How Payments and Payouts Work on Food Truck Club

Food Truck Club pays vendors through Stripe, direct to your bank account. For pre-paid catering, the customer pays when they book and we typically send your payout up to 7 days before the event starts. For attendee-pay events, you keep your window sales — we only take a 10% fee when an event's sales go beyond $250, and nothing when they don't.

Two models, one principle: you should always know what you'll earn before you commit, and the money should show up when we said it would. Every payout is tracked in your dashboard with a clear breakdown, so there's never a mystery line on your statement.

When a customer books your truck for catering, they pay Food Truck Club up front — and we typically pay you up to 7 days before the event starts. There's no invoicing, no net-30, and no chasing a check for an event you already worked. Tips added by the customer are yours.

For these jobs, we charge a 10% platform fee on the work we secure for you. It covers the marketing that found the customer, the booking and coordination, and the payment processing — the selling side of the business, handled. On a $1,500 corporate lunch, that's a $150 fee and a $1,350 payout, in your account before you fire up the fryer.

These jobs also respect your floor. You set your own event minimum, and your truck will never be booked for a catering event below it — if a budget doesn't meet your number, the request simply doesn't reach you. And you'll never have to do fee math yourself: every request shows your exact payout before you accept — the number you approve is the number that arrives. If you end up serving more guests than the event was booked for, report the extra servings and we'll bill the customer and pass the difference along.

Attendee-pay events work differently: guests order and pay at your window, and the sales are yours. Browsing and requesting these events on Food Truck Club is completely free. If your sales for an event go beyond $250, we take a 10% fee. If sales come in below $250, we don't take a fee at all.

The $250 floor is deliberate. A slow day shouldn't cost you money — if an event doesn't produce real sales, the platform shouldn't profit from it. We only earn when you had an event worth working. Sell $800 at an apartment community night and the fee is $80; sell $200 at a quiet first visit and you keep every dollar.

That structure also means there's no risk in trying a new location. The events you browse — apartment communities, business parks, schools — are venues that asked for trucks, with the audience and promotion already arranged. Your downside is a quiet afternoon; your upside is a recurring slot in front of hundreds of hungry regulars.

Some attendee-pay events include a minimum guarantee backed by the event organizer, protecting your revenue if turnout is light. You serve the event and keep your window sales as usual — then, after the event, Food Truck Club works with the organizer to secure the guarantee and passes it along to you.

That last part matters more than it sounds. Collecting a guarantee is exactly the kind of awkward conversation that sours a vendor's relationship with a venue — so we have it for you. You cook, we collect. It's how a guaranteed event stays guaranteed without you ever having to chase anyone for money.

We take pride in our relationships with the trucks on this platform. That's not a slogan — it's the reason the payment structure looks the way it does. You're paid before catering events, not after. Slow attendee-pay days are free. Fees only apply to work we actually brought you, and you see every number before you commit. We make money when you make money, and never the other way around.

Everything we build is aimed at the same goal: making it easy for your truck to connect with venues and organizers who want you there, so more of your calendar is booked events and less of it is hunting for them. If a payout ever looks wrong or a question isn't answered here, reach out — a real person will sort it out with you.