# Payout methods

Which methods pay themselves and which you pay by hand, why that split exists, and how the Payoneer batch file is used.

Partners pick how they're paid from the methods you offer. Some run themselves once you've
connected your own account. You pay the rest by hand, from a file we build for you. The split has a
reason, and it's the same reason your partners never do identity checks with us.

## The split

| Method | How it is paid | What the partner gives |
| --- | --- | --- |
| PayPal | Automatic, from your own PayPal Business balance | The email on their PayPal account |
| Wise | Automatic, from your own Wise Business balance | Their bank details, in their own currency |
| Payoneer | By hand, from your own Payoneer account, one file at a time | The email on their Payoneer account |
| Bank transfer | By hand, from your own bank | Their bank details |
| International wire | By hand, from your bank | Their IBAN and SWIFT/BIC |
| Crypto | Manual only, and not one you can offer | Nothing: partners can't pick it |

<Callout title="Start with Wise">
We recommend Wise for automatic payouts. PayPal approves Payouts itself, one business at a time, and it turns some down on the spot. Wise has no extra approval once it has verified your business. If you connect Wise, tick Wise under **How partners can be paid**, so partners can pick it.
</Callout>

Offer only what you're willing to pay out. You set that under **Settings**, **Commissions**, **How
partners can be paid**. The partner portal shows partners exactly the list you chose.

Crypto is the one row you can't tick. It shows as **Manual only**: you'd pay it by hand from your
own wallet, the way bank transfer works. Everything else in the table is available.

## Why some of them are manual

Every payout on AffiliateRail is **non-custodial**: your money goes from your account to your
partner, and never through ours. That keeps us from ever holding other people's money, and it's
why your partners never verify their identity with us.

It also decides which methods can be automatic. We can only automate a method that lets you give
us credentials for your own account.

- **PayPal and Wise do.** You create credentials on your own business account. We store them
  encrypted and call their API for you.
- **Payoneer doesn't.** It gives payout API access only through a partnership with us, and the
  money would route through our balance, not yours. That would make us hold your partners' money,
  so we haven't applied and won't.

Payoneer does let you pay in bulk from your own account, from a file. That's how bank transfer and
wire work here too.

<Callout type="info">
A manual payout stays **pending** in AffiliateRail until you mark it paid. Nothing completes on its
own, because nothing happened on its own. Marking it paid closes the commission and shows your
partner it's paid.
</Callout>

## The Payoneer batch file

<Steps>

<Step>
**Generate a batch** on the Payouts page, as normal. Payoneer partners appear in it alongside
everyone else.
</Step>

<Step>
**Export the Payoneer file.** On the batch, open **Export CSV** and choose the Payoneer batch file.
It contains only the payouts on this batch whose method is Payoneer, in one currency.
</Step>

<Step>
**Upload it to Payoneer.** Sign in to Payoneer and open batch payments. Payoneer has two kinds, and
which one you get depends on your account:

- **Batch payment to multiple Payoneer accounts** pays partners who have a Payoneer account, from
  any of your currency balances. Each partner needs a balance in the same currency.
- **Batch payment** is for businesses in the United States only. It pays in USD by US bank debit,
  up to 40 payments per file.

Download Payoneer's template from that screen and check its columns against ours: recipient
email, amount, currency, description, with a header row. If your template differs, or batch
payments aren't on your account, pay each partner from Payoneer one by one instead.
</Step>

<Step>
**Approve the payments in Payoneer.** They show you the batch before anything moves. It's your last
chance to check the total.
</Step>

<Step>
**Come back and mark them paid.** On the batch, choose **Mark N payouts paid** and confirm. Every
payout you pay by hand closes at once, and each partner gets an email.
</Step>

</Steps>

### What the file contains, and what it can't know

Column A is the email on the partner's **Payoneer** account. It's often not the one they use for
your portal, so the portal asks for it separately and checks it there.

A partner who chose Payoneer and left that blank stops the export. It names the partner, so you
never upload a blank row Payoneer would reject.

<Callout type="warn">
**Payoneer's row limit per file depends on which batch product your account uses.** Their published
figures differ by product and region. We refuse a file above 1,000 rows, the largest figure they
document, so we never block a file Payoneer would take. Trust the number on the template inside
your own Payoneer account. If your batch is bigger, export it as more than one file.
</Callout>

## Choosing what to offer

- Offer the automatic methods if you have the accounts. They take a manual job off your month.
- Offer the manual ones when your partners are somewhere PayPal and Wise don't reach well. That's
  the usual reason Payoneer comes up.

Whatever you offer, a partner who can't be paid is never dropped silently. Their payout row shows
the reason, and [Payouts](/guides/payouts) lists every reason and who can fix it.