The house rules

Finelly imposes no rules from the outside. Every event is configured separately and the group decides how expensive lateness gets. These are the four levers and what each one changes.

Price per minute

This is what each minute of delay costs, set when the event is created. There is no minimum and no maximum: a few cents, or a figure that hurts.

In practice two different approaches work well:

• Low prices, between $0.10 and $0.50. The pot stays small and the fun is in the scoreboard, not the money. This setting holds up best with a group that plays often.
• High prices, $1 and up. It makes the meet-up serious. Good for one-offs — an important dinner, a trip with a train to catch — but it wears thin if you do it every week.

Bear in mind the amount is multiplied by minutes rounded up, so a twenty-minute delay at $2 a minute is $40. Worth agreeing on before accepting the invitation, not after.

How many stragglers pay

This is the rule that really changes the dynamic. When creating the event you choose how many of the late arrivals actually pay, always starting with whoever was latest.

• Only the last one pays. Everyone else who was late gets away with it. It makes for a tense finish: you can be ten minutes late and still be safe if you know someone is doing worse.
• The last two or three pay. Spreads the risk and grows the pot. Better for bigger groups.

The key point: being late does not mean paying. Only the top of the delay ranking pays, as many people as you configured.

GPS check-in

Arrival is marked by the phone, not by anyone's word. A check-in is accepted if you are within 150 metres of the event venue.

Location is read only at the moment you press the button, and the coordinates of that specific arrival are stored as proof it was valid. There is no continuous tracking and no record of your movements between events. The details are in the privacy policy.

The 150-metre radius exists because phone GPS is not exact: indoors, in an underground car park, or between tall buildings, accuracy drops. It is wide enough not to lock out someone who really is there, and short enough to stop anyone checking in from home.

Where the pot goes

Written when the event is created and printed on the receipt: the first round, dessert, the tip, petrol for the next trip, a kitty for the following meet-up. It is free text.

Having it in writing from the start heads off the classic argument afterwards, when nobody remembers what was agreed.

Finelly does not move money and is not a gambling app

Worth spelling out, because the product's vocabulary — fine, pot, pay — can give the wrong impression:

• There is no chance involved. The outcome depends purely on what time each person arrives. Nothing is wagered and luck plays no part.
• There is no cash prize. No winner collects the pot: it is spent on whatever the group wrote down when creating the event.
• Finelly takes no cut of those amounts and has no stake in them.
• Finelly does not process those payments. The app works out what each person owes and notes it on the receipt. The money moves between you however you like: cash, a transfer, or buying the round. Finelly is not a payment service and never touches it.

The only thing you ever pay inside Finelly is the optional unlock that removes ads, $2.99 at launch and $4.99 afterwards, and that goes through Stripe or the app store. We explain it in pricing.

Keep reading

• How it works, with the calculation step by step
• Frequently asked questions