand does.
Brand Credit moves the card out of the small purchase. A customer tops up once — one card payment, one fee — and then spends credit at that brand as many times as they like. Spending credit is not a card payment , so nothing is taken from it. The fee is paid on the top-up, not on every sale.
33 ¢
Lost on a $1 card sale
2.9% + $0.30 — about a third of the price, before you have earned anything.
$6.58
Twenty $1 sales, by card
The 30¢ is charged twenty times. It is the fixed part that hurts, not the percent.
88 ¢
One $20 top-up
The same $20 of business, one card payment: 4.4% instead of 33%.
Card fee when credit is spent
Credit moving to a voucher is a ledger entry, not a payment. No processor is involved.
The three, side by side
They are kept on separate books on purpose. Adding any two together is always a mistake — one of them can leave the platform and the other two never can.
Cash
Real money. It belongs to a business account, it is what a brand earned from its customers, and it is the only kind of money that can leave Bullmark — to that business's own Stripe account, and nowhere else.
Brand Credit
A brand's own currency. Issued by one brand, spendable at that brand only. It is what every voucher is issued out of, and what a customer holds after topping up at a brand. Its value never floats: the brand picks 1, 10 or 100 credits to the dollar , and that stays fixed.
Bullmark Credit
The platform's own currency. Issued by Bullmark, spendable on vouchers from any brand. It is what a person receives when they sell a voucher they hold to another person. 1 Bullmark Credit = $1 , fixed.
Who issues it
Cash is issued by nobody — it arrives when a customer pays by card. Brand Credit is minted by the brand whose name it carries. Bullmark Credit is issued by Bullmark, and by Bullmark only.
Where it spends
Cash spends nowhere inside Bullmark; it is withdrawn. Brand Credit spends at its own brand — on vouchers, on referrer rewards, on nothing else. Bullmark Credit spends on vouchers from any brand on the platform.
Can it leave
Only cash. Neither credit is ever refunded or paid out as money — not by the brand, not by Bullmark, under any circumstance. Both are spent down to zero on vouchers, and that is the whole of what they do.
How money moves
Card → credit → voucher. Nothing walks back up that chain. A card payment becomes credit, credit becomes a voucher, and a voucher is redeemed at the brand. Every hop is written down and sealed, so where a credit came from and what it turned into is a matter of record rather than a matter of opinion.
A
A brand mints Brand Credit
The brand pays Bullmark's issuance fee by card and credit lands in its wallet. Issuing vouchers locks credit equal to the batch's face value — a hundred vouchers is a hundred real obligations, committed the moment they exist.
B
A customer tops up Brand Credit
A customer short of credit for a voucher pays the difference by card. That cash goes straight to the brand's own Stripe account — Bullmark does not hold it — and the customer's credit at that brand goes up by the same amount. No processing fee is added on top of what they pay.
C
Credit becomes a voucher
A customer buys a voucher with the brand's credit at the voucher's face value. The credit is spent; the voucher is theirs, numbered and sealed to their account. Nothing is owed at redemption — it was paid in credit.
D
A voucher becomes Bullmark Credit
A person who holds a voucher can sell it to another person. The seller is paid in Bullmark Credit — never cash — and can spend it on any brand's vouchers. Person-to-person resale is open at /resale .
Why the seller is not paid in cash
If selling a voucher paid cash, then card → credit → voucher → cash would be a complete loop, and "credit is not refundable" would be a rule with a door in it. Paying the seller in Bullmark Credit keeps the value inside the platform: it can change hands and it can be spent anywhere, but it cannot be cashed out.
Brand Credit, for brands
A brand's first Brand Credit mint is free — any amount up to 10,000, no card. After that, minting costs an issuance fee paid by card: 1.5% of what you mint when your credit is fully backed, stepping up to at most 4.5% while it is not. Backing is your unclaimed voucher stock plus your cash, measured against the credit your customers hold — mint far beyond what you can honour and the next mint costs more. Withdrawing what you earn is free.
Every brand also picks a short name for its credit — two to four characters — and that name belongs to one company across the whole platform, like a ticker. And it picks its unit: 1, 10 or 100 credits to the dollar. Pick 100 and a $12.50 balance reads as 1,250 credits, worth exactly the same. The unit is chosen before any customer holds the credit, and it cannot change under them afterwards.
1 · 10 · 100
Credits to the dollar
The brand picks one, then it is fixed. Never a floating rate.
10,000
Free on your first mint
Once per brand. Ordinary credit after that.
Smallest mint
Below this a card form costs more attention than it moves.
10,000
Largest single mint
Mint again to go further. A typo should not become a five-figure charge.
A credit is not a deposit
Brand Credit is a utility balance inside Bullmark, spent on issuing vouchers and on paying referrers. Bullmark does not hold its face value for you and it is not a bank account. What it buys is defined here, and nowhere else.
Brand Credit, for customers
When you hold a brand's credit, your wallet says whose credit it is, and in that brand's unit. It spends at that brand at face value — a voucher worth $7 costs exactly $7 of credit, whatever the unit — and you can hand any amount of it to another person with a link. You can top up from 1 to 1,000 credit at a time, and what you pay is the listed amount with nothing added on top.
It is never refunded as cash. The brand that issued it is the one that honours it, with vouchers; Bullmark does not step between a brand and its customers under any circumstance, and a brand that uses credit for anything unlawful or against our policy can have its account frozen without prior notice.
Related
Fees and where the money goes →
Who pays what, in numbers, and what never turns back into cash.
Next
What is a voucher →
What credit turns into: one numbered, sealed row per voucher.
Ready to issue your first vouchers?
Register your company, list your brand, and your first mint of credit is free.
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