Pay out money

Add money to your Stripe balance and pay out your sellers or service providers.

Use this guide to learn how to add funds to your account balance and transfer the funds into your users’ bank accounts, without processing payments through Stripe. This guide uses an example of a Q&A product that pays its writers a portion of the advertising revenue that their answers generate.

To add funds to your account balance, your platform must be on a manual payout schedule. You can configure your schedule in your payout settings.

Only team members with administrator access to the platform Stripe account and two-factor authentication enabled can add funds.

Prerequisites

Register your platform.
Add business details to activate your account.
Complete your platform profile.
Customize brand settings. Adding a business name, icon, and brand color is required for Connect Onboarding.

Create a connected account

When a user (seller or service provider) signs up on your platform, create a user Account (referred to as a connected account) so you can accept payments and move funds to their bank account. Connected accounts represent your users in Stripe’s API and facilitate the collection of information requirements so Stripe can verify the user’s identity. For a Q&A product that pays for answers, the connected account represents the writer.

This guide uses Express accounts which have certain restrictions. You can evaluate Custom accounts as an alternative.

In your platform settings, customize your Express signup form by changing the color and logos that users see when they click your Connect link.

Create a connected account link

Enable onboarding Express accounts with OAuth by selecting the toggle in your platform settings.

To create a new connected account link, click +Create on the accounts overview page and select Express for account type along with the transfers capability. Click Continue to generate a link to share with the user you want to onboard.

This single-use link directs users to a form where they can provide information in order to be connected to your platform. In the example of a Q&A platform, this link would be provided to writers to connect with the platform. This link should only be used for a single connected account and expires after 7 days. After your user completes the onboarding flow, you can view them in your accounts list.

Add funds to your balance

To add funds, go to the Balance section in the Dashboard. Click Add to balance and select why you are adding funds to your account.

Select Pay out connected accounts to add funds to pay out to your connected accounts. If you are adding funds to your balance to cover future refunds and disputes, or to repay your platform’s negative balance, select Cover negative balances and see adding funds to your Stripe balance.

Verify your bank account

Go through the verification process in the Dashboard when you first attempt to add funds from an unverified bank account. If your bank account is unverified, you’ll need to confirm two microdeposits from Stripe. These deposits appear in your online banking statement within 1-2 business days. You’ll see ACCTVERIFY as the statement description.

Stripe notifies you in the Dashboard and through email when the microdeposits have arrived in your account. To complete the verification process, click the Dashboard notification in the Balance section, enter the two microdeposit amounts, and click Verify account.

Add funds

Once verified, use the Dashboard to add funds to your account balance.

In the Dashboard, go to the Balance section.
In the Add to balance window, enter an amount in USD and select Connect payouts.
In the resulting modal (shown below), enter an amount in USD.
Verify the amount and then click Add funds.
The resulting object is called a top-up and can be viewed in the Top-ups section of the Dashboard.

View funds

View your funds in the Dashboard on Top-ups tab under the Balance page. Each time you add funds, a top-up object is made that has a unique ID in the format tu_XXXXXX, which you can see on the detailed view for the top-up.

Settlement timing

US platforms add funds via ACH debit and can take 5-6 business days to become available in your Stripe balance. You can request a review of your account for faster settlement timing by contacting Stripe Support.

As we learn more about your account, Stripe might be able to decrease your settlement timing automatically.

Adding funds for future refunds and disputes or to repay a negative balance can happen through bank or wire transfers and are available in 1-2 business days.

Pay out to your user

After your user completes the onboarding process and you’ve added funds to your balance, you can transfer some of your balance to your connected accounts. In this example, money is transferred from the Q&A platform’s balance to the individual writer.

To pay your user, go to the Balance section of an account’s detail page and click Add funds. By default, any funds you transfer to a connected account accumulate in the connected account’s Stripe balance and are paid out on a daily rolling basis. You can change the payout frequency by clicking the right-most button in the Balance section and selecting Edit payout schedule.