Customer FAQ

We exist to help tipped workers earn more.

As we use cash less and less often, many in hospitality have seen their earnings fall significantly.

People still want to tip and say thank you for brilliant service, but without cash it’s becoming harder and harder to do.

TiPJAR is creating a revolution in the world of tipping. Direct, transparent and cashless. It’s better for customers who can have the  confidence their tip goes to the people who deserve it, better for staff who get to keep more of their tips, and better for operators who don’t have the headaches and cost of administering card tips.

It’s a triple win!

What most people don’t know is that when you add a tip to your card or pay a service charge added to the bill this money doesn’t go straight to the person who served you. It goes to the owner or operator of the restaurant, cafe or bar.

It’s then entirely up to them whether they pay some or all of this money to their staff. Some do, but many don’t. They use it to top up manager’s salaries, move it from site to site, even spend it on staff food and uniforms or just keep it as profit. We think that’s unfair.

Even good, honest operators who want to give all this money to staff struggle to do so. It’s administratively and legally complicated to do. They have to pay high fees to lawyers to make sure it’s done properly, and particularly smaller operators can be forced to keep a percentage of the tips to cover these costs.

By taking the owner or operator out of the loop, TiPJAR simply allows more of the money to get to the tipped workers and makes sure you have complete transparency about how much they will receive.

It’s really simple! When you scan the QR code or click the link you’ll be taken to our responsive website, where you can pay your server a tip with Apple Pay, Google/Android Pay or by entering your credit card (all details of which are stored not by TiPJAR, but by Stripe, our payment provider).

The amount you pay is sent straight to their account and they get the money as soon as we receive it. Where teams share tips, they are able to share them out daily, weekly or monthly, based on the hours each team member has worked.

TiPJAR was built by hospitality workers, for hospitality workers. Founded by James Brown, who has worked in hospitality for over 20 years, doing every job from pot-washer through to becoming a Director of a major hospitality operator, our team is formed of people who know what’s it like at the front end.

James and our whole team were moved to act by the plight of staff seeing their tips dwindle as we all stopped carrying cash, and by the complexity and lack of transparency in the way tips are handled by operators.

Alongside James we have raised support from a number of restaurateurs, technologists and entrepreneurs who see TiPJAR as a huge opportunity to make a positive difference for tipped workers, customers and business owners in hospitality and beyond – in fact anywhere people want to say “thanks” for a job well done!

We can’t avoid the high costs of payment card processing. At the moment, this costs us 20p plus 2.5% of every transaction. It sucks.

BUT, the bigger TiPJAR gets, the lower the card processing fees will be. Tip with TiPJAR and create a revolution!

Our fee is just 4% to fund the TiPJAR system (ie. just 8p on £2 tip). We hope in time to reduce this even further.

We give you the choice to cover these fees too, if you’re happy to, meaning 100% of the tip you intend can go straight to the tipped worker.

It’s completely secure. Our system is built using the same security used by most banks and financial institutions. TiPJAR never holds your card information but this goes through our payment processing company, who are one of the largest in the world and operate to the highest standards in the industry. You can find out more here https://stripe.com/docs/security/stripe

We don’t use your data for any other reason than getting your tip to the tipped worker, and won’t use it for marketing or anything else unless you choose to opt in.

If you want to close your account, you can do so by submitting a request to our team.

When you tip you can choose to share your profile information with the recipient – that way they’ll know it was you!

If you prefer, you can also tip anonymously.

TiPJAR operates as a commercial agent to our tipped worker users. We agree a contract which each of them to collect tips on their behalf.

When you tip, we’ll show you the exact amount that the recipient will receive.

For TiPJAR to realise it’s potential we need support, so are delighted to meet potential investors. Find out more on our investment page.

Tips that have been received by your employer and then are to be distributed by TiPJAR have to be taxed before they are distributed.

We send the tax to HMRC and the tips after tax are sent to your personal TiPJAR.

We submit all tronc payments to HMRC on a monthly basis. Once we’ve done that we get notified by HMRC of your tax code, this is then applied to your profile in TiPJAR and if you’ve paid too much tax that month we’ll send you an adjustment at the end of the month.