Redesigning Payout Experience

Redesigning Payout Experience

Contributor Platform

Evaratus
In production ( 3 Weeks )

Team

Naman Bhalla ( PM )
Shreyansh S ( Manager )

Note : To comply with my NDA, I have omitted and obfuscated confidential information in this case study. All information presented is my own and does not necessarily reflect the views of Scaler.

Note: To protect confidential information, all product data and identifiers have been modified. This case study reflects my work during my time at Scaler.

Background

Evaratus, an initiative by Scaler, connects domain experts with AI training projects for frontier labs and enterprise teams. Contributors earn payouts by completing tasks like data creation and response evaluation.

Context

Payouts are the primary trust anchor on Evaratus, over 60% of contributors couldn't independently track their earnings following the shift to bi-weekly settlement cycles. A large chunk of operational bandwidth went into answering routine payment questions and manually verifying earnings for confused users.

The low payment clarity and manual support burden highlighted the need to overhaul payouts and the linked banking setup.

Context

Payouts are the primary trust anchor on Evaratus, over 60% of contributors couldn't independently track their earnings following the shift to bi-weekly settlement cycles. A large chunk of operational bandwidth went into answering routine payment questions and manually verifying earnings for confused users.

The low payment clarity and manual support burden highlighted the need to overhaul payouts and the linked banking setup.

By synthesizing user feedback, analyzing data, and leveraging tools such as Hotjar, Fullstory, and Zendesk for customer insights, we acquired valuable information about the challenges users encountered.

Note: To protect confidential information, all product data and identifiers have been modified. This case study reflects my work during my time at Scaler.

Contributors (Target Users)

Subject matter experts across software engineering, healthcare, research, writing and more are matched to projects based on their specific background.

Current Journey

Once a contributor submits work, reviewers assess the output against quality criteria. Successful submissions accumulate over a bi-weekly window, and the finalized total is disbursed directly to the contributor's registered bank account at the close of the settlement cycle.

Payouts(1) and Settings(2) before the redesign.

Role & Research

This was the first bottleneck addressed in a broader platform overhaul, with other updates following. I collaborated closely with a designer on this cause we had limited amount of time

Here are few core findings from our internal contributor and operations research —

  • End-of-Cycle Task Flooding: At the close of each settlement, the payout view flooded with hundreds of unbundled task entries. Expanding users across multiple simultaneous projects made it impossible to manually cross-check completed work against deposited amounts.

  • Invisible Deductions & Rejections: Because in-app totals lacked line-item context for deductions or rejected tasks, users were forced to download raw settlement files to audit their earnings—eventually contacting support when numbers still didn't add up.

  • Inflexible Settings Structure: The account setup relied on fragmented, one-off UI patterns that couldn't scale. It lacked the structural foundation needed to support clear navigation and future integrations.

Insights

Early tool was built for low-volume testing, not parallel enterprise workflows. Proactively establishing scalable UI and data patterns at this stage was critical to support expanding project volumes while preventing compounding design and engineering debt down the line.


Here are few core insights from our internal contributor and operations research —


  • ⍟ End-of-Cycle Task Flooding: At the close of each settlement, the payout view flooded with hundreds of unbundled task entries. Expanding users across multiple simultaneous projects made it impossible to manually cross-check completed work against deposited amounts.

  • Invisible Deductions & Rejections: Because in-app totals lacked line-item context for TDS deductions or rejected tasks, users were forced to download raw settlement files to audit their earnings—eventually contacting support when numbers still didn't add up.

  • Inflexible Settings Structure: The account setup relied on fragmented, one-off UI patterns that couldn't scale. It lacked the structured foundation required to support upcoming security checks or any future payout integrations.

Insights

Early tool was built for low-volume testing, not parallel enterprise workflows. Proactively establishing scalable UI and data patterns at this stage was critical to support expanding project volumes while preventing compounding design and engineering debt down the line.


