Connect integration guide

Build out each aspect of the onboarding flow by calling the corresponding Stripe APIs. You need to build custom logic in your integration to satisfy all required verification information.

Best for when you want to have full control over the onboarding flow:

• Build and maintain all onboarding flow logic yourself. Can be resource intensive and expensive to build.
• You manage risk with full responsibility for negative balance liabilities on connected accounts.
• You must keep your flows up to date as verification requirements change, and also build additional flows to communicate and collect such requirements from your users. Review and update onboarding requirements at least every six months to make sure you build the latest requirements into your flow.
• You must build a custom form to collect bank accounts or debit cards so that connected accounts can be set up with a payout account.

Create a dashboard using Stripe APIs or embedded components to enable connected accounts to manage their account.

Connected accounts won’t have access to the Stripe Dashboard or Express Dashboard. It’s up to you to provide access to these workflows by building your user’s dashboard, refunds, disputes workflows and reporting functionality. Your users might not realize that they have a Stripe account through your platform.

We recommend integrating Connect embedded components to add dashboard functionality to your platform application with a low integration effort. Embedded components are highly themable and can support connected accounts with:

• Payments workflows such as viewing payments and payouts, managing refunds and responding to disputes
• Payout workflows such as managing payout schedules, creating manual payouts or updating payout accounts
• Reporting workflows to download and export payments and payouts
• Account management workflows such as updating business information

A direct charge is a customer payment made directly to a connected account. Customers directly transact with your connected account, often unaware of your platform’s existence.

This charge type is best suited for platforms providing software as a service. For example, Shopify provides tools for building online storefronts, and Thinkific enables educators to sell online courses.

Stripe collects Stripe fees from your platform account, inclusive of processing fees. You control the processing fee amounts you bill connected accounts. Use the application fee parameter to collect processing fees from your connected accounts.

If you onboard users in your own flow using the Stripe API, you must also collect bank accounts or debit cards to set up your connected accounts with a payout account. When you’ve collected the user’s information for the payout account, attach it as an external account. Payouts are blocked if your connected account doesn’t have a verified external account.

Your platform is liable for losses incurred by negative balances on your connected accounts. Your platform is responsible for reviewing new connected accounts during onboarding and determining the risk profile of your users.

Recommended for marketplaces that collect payments from buyers to payout sellers, or for advanced platforms that want full control over how risk and negative liabilities are managed on connected accounts:

• Your platform must monitor connected accounts for ongoing risk of loss.
• Your platform has to build flows to communicate and remediate connected accounts when you detect fraud or risk.
• You have both the operational team and the engineering resources to establish processes for managing ongoing risk of loss and preventing fraud.

Before creating accounts with this setup, carefully consider and acknowledge your platform responsibilities for negative balance liabilities.