When bids are (and aren’t) refunded

This policy explains exactly when payments for bids onblowup.lol are refunded. The rules are implemented directly in the settlement code (see src/features/bidding/settlement.tsand architecture decision Q4 in docs/architecture.md). This is not a generic template — it reflects what the code actually does.

Once a payment is verified by Dodo Payments and the bid is settled against an active season (the season that was current when the checkout session was created), the bid is final. The following are not grounds for a refund:

• Your rank dropped because another creator bid more.
• You received fewer clicks than expected.
• You did not gain subscribers or traffic.
• You bid on the wrong category by mistake.
• You no longer wish to participate.
• The season ended and a new one began (normal rollover).

Settled bids remain on the leaderboard for the duration of the season and are part of the permanent season archive afterward.

There are exactly four conditions under which the settlement code automatically initiates a full refund via the Dodo Payments API. These are hardcoded in settlement.tsand are not discretionary:

Seasons roll over every Monday at 00:05 UTC via an Inngest cron job. When you start checkout, theseasonIdof the currently active season is embedded in the Dodo checkout session metadata.

If the webhook arrives after that season has ended (i.e., a new season is now active for that category), the code detects the mismatch:

// settlement.ts lines 247-252
if (active.seasonId !== intendedSeasonId) {
  throw new Q4Refund('season_rolled_over');
}

The payment is fully refunded. The bidder’s money is never applied to a week they didn’t intend to bid for.

If a category has no active season at the moment the webhook is processed (for example, the category was disabled, or there is a gap between the end of one season and the start of the next), the settlement code cannot attribute the bid to any season.

// settlement.ts lines 243-246
const [active] = await tx.select({...}).from(seasons)
  .innerJoin(categories, ...)
  .where(and(eq(categories.slug, slug), eq(seasons.status, 'active')));

if (!active) {
  throw new Q4Refund('no_active_season');
}

The payment is fully refunded. This ensures money is never held in limbo without a valid season to credit it to.

The allowed bid range is $5 minimum to$10,000 maximum per bid, enforced byassertBidAmountin src/features/bidding/pipeline.ts:

// pipeline.ts lines 58-65
export function assertBidAmount(amountCents: number): void {
  if (!Number.isInteger(amountCents)) throw new Error('amountCents must be an integer');
  if (amountCents < CUSTOM_BID.MIN_CENTS || amountCents > CUSTOM_BID.MAX_CENTS) {
    throw new Error(
      'bid must be between 500 and 1_000_000 cents ($5–$10,000)',
    );
  }
}

CUSTOM_BID.MIN_CENTS = 500($5) and CUSTOM_BID.MAX_CENTS = 1_000_000($10,000) are defined in src/config/site.ts.

If a webhook arrives with a total_amountoutside this range, the settlement code treats it as structurally invalid and auto-refunds:

// settlement.ts lines 211-216
if (!structurallyInvalid) {
  try {
    assertBidAmount(amountCents as number);
  } catch {
    return refundUnattributable(paymentId, refunds, paymentId, 'amount_out_of_bounds');
  }
}

The settlement code requires the following fields to be present in the verified webhook payload to attribute a payment to a bid:

• payment_id (Dodo’s payment ID — the idempotency key)
• checkout_session_id
• total_amount (numeric)
• metadata.categorySlug
• metadata.handle
• metadata.seasonId

If any of these are missing or malformed, the payment is considered unattributable — we cannot determine which campaign, season, or creator it belongs to. Rather than silently keeping the money, the code auto-refunds:

// settlement.ts lines 204-225
const structurallyInvalid =
  !paymentId ||
  !checkoutSessionId ||
  typeof amountCents !== 'number' ||
  !slug ||
  !handle ||
  !intendedSeasonId;

if (structurallyInvalid) {
  return refundUnattributable(
    paymentId,
    refunds,
    paymentId,
    'missing_metadata_or_fields',
  );
}

If payment_idis also missing, the event is logged and dropped without a refund (there is no payment ID to refund).

When an auto-refund condition is met:

1. The settlement code calls refundOrToleratewhich invokes Dodo Payments’ refunds API:refunds.create({ payment_id }).
2. The refund is idempotent: if the webhook is redelivered (Dodo’s at-least-once delivery) and the refund was already issued, the code tolerates thecharge_already_refundederror and does not throw.
3. The webhook event is marked processed_atin the webhook_eventstable so it is never retried.
4. The settlement outcome is recorded as{ kind: 'refunded', reason: '...' }.

Refund timing is determined by Dodo Payments and the card network — typically 5–10 business days to appear on the original payment method. Blowup does not control this timeline.

Questions about a specific refund, or if you believe a refund was missed:

Legal review disclaimer: This Refund Policy page was written to accurately reflect the actual auto-refund logic in the codebase as of the effective date above. It isnot a substitute for professional legal reviewbefore handling significant real revenue. The operator acknowledges this and plans to engage qualified counsel before any production scale-up.