How escrow protects a first hire
The brand pays before the work, the creator is not paid before approval, and neither side is trusting a stranger with the whole amount.
The nervous part of a first hire is the same on both sides. The brand does not want to send money to a handle they just met. The creator does not want to shoot a week of videos for a brand that goes quiet. Escrow is the boring answer. The brand pays. The money sits. The creator delivers. The brand approves. Then the payout is queued.
The platform fee is 12 percent, taken on the way in, so the number the creator accepted is the number they are owed. A refund, when the work is not approved and the rules say so, goes back through Paystack rather than being written down as a note in a spreadsheet.
Nothing is released because someone clicked twice. The transfer happens only when that click itself moves the escrow row out of held. If the row was already released, or was never held, no second payout goes out.