Paying at the door is the second half of the payment model for most bookings, and the whole of it for one. A 50% deposit, requested in the thread once the booking is confirmed, secures every first booking, anything booked more than 24 hours ahead, overnights, two therapists, three hours or more, airport hotels and peak dates; only a same-day hour or two for a client already known to the house arrives with nothing paid. No card is held on file, and no payment link is ever sent from outside that confirmed thread. Two other pages already cover the surrounding ground: the payment methods guide specifies the three channels, cash, card and crypto, and the journal post on paying at three in the morning deals with cash-machine limits and night-time card declines. This guide covers what neither of them does: the handover as a sequence of steps, and the bookings where the arithmetic is less obvious.
The first ninety seconds, in order
Every arrival follows the same short sequence. Knowing it removes any hesitation about when to raise money.
- The text. She messages that she is close. You release the street door or head to the lift.
- The door. She arrives, you let her in, and the door closes behind her. Nothing is discussed in the corridor or on the landing.
- The check. A brief confirmation of the booking: name, duration, format. This takes a sentence.
- The settlement. The balance shown in the thread, or the full fee on a returning client's same-day booking, in the agreed channel, handed over now.
- The set-up. Her bag goes down, the sheet goes on the bed, and the session begins.
Step four is always inside the room and always before step five. The reason is practical rather than formal. Money settled in the first minutes is a subject closed for the rest of the booking, and neither person has to think about it again, least of all at the end, when the only thing either of you wants is to finish calmly.
Preparing the amount
The figure you pay at the door is the one the thread lists as due on arrival, exactly: the balance after the deposit, or the whole fee where no deposit applied. Before the knock, get it ready in whatever form was agreed.
Cash. Count it before she arrives and set it somewhere you can reach without searching: an envelope on the table, folded notes beside the television. Counting notes out of a wallet at the door takes time and invites miscounting. If you are paying in a currency other than euros, the conversion should already be pinned in the thread, so the number of notes is settled before anyone is standing in the room.
Card. Have the card out, and know your PIN. This matters more in the Netherlands than visitors expect. Contactless card payments above a modest amount require a PIN, and the balance for even the shortest session is well above that threshold. Many travellers have not typed their card PIN in months because they pay by phone at home. A phone wallet authenticated with your face or fingerprint works, provided you have one set up and the room has signal.
Crypto. The transfer should already be moving before the knock, so confirmation has landed by the time she is inside. Have the transaction open on your screen so she can see it has arrived.
The handover itself
The payment is settled inside the room rather than left on a bedside table to be found later. Cash is checked once against the figure in the thread. That is routine, not a sign of mistrust, and it protects both sides from an honest mistake. For card, the terminal comes out and you complete the payment yourself. For crypto, a glance at both screens confirms the transfer. The whole step normally takes well under a minute.
Three doors, worked through
Ninety minutes, hotel room, cash. The client has booked through the house before, the session is for tonight, and the thread states the whole ninety-minute fee as due at the door. At 22:25, while waiting for the knock, the client counts that exact sum, in three notes, into the hotel envelope from the bedside drawer. At 22:41 the therapist is inside with the door shut. The envelope changes hands, the notes are checked against the figure in a few seconds, and the sheet is on the bed by 22:43.
Two hours, apartment, card. It is his first booking, so half the two-hour fee went through as the deposit when the booking was confirmed, and the thread shows the matching half due in the room by card. The client has checked that his PIN is the four digits he thinks it is. At the door, the terminal asks for the PIN because the amount is above the contactless threshold, he types it, the payment clears, and the bag goes down.
Overnight, hotel suite, crypto. The thread fixed the overnight total that afternoon; the half-share deposit went over in crypto once the booking was confirmed, and the asset and address for the remaining half were set in the same message. At 23:15, fifteen minutes before the agreed arrival, the client sends that second transfer. By the knock it has confirmed; a look at both screens settles it, and nothing about money is mentioned again for the rest of the night.
Each example follows the same principle behind paying at the door: the figure is known in advance, it is ready before the knock, and it takes less time to settle than it takes to read about.
Special cases
Overnight bookings
An eight-hour overnight is a single booking at one block price, and it always carries a deposit: half by card, Revolut, Wise or crypto when the booking is confirmed, the other half at the start of the night. Nothing is paid hour by hour or split between evening and morning. If the door half is going to be cash, that half can still exceed a foreign card's daily withdrawal limit, so draw it over two days or bring a card or crypto instead. Settle it in the first minutes like any other booking and the rest of the night contains no money at all.
Two therapists
Four-hand bookings for one client bill two single hours per hour; couples pay the same with one therapist and four single hours with two. Two therapists always mean a deposit of half the total, so what is handed over as they arrive is the other half, in the channel agreed. The thread states how the total is to be settled, so none of the arithmetic is discussed at the door.
Extensions
An extension is agreed with the therapist during the session, if her schedule allows, and it is billed at the ordinary rate: an hour becoming two adds exactly one more hour's fee. It is settled at the moment the extension is agreed, in the same channel as the original payment where possible. This keeps the end of the session as free of money as the beginning, even when the session grows.
Gifts
No vouchers exist, because a deposit belongs to one confirmed booking rather than to a code that can change hands. When a massage is a present, the giver either books it, pays the deposit and comes to the door for the balance, or passes the amount to the recipient, who then books and pays like any other client. An envelope with the exact sum is the neatest way to give a session. Birthday gifts are covered in more detail on the birthday massage page.
Groups
A group plan pays its deposit in the thread and its balance either as one block from the organiser when the therapists arrive, or session by session as each guest's booking begins. The model is fixed in the thread in advance. The group logistics guide includes worked totals for common group sizes.
Hotel rooms
Payment happens inside the room once the door has closed, never in the lobby, the bar or the lift.
Other currencies at the door
Pounds, dollars and francs are handled at the door exactly like euros, with one step done earlier: the conversion. Ask for the figure in your currency in the thread when you book, and the number of notes to prepare is fixed in writing. Notes are easier than coins, and a round figure is simpler than an exact count; any change due is agreed in the same thread, so nobody is doing exchange-rate arithmetic in a hotel room with a bag half unpacked.
Tips
Tips are entirely optional and never expected. If you want to leave one, the natural moment is at the end, while the bag is being packed, and cash is the simplest form. Tipping is never raised during a booking, and declining to tip needs no explanation.
When something does not go to plan
The card declines. It happens, especially on foreign cards at unusual hours. Try a second card or a phone wallet. If none work, cash or crypto are the alternatives, and the session starts once one of them succeeds. This is why the payment guides suggest having a second route available.
The amount is wrong. If what you prepared does not match the figure in the thread, check the thread together on your phone and correct it before the session begins. The thread is the record both sides work from.
You cannot pay at all. A booking that cannot be settled at the door does not begin. To avoid ever reaching that point, confirm your payment method when you book, and test the card or draw the cash before the confirmation arrives, not after.
Paying at the door: the checklist
- The amount matches the thread, to the euro.
- Cash is counted and ready, or the card is out with the PIN known, or the transfer is already moving.
- A second payment route is available in case the first fails.
- Payment happens inside, after the door closes, before the session starts.
- Extensions are settled when agreed, not at the end.
Follow that list and the money takes less than a minute of a booking that lasts an hour or more, which is exactly how it should be.