Payment Transparency for 17,000 Publishers
Making Net 30/60/90 payment terms feel simple.
Publishers successfully found the payment information they came looking for.
Engaged with detailed earnings breakdowns, not just the summary.
Sessions completed without confusion signals like rage clicks or back-tracking.
Time spent per visit — long enough to explore, short enough to signal clarity.
At 17,000+ Publishers, even small percentages of payment questions created massive support volume. Payment Transparency is foundational to publisher trust, making this a high-impact opportunity to strengthen relationships at scale.
17,000 publishers had no way to understand when they'd be paid, how much, or why amounts changed.
Mediavine processes millions in monthly payouts across Net 30, Net 65, and Net 90 payment terms — but payment information was scattered across multiple tools. Publishers frequently contacted support with questions that should have been self-service, and the complexity of different payment terms made the problem worse.
Payment Timing Uncertainty
Publishers on different Net terms had no visibility into when their next payment would arrive or what period it covered.
Earnings-to-Payout Mapping
No clear connection between daily earnings and the payments that would eventually include them.
Payment Composition Opacity
Publishers couldn't see what made up a payment — base earnings, adjustments, bonuses, or holdbacks.
Payment History Inaccessibility
Historical payment data lived in a third-party processor with limited filtering and no contextual information.
Profile Management Friction
Updating payment methods, tax information, or thresholds required navigating away to external systems.
The final product.
A unified payment hub that consolidated six key areas into one transparent, personalized experience for publishers across all payment terms.
Rather than create 3 different experiences for Net 30/65/90 Publishers, I designed one interface that personalizes through data, not through conditional UI.
The design approach centered on making complex financial information feel simple without hiding the complexity that publishers actually needed.
Personalization through data, not UI
One design works for all payment terms by calculating the relationship rather than building conditional interfaces
Transparency builds trust
In financial products, showing the math is more important than hiding complexity
Progressive disclosure
Surface most common needs immediately, provide links to deeper functionality
Work within constraints
Used existing design system for 90% of design
What we built.
The solution consolidated scattered payment information into six focused sections within a single payment hub.
Current Earnings
What you've earned so far this period
A real-time summary of earnings for the current payment period, personalized to the publisher's Net term. Shows accumulated earnings, projected payment date, and a comparison to the previous period.
Payment Calendar
When you'll get paid, at a glance
A visual timeline showing upcoming and past payments mapped to their earning periods. Color-coded by payment status (pending, processing, completed) with the publisher's specific Net term schedule.
Earnings Table
The green dot that changed everything
A detailed breakdown of daily earnings with a visual indicator (green dot) showing which earnings have been included in a payment and which are still pending. This became the most-used feature — publishers finally had a clear mapping between what they earned and what they were paid.
Adjustments Table
Where the money went
A transparent view of all payment adjustments — bonuses, holdbacks, corrections, and fees. Each adjustment links back to the payment it affected and includes a plain-language explanation of why it occurred.
Download Reports
Your data, your way
Export capabilities for payment history, earnings breakdowns, and tax documents. Formatted for both accounting software and manual review with customizable date ranges and grouping options.
Payment Profile Access
One place for payment settings
Direct access to payment method management, tax information, and payment threshold settings — previously scattered across multiple external tools. Streamlined into a single settings panel within the payment hub.
The receipts.
Impact was measured across task completion, engagement depth, and friction signals during the first 30 days post-launch.
Found what they needed and left satisfied — the hallmark of a well-organized information architecture.
The sweet spot between "too fast to have found anything" and "too long to be confused."
Chose to explore beyond their initial task — a signal of trust and discoverability.
Completed sessions without rage clicks, excessive back-tracking, or error states.
Engaged with the detailed earnings and adjustments tables, not just the summary cards.
Successfully completed their intended task, whether checking a payment status, viewing earnings, or downloading a report.
Earnings Table > Current Earnings
The detailed earnings breakdown table saw more engagement than the current earnings summary card. Publishers preferred granular data over high-level summaries.
Low Calendar Engagement
The payment calendar, which seemed like it would be the primary navigation tool, saw lower engagement than expected. Publishers preferred the table-based views for finding payment information.
Longer Sessions = Happier Users
Longer session times correlated with higher satisfaction scores, not confusion. Publishers who spent more time were exploring, not struggling.
What happened next.
Post-launch iteration was driven by triangulating three data sources: behavioral analytics, direct user feedback, and support ticket patterns.
Triangulating Data Sources
Combined Amplitude analytics, publisher survey responses, and support ticket categorization to identify patterns that no single source would have revealed.
The Accidental Discovery
Pagination in the earnings table — added as a performance optimization — became the most interacted-with element on the page at 93% interaction rate. Publishers were browsing their payment history like a feed, not searching for specific dates.
Validation Through Conversation
The Director of Support confirmed that payment-related tickets dropped measurably after launch, validating the self-service hypothesis that drove the project.
How it evolved.
Calendar Demoted
Moved from primary navigation to a secondary view based on low engagement data. Table-based views became the default experience.
Payee Profile Section Elevated
Payment profile management was elevated to a more prominent position after analytics showed publishers frequently searched for payment settings.
Earnings Table Transformed
Enhanced with pagination, sorting, and inline payment-period indicators based on the surprisingly high engagement with detailed earnings data.
How it evolved.
Post-launch iteration was driven by triangulating behavioral analytics, direct user feedback, and support ticket patterns.
What I took away.
Transparency builds trust more than simplicity
The 76% engagement with detailed tables shows Publishers want to verify, not just trust.
Design for multiple mental models
Not everyone thinks the same way. Supporting both table-first and Current Earnings-first paths improved usability more than optimizing for a single "right" entry point.
Personalization through data, not conditional UI
One interface serving all payment terms (Net 30/65/90) by calculating relationships rather than building separate experiences. This scales infinitely better than branching logic and maintains consistency.
Strategic trade-offs accelerate shipping
Display-only calendar, linking to Tipalti, showing 3 months instead of full history, each constraint forced prioritization that led to faster shipping while still solving core needs.
Instrument measurement before launch
Manual session analysis provided valuable insights, but if I'd established comprehensive analytics tracking from day one, I'd have much richer data on business impact. Measurement planning is design work.
This project changed how I think about financial interfaces. The instinct is always to simplify, but for tools where money is involved, people want to see the work. They want to verify, to understand, to trust. The best payment experience isn't the one that hides the complexity — it's the one that makes the complexity navigable.
Interested in working together?
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