Funds you pay never sit on AiHIRE's personal balance — they're held by Stripe in escrow against your order, then released to the expert as you approve each milestone. If something goes wrong, AiHIRE Trust mediates and can refund you to the original card.
When you accept an expert's proposal, you fund the order at /checkout. The card charge goes to AiHIRE's Stripe account where it sits as escrow against your order.
Until you approve a milestone, the expert sees the order as 'funded' but doesn't receive any money. We use Stripe's idempotency keys on every charge so a network retry can't accidentally double-charge.
Every order is split into milestones (currently a 50/50 default; client-defined splits are coming). When the expert clicks Deliver on a milestone you'll see it on /dashboard/orders/<id> as 'awaiting your approval'.
When you click Approve, AiHIRE issues a Stripe Transfer for that milestone — minus a 5% platform fee — to the expert's connected Stripe account. There's a per-transfer idempotency key so a double-click can't double-pay.
When the last milestone is approved, the order auto-completes.
Either side of an order can open a dispute from /dashboard/orders/<id> or /expert-dashboard/orders/<id>. Both parties get notified.
AiHIRE Trust reviews the order timeline + messages and either: refunds the unreleased escrow to your original card via Stripe Refund, or releases the work to continue.
Every decision is audit-logged with the resolution note that's sent to both parties.
AiHIRE charges 5% of each released milestone — that's the platform fee, our only revenue today.
If a $1,000 milestone is approved, $950 goes to the expert and $50 stays with AiHIRE. You see this on every receipt under /dashboard/invoices.
There are no hidden processing fees beyond what Stripe charges (those are pulled from the platform fee, not added on top).
We don't move money outside Stripe. No off-platform escrow, no manual wires.
We don't share your card details or PII with experts. The expert sees your name + email; nothing else.
We don't email-spam. You'll get a notification in /notifications for things that matter; email digests are opt-in.
We're early — there are gaps. We're listing them honestly: photo upload, magic-link sign-in, and email notifications all land in the next few releases.
Most answers live in the help center. For account or trust issues, email trust@aihire.ae — we reply within one business day. trust@aihire.ae
