Roya Refund Policy

Who this is for #

This policy is about money paid to Roya, which in practice means money paid by brands: campaign funding and subscription fees.

If you are a creator, this policy is not about you. You are not a customer of Roya and you do not pay Roya anything — Roya's fee is charged to the brand, on top of the campaign budget, and creators keep 100% of the earned rate. What you are owed and how it reaches you is in section 13 of the Terms of Service. The one part below that concerns you is failed payouts.

Roya is operated by Hola Mundo Graphic Design, an individual establishment registered in the Kingdom of Bahrain under Commercial Registration number 135131-1. Payments are processed by Tap Payments.

1. The short version #

• A campaign can be cancelled at no cost at any time before its payment has been started. Nothing has been charged at that point, so there is nothing to refund and nothing is retained.
• Once a campaign is live it cannot be cancelled, but every unspent riyal comes back at settlement — unused budget and unused fee reserve.
• Roya's fee is only earned on money that actually reaches a creator. Money that never reached a creator does not stay with Roya.
• Subscription fees are not refunded part-way through a period.
• Refunds go back to the card or account the money came from, never to a different one.
• Nothing here costs you a fee. Roya does not charge a cancellation fee, an administration fee or a restocking fee.

2. What you pay when you fund a campaign #

A campaign goes live only after its funding is captured. At funding time the brand is charged, in one payment:

Roya is not registered for VAT and charges no VAT.

Each of those two is treated separately when money comes back, and section 4 explains how.

3. Cancelling a campaign before it goes live #

A campaign still in draft can be cancelled by the brand at any time, from the campaign screen. A campaign in pending funding can be cancelled for as long as no payment has been started, or where a payment that was started has definitively failed. Nothing has been charged in either case, so there is nothing to refund and nothing is retained — cancelling costs you nothing.

Once a payment is under way, cancelling is no longer possible. While a charge is still pending with Tap, and once it has been captured, the campaign cannot be cancelled and no refund is issued at that point. A captured payment funds the campaign, and what no creator earns comes back to you at settlement, under section 4. If a payment is left in doubt and your campaign neither starts nor settles, write to us at founder@royaapp.co and we will put it right — section 8 explains how.

Once a campaign is active it cannot be cancelled. Creators may already have made and published work in reliance on it. What a brand can do instead is pause the campaign or end it early; section 4 then applies. Ending a campaign early does not remove earnings already accrued to creators.

4. What comes back when a campaign settles #

A campaign settles after it ends and its final validation windows have closed. At settlement, Roya works out what actually reached creators and returns the rest:

• Unused budget — every riyal not earned by a creator.
• Unused fee reserve — Roya's fee is recognised as 10% of what creators *actually* earned, not 10% of what you set aside. If creators earned less than the budget, the difference in fee comes back too.

A worked example. You fund a BD 1,000 campaign. You are charged BD 1,000 budget + BD 100 fee = BD 1,100. Creators earn BD 600. Roya's fee is 10% of BD 600 = BD 60. BD 440 is refunded to you — BD 400 of unused budget and BD 40 of unused fee.

Work that was approved and paid for is not refundable. Once a clip is approved and its earning becomes payable to a creator, that money is the creator's. A brand cannot recover it by changing its mind about the campaign.

What can be reversed. Where a fraud flag against a clip is upheld, or a view snapshot is corrected downward, the accrual is voided or reversed by a new ledger entry — and that money returns to the campaign balance, where it is either spent by the rest of the campaign or refunded to you at settlement. Section 15 of the Terms covers when that happens.

5. Subscriptions #

Brand accounts run on a plan — Starter (free), Pro, or Enterprise.

Subscription fees are for the period they cover and are not refunded pro rata. Downgrading takes effect from the next period. Downgrading does not touch any campaign already funded, and does not refund any part of the current period.

If you are charged for a period you did not use at all — a renewal you had already cancelled, or a double charge — write to us and we will refund it in full. That is a billing error, not a change of mind, and we treat it as one.

Cooling-off. Where you have a right under Bahraini law to withdraw from a distance contract within a stated period, that right applies and nothing in this policy reduces it.

6. Failed payouts — for creators #

This is the only part of this policy that concerns creators, and it is not a refund in the ordinary sense.

If a payout to you fails or is returned by the bank, the amount goes back to your payable balance through a ledger reversal, with the failure reason recorded and visible to you. You can request it again once the cause is fixed.

We pay to the account you gave us. If you give us the wrong bank details, we will help you chase the money, but we cannot promise to recover funds sent where you told us to send them.

Nothing expires quietly. Roya applies no dormancy fee and never absorbs an unclaimed balance.

7. How a refund reaches you #

To the original source. A refund goes back to the card or account the payment came from, through Tap Payments. We cannot send a refund to a different card, a different account or a different person, and we will not do so if asked — that restriction protects you as much as us.

How long it takes. Roya initiates a refund when the event that triggers it happens: immediately on a cancellation, and at settlement for unspent budget. How long it then takes to appear on your statement is decided by your card issuer or bank, not by Roya — for card refunds this is commonly several business days and can be longer. If it has been more than fifteen business days, tell us and we will chase it with Tap.

Currency. Refunds are made in the currency you paid in. Where a currency conversion happened at payment, the rate on the refund is your bank's, not ours, so a converted amount may differ slightly from what you originally paid. That difference is not something Roya receives.

Deductions. Roya deducts nothing from a refund. There is no cancellation fee, administration fee or processing charge.

8. How to ask for a refund #

Write to founder@royaapp.co from the email address on the account, and tell us:

• the campaign name or subscription in question;
• what you are asking for and why;
• the date of the payment, if you have it.

A person reads it. We will acknowledge within two business days and give you a decision, with a reason, within ten business days. If we need something from you to decide, we will ask once and clearly.

Most refunds in this policy are automatic — a cancellation before launch and an unspent balance at settlement both happen without you asking. You only need to write to us if something has not happened that should have, or if you think a charge is wrong.

9. If you disagree with our decision #

Tell us first. Reply to the decision and say why. A different person will look at it.

Your statutory rights are untouched. Nothing in this policy limits any right you have under the Consumer Protection Law (Law No. 35 of 2012) or any other law of the Kingdom of Bahrain. Where this policy and the law disagree, the law wins.

Your card issuer. You can raise a dispute with your bank or card issuer. We would rather you came to us first, because we can usually settle it faster and a chargeback costs us both time — but it is your right and we will not hold it against you.

Where disputes are decided. This policy is governed by the laws of the Kingdom of Bahrain, and the courts of Bahrain have jurisdiction.

10. Changes to this policy #

We will change this policy from time to time. The updated date at the top always reflects the current version. A change never applies retrospectively to a campaign already funded or a subscription period already paid for — those stay on the terms in force when you paid.

Contact #

Roya — a product of Hola Mundo Graphic Design Commercial Registration 135131-1, Kingdom of Bahrain founder@royaapp.co WhatsApp: +973 3650 0175

For anything in this policy — a refund, a question, a complaint, or a disagreement with a decision — that address reaches a person, and none of it costs you anything.