Here are few core insights from our internal contributor and operations research —


  • End-of-Cycle Task Flooding: At the close of each settlement, the payout view flooded with hundreds of unbundled task entries. Expanding users across multiple simultaneous projects made it impossible to manually cross-check completed work against deposited amounts.

  • Invisible Deductions & Rejections: Because in-app totals lacked line-item context for TDS deductions or rejected tasks, users were forced to download raw settlement files to audit their earnings—eventually contacting support when numbers still didn't add up.

  • Inflexible Settings Structure: The account setup relied on fragmented, one-off UI patterns that couldn't scale. It lacked the structured foundation required to support upcoming security checks or any future payout integrations.

Higher Level Goals

A frictionless payout experience is not only beneficial to contributors, making their earnings transparent and reliable, it's also critical for both operations and Evaratus.

For Contributors (Domain Experts) :

✅ Reconcile bi-weekly pay without manual spreadsheet audits.

For Operations & Support Teams :

✅ Eliminate manual end-of-cycle calculations and audit sheets

✅ Clean, standardized ledger states simplify cross-referencing banking UTRs against platform records.

For Evaratus & Scaler AI Labs :

✅ Retain top domain experts to deliver enterprise-grade AI datasets

✅ Build a scalable, compliance-ready financial foundation

⚠️ Risk of contributor churn and operational bottlenecks if payments break trust

To enable a simplified usage, I outlined three major buckets we're solving for.

  • Financial Clutter: Moving from task lists to structured ledger rollups.

  • Status Ambiguity: Providing transparent tracking from task approval to bank credit.

  • Verification Rails: Creating an identity and banking setup to eliminate any settlement blockers beforehand.

Contextualising through interviews and understandings ( Payouts )

While majority of the platform was under overhaul this was the first boittlenect to be adressded and other updates following this

SYNTHESISING INFORMATION

SOLUTIONING

Payouts Section

Utilising inline deduction breakdowns, the contributor is immediately reassured of their exact net earnings without opening separate receipts. The global USD task rate is visually anchored alongside the local currency settlement, serving both cross-border tracking and domestic bank reconciliation.

The expandable cycle cards help contributors audit individual task states at a glance and track payout timelines with zero friction.

To provide granular auditability, the ledger organizes earnings by active project streams. Clicking "View Project" triggers an inline slide-over drawer that surfaces task-by-task line items, rate multipliers, and review tags—enabling contributors to verify exact hours, base pay, and quality bonuses with complete clarity. Becasue of business constraints we could only update the sunmitted work to 50 numbers.

Account Settings

The service offerings for each category is unique. I started by mapping the checkboxes and skus for each category, followed by listing attributes for each of them along with their variations.

I had to make sure a single card component works for every service type, for any number of attributes.

A card could have anywhere between 6-18 elements. A list of these, along with their permanent or removable status for each type (Packages, Checkboxes and SKUs) helped me make sure no case goes missed.

I put the iterations in user testing and got three major feedbacks:

“I don’t understand why there are two prices for me. If 399 is the final price, why not slash 499?”

“This price is clashing with the offer”

“The 3 things I focus on here are the package’s name ‘Essential’, the price 799 and Add button ”

Finally, I designed the cards that was easily understood, highlighted the pricing and could be scaled seamlessly, directly contributing to the core principles.

Account settings and payout being moved provided more clarity to the setup flow users could easily setup all the details.

Because of this we had to go theough make sure that each individual element had to be stress tested with. USers had to wait while anything related to their account was being updated

Looking ahead

Just the security feature was underhold I just wanted to make sure users feel safe while giving anymore details going ahead. Proposed a simple popup to ensure the safety of alll

Crediting where its due. Had an awesome time reading tis article and taking inspirations from here : Link

Results

We released with this new update to users following other minor upgrade to platform.


Reduction in support calls for OPS

72%


Ease of use

4.5/5

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