Industry News

Agency-Grade Payment Providers Compared: Blackcat, MAKE & Yoursafe

Most payment services in the creator economy are built for one person. A small number are built for agencies, and the difference comes down to a single feature: automated commission splits — dividing every incoming payment between the agency and its creators without anyone touching a spreadsheet. Three providers currently offer this for European fans agencies: Blackcat, MAKE, and Yoursafe.

This is an independent comparison of the three on the dimensions that actually decide which one fits: regulation, split capability, cards, crypto rails, and what each costs on real volume. Where a provider hasn't published a figure, we say so rather than guess.

What "Agency-Grade" Means

A creator wallet receives and holds one person's money. An agency-grade account is built for the multi-party reality of an agency: money arrives from a platform, and it has to be divided and distributed to many creators, correctly and on schedule, every cycle. Do that manually across fifteen creators and two payout runs a month and you have a part-time bookkeeping job with real error risk. The automated split turns it into configuration — set the percentage once, and every payment divides itself. We cover the mechanics in how automated split payments work.

This is what separates the three providers here from services like Paxum, CosmoPayment, or Capitalist, which are designed for individual creators: excellent at receiving and holding one person's earnings, but with no split engine at all. An agency can build on them — many do — it just carries the division and distribution work itself, forever. We compare that tier separately in Creator Wallets Compared.

The split is the defining feature, but it isn't the whole picture. Around it sit the questions that decide whether a provider fits your operation: who regulates it, whether it gives you an EU IBAN on SEPA rails, whether there's a cap on the split percentage, what cards it issues, whether it supports crypto payouts, and what the fee structure does as volume grows. That's the frame for everything below.

Blackcat

Blackcat is an EU-licensed Electronic Money Institution, authorised by the Malta Financial Services Authority — an EMI, not a bank, a distinction unpacked in the regulation section below. It is also a Mastercard Principal Member, which is why it issues its own physical and virtual Mastercards rather than running them through a third-party programme.

On rails: EU IBANs and full SEPA access, including SEPA Instant. That matters because instant euro transfers became a legal baseline for EU payment providers in 2025 — receiving since January, sending since October — so creators paid from a Blackcat account get euros in seconds into any European bank account, with the now-mandatory Verification of Payee name check applied before the money leaves.

On splits: automated, with no maximum split percentage. Whether your agreements run at 30%, 50%, or 70% agency share, the split engine handles it. That sounds like a small point until you reach Yoursafe's entry below.

On crypto: available through Manerio, so agencies with creators who want stablecoin payouts have a route — with a post-MiCA caveat covered later.

Pricing is the most distinctive part. Blackcat publishes volume-tiered rates:

with a €50/month minimum. The tiers are marginal — each band is charged at its own rate rather than the whole amount repricing when you cross a threshold — so the effective rate keeps falling as an agency grows. What that means in actual euros is worked out below.

MAKE

MAKE takes the opposite approach on pricing: a flat 1.99% on the commission amount, at any volume. There's genuine appeal in that — you always know the rate, and there are no tiers to model.

Structurally, MAKE operates offshore, through Kappa Investments in the Canary Islands, rather than as an EU-licensed institution. The practical consequences: no EU IBAN and no SEPA access, so payouts don't ride European bank rails, and the EU regulatory protections described below don't apply. That is a factual trade-off, not a verdict — some agencies weigh it and accept it. Cards are listed as coming soon, and crypto payouts are supported.

For an agency that values a single flat rate, doesn't need SEPA, and has its European banking covered elsewhere, MAKE is a straightforward option. For one that needs EU rails or safeguarded funds, the offshore structure is the deciding factor — we compare the two models in depth in EU IBAN vs offshore accounts.

Yoursafe

Yoursafe is the second EU EMI on the list, authorised by De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) in the Netherlands. Like Blackcat, it offers EU IBANs, SEPA, and automated splits. Its cards are Visa Debit, it does not offer crypto, and it does not publish standard split pricing.

Its defining constraint is a 50% cap on the split percentage: the agency's share of any incoming payment cannot exceed half. That makes the Yoursafe decision unusually clean. If your commission is at or below 50%, it works. If your agreements run above 50% — common in full-service management, where typical structures range anywhere from 30% to 70% — Yoursafe cannot execute your split, whatever else it does well. Check your contracts before you check anything else.

For the agencies it does fit — lower-commission models, EU-based, no crypto requirement — it's a credible choice with the same Dutch-supervised EMI protections described below. The absence of published pricing just means you'll need to request a quote and compare it against the numbers in the cost section before deciding.

Side by Side

The Regulatory Difference, Concretely

"EU EMI" versus "offshore" reads like a compliance footnote. In practice it decides four things.

