Paying your operator

You pay your operator directly, however they accept — Venmo, PayPal, a check, cash, and, if your operator has set it up, by card. The Pay tab tells you what's owed and hands you off to whichever method you choose. Lil' Rollout takes nothing from Venmo, PayPal, check or cash payments.

Due now

Any unpaid charge sits under Due now with its period — "This month", for instance — and the amount. Everything settled is under Payment history.

Payment history

A settled charge moves down here with two times against it: Paid, when you said you'd sent the money, and Confirmed, when your operator agreed it had arrived. Both read on your own clock, to the minute — enough to tell one month's payment from the next when you're checking a charge went through.

You won't always see both. Cash your operator confirmed themselves shows only Confirmed, because there was never a moment where you tapped anything. A voided charge has neither, so it shows Billed — the day the charge was raised — with its amount struck through.

How to pay

Your operator chooses which of these they accept, so you'll only see the ones that apply:

• Venmo — opens Venmo with their handle, the amount, and a note prefilled.
• PayPal — same idea, on PayPal.
• Mail a check — shows who to make it out to and where to send it.
• Cash on pickup — hand it to the kid, or leave it where you've agreed.

Tap the one you used. That records the payment on your side and puts it in front of your operator to confirm.

Paying by card

If your operator takes cards, each bill also shows Pay by card, with the total on the button. A card payment carries a Lil' Rollout convenience fee — 10%, $1.50 minimum — on top of your operator's price, and the line under the button shows exactly how it adds up before you tap. The other ways to pay have no fee.

Tapping it opens a secure Stripe page, where you can use a card, Apple Pay or Google Pay. When it goes through the bill is marked paid straight away — there's nothing for your operator to confirm — and you get a receipt by email. Your payment history shows paid by card and a link to the card receipt.

Auto-pay

Auto-pay charges a saved card on each bill's due date, so there's nothing to remember. It's optional — you can keep paying however you like.

There are two ways to turn it on:

• Tick Save this card and pay automatically each billing period when you pay a bill by card.
• Or tap Turn on auto-pay in the Auto-pay box on the Pay tab, then Agree and add a card.

Either way you see exactly what you're agreeing to before you add the card: the amount, the date of the first automatic charge, and that it repeats each billing period until you turn it off.

We email you 7 days before every automatic charge, with the amount, the card and the day — even if you've turned bill reminders off. A bill on auto-pay says Auto-pay is on instead of showing payment buttons, and reminders don't chase it.

If a charge doesn't go through — an expired card, say — we email you straight away. The bill stays open, and you can pay it by card or any other way. We don't try your card again on our own.

To stop auto-pay, tap Turn off auto-pay. It takes effect at once, including for a bill that's already been announced.

Refunds

If your operator refunds a card payment, the whole amount goes back to your card — the convenience fee too — and you get an email saying so. Refunds usually show on your statement within 5–10 business days. If you somehow pay the same bill twice, the second payment is returned automatically.

The three states

Awaiting confirmation is not a failure state — it just means a human hasn't checked their Venmo yet. It usually clears within a day or two.

You get a receipt by email when it clears, naming the amount and what it covered. That's the end of it: no more reminders go out about that charge.

If your operator cancels a charge, you get an email saying so, with whatever reason they wrote down. Cancelled charges used to just disappear from this list with no explanation anywhere.

If you tapped the wrong thing

While a charge is awaiting confirmation, the card shows what you said and offers I haven't paid this yet. That returns it to unpaid and clears the method and date, as though you'd never tapped.

Use it freely — tapping the wrong method, or tapping before you'd actually sent anything, is exactly what it's for. What you can't do is reopen a charge your operator has already confirmed; once they've seen the money, that record is theirs. If a confirmed charge is wrong, message them.

Reminders

Each month's charge is raised automatically about a week before it's due, and you'll hear about it: an email, and a push notification if you've installed the app and turned them on. If a bill goes unpaid, reminders continue on the due date and then a few times over the fortnight after — and then stop. They arrive in your morning, not the middle of the night.

Tapping a reminder opens that exact bill. You can turn either channel off under What we send you in your account; the operator's own record of what you owe doesn't change either way.

Cancelling or pausing

Bills are raised about a week before they're due. If you cancel in that week, the bill for the period you won't be using is cancelled automatically, so you aren't asked for it — or charged for it on auto-pay. Cancelling also turns auto-pay off. A bill for a period that has already started is still owed.

Pausing doesn't cancel a bill that's already been raised, but nothing is charged to your card automatically while you're paused. Auto-pay picks up again with the bills raised after you resume.

Something looks wrong

If an amount doesn't match what you expected — a paused month, say — message your operator directly. They can correct or write off the charge from their side.