Your work, your rates, our rails.

1. Agreeing to these terms

These terms are a contract between you and LumiQ. Creating a creator account or accepting a job means accepting them. They sit alongside the Privacy Policy, the Content and Intellectual Property policy, and the Community and Safety Guidelines.

You must be at least 18, legally allowed to work in the market you operate in, and able to enter a binding contract.

2. You are an independent business

You are an independent contractor, not a LumiQ employee, worker, partner or agent. That is not just a label — it is how the platform is built, and these are the facts behind it:

• You set your own rates, within the band published for your category and market, and you change them whenever you like.
• You decide which jobs to accept and which to decline. Declining work is not penalised, and there is no minimum.
• You choose your own hours and your own availability.
• You bring your own equipment, software, transport and insurance.
• You control how the work is done — your lighting, your lenses, your set list, your edit. We never direct the creative work.
• You are free to work for other platforms, agencies and direct clients at the same time, including competitors.

Because you are an independent business, LumiQ does not withhold tax, and does not provide employment benefits, paid leave, sick pay, pension contributions, workers’ compensation or unemployment insurance. Your taxes and your insurance are yours to arrange. Clause 9 covers the paperwork we are required to file.

3. Getting verified

Before you can claim paid work you verify your identity. You present a government ID and take a selfie, and our provider checks that the document is genuine, that the face matches, and that you are physically present.

We do this because customers let creators into their homes, their weddings and their businesses. A marketplace that cannot say who its creators are is not one people should trust with that.

LumiQ never receives your ID image or your selfie — only the outcome. The biometric part of the check is explained in the Privacy Policy, and you consent to it on the verification screen before anything is captured. You can decline, and you can withdraw consent later; either means you cannot take paid work.

You have a limited number of verification attempts. If you run out, or the check cannot confirm you, email hello@lumiqapp.com and a person will look at it.

4. Your profile and your rates

• Your profile has to be you: your own name or trading name, your own work in the portfolio, and an accurate service area.
• Never post work you did not make. Passing off someone else’s photographs as your portfolio is grounds for immediate removal, and we will tell the customers who booked you because of it.
• Rates are hourly or per job, per category, and must sit inside the band published for your market. The band exists so customers can trust the price, not to set it for you.
• A booking snapshots your rate at the moment it is made. Repricing never changes a job someone already paid for.

5. Taking and doing the work

• When you accept a job, you are committing to it. Show up, on time, at the address on the booking, with what the job needs.
• Respond to an offer inside the response window shown on it. Letting offers expire repeatedly reduces how often you are matched.
• If you genuinely cannot make it, cancel as early as you can so we can find a replacement. Cancelling late, or not showing up at all, is the one thing that damages a customer most — repeated late cancellations or no-shows lead to removal.
• Where a job needs attendance proof, submit it. It is what protects you when a customer claims you never came.
• Behave professionally: to the customer, to their guests, and to anyone else on site.
• You may leave a booking where you reasonably feel unsafe, and you will still be paid for it. Tell us what happened through the safety report.

6. Delivering

For categories that produce files, you deliver an edited gallery through LumiQ inside the delivery window shown on the booking. Deliver through the platform, not by sending a private link — delivery through LumiQ is what releases your money and what proves you did the work.

For live performance categories there is nothing to deliver. The booking completes when you have performed.

Late delivery without a reason, or delivery that is materially not what was booked, can lead to a partial or full refund to the customer and a corresponding reversal of your earnings.

7. What you earn, and what LumiQ takes

The customer pays your fee plus a LumiQ trust fee. LumiQ takes a commission from your fee — currently 25%, and always shown on the job before you accept it. Nothing is ever deducted that you did not see first.

Tips go to you in full. LumiQ takes no commission on a tip.

• Commission and fees are set per market and category and can change. We give notice before a change, and it never applies to a job you already accepted.
• The figures on your earnings page are the ones that actually apply to you.

8. Getting paid

• Earnings become available after the job completes and the holding period for your market has passed. Your earnings page shows the date.
• Payouts run on a schedule to the account you connect through our payment provider. There is a small minimum balance — currently $1 or ₦100 — before a payout runs.
• Instant cash-out is optional and carries a fee, shown in full before you confirm it, with a daily cap. Choosing it never changes what you earned, only when you get it.
• You are responsible for the payout details you enter. Money sent to an account you typed incorrectly may not be recoverable.
• If a customer is refunded, or a payment is reversed after you were paid, the corresponding amount is recovered from your balance or from future earnings. We will always tell you why.
• We may hold a payout while we investigate fraud, a safety report or a serious dispute. Holds are not punishment and are released as soon as the question is settled.

9. Tax

You are responsible for your own taxes, registrations and filings in your market. LumiQ does not withhold tax from your earnings.

In the United States, we or our payment provider will collect a Form W-9 and issue a Form 1099 where the thresholds are met. In Nigeria, you are responsible for your own personal income tax and any VAT registration that applies to you. Give us accurate tax details — we cannot pay out without them where the law requires them.

10. Your work, and what LumiQ may show

You keep the copyright in everything you shoot. The customer gets a full licence to the work you deliver to them; the detail is in the Content and Intellectual Property policy.

Reels and portfolio items are different: those you publish yourself. When you publish one, you give LumiQ permission to show and promote it — in the feed, on the site, and in our marketing — while it is published and for a reasonable period after, with attribution to you.

That permission covers only what you deliberately publish. Work you deliver privately to a customer is never used by LumiQ for marketing.

Before you publish a client’s shoot as a reel or portfolio piece, make sure you have their permission and the permission of anyone recognisable in it. You are the one who owes that to them, and you confirm you have it when you publish.

11. Going around the platform

Do not take a customer you met on LumiQ off the platform to avoid commission, and do not ask them to pay you directly for work they found here.

It is not about the money alone: off-platform work has no verified identity, no payment protection, no dispute process and no record if something goes wrong — and when it does, the customer still comes to us. Doing it is grounds for removal and for recovering the fees avoided.

12. Insurance and liability

You are responsible for your own equipment, and for damage or injury you cause while working. We strongly recommend public liability insurance and your own equipment cover; in some venues and markets it is required.

LumiQ does not insure you, your gear or your work. Except where the law does not allow us to limit it, our total liability to you in connection with any job is capped at the amount you earned on that job.

13. Ratings, suspension and removal

• Customers rate you after a job. Ratings feed how often you are matched and whether you appear as featured.
• We can suspend or remove an account for: no-shows and repeated late cancellations, portfolio fraud, going around the platform, abusive or unsafe behaviour, failed or withdrawn identity verification, or payment fraud.
• Where we can tell you why, we will, and you can reply. Serious safety matters take effect immediately.
• Removal does not take money you genuinely earned. Completed jobs are still paid out, less anything owed back.

14. Ending it

You can close your creator account from Settings whenever you like. Finish or properly cancel any job you have already accepted first — leaving a customer stranded on the way out is the one thing we will follow up on.

Closing your account anonymises your personal details. Your completed jobs and the ledger entries behind them remain, because a customer’s record and our accounts depend on them.

15. Changes, disputes and governing law

We will email you at least 14 days before a change to these terms that matters, including any change to commission or payout terms. Changes never apply to a job you already accepted.

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Georgia, United States. Start with legal@lumiqapp.com — tell us what happened and what you want, and give us 30 days.

If you are in the United States and we cannot resolve it, the same individual-arbitration agreement in clause 15 of the customer Terms of Service applies to you, with the same 30-day opt-out. If you are in Nigeria, it does not apply and you keep full access to the Nigerian courts.