Help for hosts

Getting paid

Your share, the wait, payouts and fees.

KernelMachine is preparing an invite-only beta; no launch date is set. This describes how it works at launch. Join the waitlist

Your share

You keep 80% of what renters pay for rentals on your machines; our fee is 20%. Top hosts keep 85%. About top hosts Founding hosts keep 100% for 3 months from their first paid rental. Founding hosts

We set one renter price per card model. You can set a private minimum below which your card won't take rentals. Your machines page shows each card's price and what you keep per hour rented, after electricity at 15¢ per kWh. Renters pay only for time that worked, by the second, so you earn on that same time.

Earnings wait first

New earnings wait before you can be paid, so refunds and card disputes can still be settled:

• 7 days once you've finished 20 rentals;
• 14 days before that, and whenever the renter's account is less than 30 days old;
• 30 days when the renter paid with free credit.

Your machines page shows what's ready to pay out, and what's still waiting.

Payouts

• Set up payouts when you first have $20 ready: a button appears on your machines page. Choose where your money goes: your bank through Stripe, PayPal, or your bank through Wise, in your bank's currency. Stripe checks who you are (about 5 to 10 minutes). PayPal and Wise first need your tax details (see Taxes, below). Wise emails you for your bank details; we never see them.
• Stripe and Wise pay on the 1st of each month, when you have $25 or more ready. PayPal pays every Friday, from $20. Less than that waits for a later payout.
• Payout fees are on us, whichever you choose, Wise's currency conversion included. You get every cent of your share.
• A person checks some payouts before they go: during the beta, every one; always your first; and any over $1,000 (or over that in 30 days), more than 3 times your biggest before, going somewhere you changed in the last 30 days, or paid for by renters who later disputed a card payment or were suspended. This protects everyone from stolen-card fraud.
• If a payout doesn't go through, or comes back (a PayPal address nobody claims returns after 30 days), the money goes back on your balance and we email you. Confirm where it should go, and it goes out with the next payout.
• Changing where payouts go needs a sign-in from the last 15 minutes. After a change, payouts wait 3 days and we email you, in case someone else got into your account.

When money comes back out

• "It's broken" refunds: time not yet billed is never charged, so it never reaches you. If a renter reports a rental within 30 minutes of it becoming ready, what it already earned comes back out of your waiting earnings (and out of our fee).
• Card disputes and fraud: if a renter's card payment is disputed, or their bank reports fraud, earnings from that renter that are still waiting are taken back. Earnings already ready to pay out are not.
• Drops during a rental: if your machine goes offline during a rental, the rental can recover from its last complete save when another card of the same model is available. The renter gets back what they paid for the work since that save, and it comes out of your waiting earnings.
• Misuse: if you stop a rental with "Report misuse", you're paid for the time it ran.

Taxes

You're responsible for tax on what you earn. If Stripe pays you, Stripe asks for your tax details. If PayPal or Wise pays you, we ask for them ourselves: the facts on a US W-9 if you're a US person, or a W-8BEN if you're not. We keep your tax number scrambled, show you only its last four digits, and use it only for the tax form we file each January. If you're unsure what to declare, ask an accountant.

Updated October 8, 2026. Questions? Email support@kernelmachine.com.