Safeguarding. An EU EMI must keep client funds segregated from its own money — held at credit institutions or covered by insurance — under the E-Money Directive. If the institution fails, safeguarded client funds sit outside the insolvency estate. An EMI is still not a bank: there is no deposit-guarantee scheme, and safeguarding is the protection model instead.

Supervision and recourse. An EMI answers to a named regulator with complaint procedures and enforcement powers. You can verify Blackcat's authorisation in the MFSA's Financial Services Register and Yoursafe's in DNB's public register of electronic money institutions — a two-minute check worth doing before onboarding with any provider that claims a licence.

Rails. Only regulated EU/EEA institutions participate in SEPA, so the EU IBAN, instant euro transfers, and mandatory Verification of Payee come bundled with the licence. An offshore provider can't offer them even if it wanted to.

Passporting. An EMI licensed in one member state can serve clients across the whole EEA under a single supervisory framework — useful if your agency or your creators sit in several countries.

An offshore provider carries none of this: no safeguarding requirement, no EU regulator to complain to, no SEPA participation. That doesn't make it unusable — it means the protections you might assume exist, don't, and a flat fee should be weighed with that in mind. One forward note: the incoming PSD3/PSR package will fold EMIs into a single payment-institution framework over the next two years — the licence category is being renamed and tightened, not abolished.

What They Actually Cost

Fees for both priced providers apply to the commission amount being split to the agency, and the headline rate matters less than euros on your real volume. At a 50% commission rate:

Worked out at two points. At €100,000 monthly volume with a 50% split, the commission being processed is €50,000: Blackcat's tiers produce €625 — an effective 1.25% — against MAKE's flat 1.99%, which is €995. That €370 monthly gap is €4,440 a year. At €500,000 volume (€250,000 commission), the marginal structure has pulled Blackcat's effective rate down to 1.00%: €2,500 against €4,975, a difference of €2,475 a month — €29,700 a year, roughly a junior employee's salary.

The pattern is structural, not a promotion: a flat rate stays flat, while marginal tiers keep sliding down as volume grows. At small volume the gap is modest (€375 vs €498 at €50K); at scale it compounds. Yoursafe is absent from this table because its 50% cap disqualifies it at exactly the commission rate used here, and it publishes no comparable pricing. Your own volume and commission rate will land differently — run them through our free calculator.

Crypto Rails After MiCA

The EU's MiCA transition period ended on 1 July 2026. Any crypto-asset service provider without a MiCA authorisation must now cease EU operations — of roughly 3,500 pre-MiCA national registrations, only about 220 full licences had been issued by mid-2026, and unlicensed exchanges are exiting the EU or blocking EU users. The travel rule also applies to crypto transfers, so anonymous payout legs are gone.

For this comparison: Blackcat's crypto option runs through Manerio, and MAKE supports crypto payouts directly. In both cases, the question a fans agency should ask in 2026 is whether the counterparty actually handling the crypto leg holds a MiCA authorisation — verify this with the provider before routing payouts, exactly as you'd verify an EMI licence in a register. Yoursafe offers no crypto, so the question doesn't arise. The full picture — what changed, deadlines, and what to ask — is in our MiCA and crypto payouts guide.

How to Choose

The right provider depends on which constraints bind for you:

• Commission above 50%? Yoursafe's cap rules it out. Your shortlist is Blackcat or MAKE.
• Need an EU IBAN, SEPA, and safeguarded funds? That points to the EU EMIs — Blackcat or Yoursafe. MAKE drops out.
• Both of the above — commission over 50% and EU rails required? Only Blackcat meets both conditions.
• Creators want crypto payouts? Blackcat (via Manerio) or MAKE — and verify the MiCA status of the crypto counterparty either way.
• Volume growing fast? Model the effective rate on your projected volume, not today's: tiered pricing pulls further ahead of a flat rate every month you grow.
• Value a single flat rate and don't need SEPA? MAKE is the simple option, with the offshore trade-off weighed honestly.

The honest answer is that it depends on your numbers — which is exactly what a calculator is for.

Bottom Line

Blackcat, MAKE, and Yoursafe all do the one thing fans agencies need that creator wallets don't: split payments automatically. They diverge on everything around it. Blackcat is the volume-tiered EU EMI with no split cap, its own Mastercard issuance, and a crypto route; MAKE is the flat-rate offshore option without EU rails; Yoursafe is the second EU EMI, solid on SEPA and safeguarding but constrained by its 50% cap. Match the provider to your commission rate, your regulatory needs, and your real volume — verified against the registers linked above — and the choice usually makes itself.

Run your own volume and commission through our free calculator, or start with how to choose a payment provider for your fans agency.

---

AgencyPayments.eu is an independent informational resource. We are not affiliated with Blackcat, MAKE, Yoursafe, or any other provider mentioned. Pricing, features, and regulatory information are based on publicly available sources, current as of July 2026, and may change; confirm current terms directly with each provider and the relevant regulator.