Nothing is charged unless your message is judged unsolicited
A Knock deposit is a refundable hold on your card, like a hotel deposit. It works like the holds you already know, a hotel's card hold, a restaurant's reservation deposit, released in full when the message is legitimate. It is a signal that you believe your message is worth the recipient’s attention, not a payment for it, and it is only ever charged if the recipient reviews your message and judges it unsolicited.
Last updated August 2026
Three ways the hold is released
- The recipient releases it. Legitimate, relevant messages get released, most recipients release far more than they claim.
- They release it from the email itself. The release button sits in the very email they read, so it usually happens in seconds.
- Time releases it automatically. Any hold that is never reviewed is released in full after 7 days, your statement simply drops the pending authorization.
When you don't get it back
You are only charged if the recipient reviews your message and judges it unsolicited. That is a deliberate human action, taken message by message, the hold is captured only at that moment, never automatically.
Placing a hold puts your message in the recipient's priority inbox. It does not guarantee a reply.
Curious how recipients are guided to use these outcomes? The same rules, from their side: the four verdicts.
Refunds the platform forces
- The recipient's alias is paused or deleted before your message is reviewed.
- The recipient never completes payout onboarding, so the deposit cannot be settled.
- The message is found to have been mis-priced or duplicated by our systems.
- A payment dispute is resolved in your favour by the card network.
- The recipient's account is suspended for abuse of the deposit mechanism.
Where the money sits meanwhile
Until a recipient claims, the money never leaves your bank: it sits as a pending authorization on your card. When a deposit is claimed, it is captured to the platform balance and only then paid out to the recipient. Legacy deposits taken before holds shipped are refunded to the original card instead.