Company: GDOT
Filing Date: 2025-03-04
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001386278-25-000009
Chunk: 126

Company: GREEN DOT CORP
Filing Date: 2025-03-04
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 8
Chunk 126
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 the costs of manufacturing and distributing card packages, placards, promotional materials to our retail distributors’ locations and personalized cards to consumers who have activated their cards.We pay our retail distributors, and brokers' commissions based on sales of our cards and cash transfer products in their stores. We defer and expense commissions related to new cards sales ratably over the average card lifetime, which is currently less than one year for our cards acquired through our Retail channel. Absent a new card fee, we recognize the cost of the related commissions immediately. We recognize the cost of commissions related to cash transfer products when the cash transfer transactions are completed. We recognize costs for the production of advertising as incurred. The cost of media advertising is recorded when the advertising first takes place. We record the costs associated with card packages and placards as prepaid expenses, and for our cards acquired in our Retail channel, we record the costs associated with personalizing the cards as deferred expenses. We recognize the prepaid cost of card packages and placards over the related sales period, and we amortize the deferred cost of personalizing the cards, when activated, over the average card lifetime.Included in sales and marketing expenses are advertising and marketing expenses of $25.3 million, $28.5 million and $31.2 million and shipping and handling costs of $1.6 million, $1.7 million and $2.3 million for the years ended December 31, 2024, 2023 and 2022, respectively. Also included in sales and marketing expenses are use taxes for various states related to purchases of materials since we do not charge sales tax to customers when new cards or cash transfer transactions are purchased.Stock-Based CompensationWe record stock-based compensation expense based on the grant-date fair value of the award. For stock options and stock purchases under our employee stock purchase plan, or ESPP, we base compensation expense on fair values estimated at the grant date using the Black-Scholes option-pricing model. For stock awards, including restricted stock units, we base compensation expense on the fair value of our common stock at the grant date. We recognize compensation expense for awards with only service conditions that have graded vesting schedules on a straight-line basis over the vesting period of the award. Vesting is based upon continued service to our company and we account for any forfeitures as they occur. We have issued performance-based restricted stock units and performance-based options to our executive officers and employees that are subject to performance conditions, market conditions, or a combination thereof. For awards subject