Marketplace Payments With Stripe: Deposits, Payouts and Refunds

Marketplace payments are harder than a normal checkout, because money moves between three parties: the buyer, the seller and you. Stripe handles most of the hard parts, but every marketplace needs its own setup. Here is what we built on six platforms, from security deposits to payouts.

1. 01Paying sellers with Stripe Connect

   Coach Catalyst lets clients pay coaches directly. We integrated Stripe Connect with Express accounts. Stripe hosts each coach’s onboarding and identity checks, and coaches get a light dashboard for their payouts.

   We designed the database schema for the marketplace before wiring up the payments, so it could scale securely. The marketplace opened a new revenue stream for coaches and for the platform.

2. 02Security deposits for rentals

   Cinekit rents camera and production gear between creators in the UK, Europe and the US. Expensive kit needs a security deposit, and booking dates change often. We take each deposit as a card hold through Stripe. The amount is authorized on the renter’s card, then released when the gear comes back. We built Cinekit in one month, and it has since grown past 100,000 users.

   Card holds have a limit. Stripe says an authorization for an online card payment is usually valid for 7 days. Longer rentals need an extended hold or a different approach.

3. 03Refunds as store credit

   Cercle is a UK fashion rental marketplace. Its checkout only took cash, cards or transfers, so every refund sent money off the platform.

   We built a wallet that turns refunds and cancellations into store credit, protected with encryption and secure tokenization. With Stripe alongside it, refunds became smoother and spending stayed on the platform.

4. 04Subscriptions and automated payments

   Klingit, a creative services platform, bills brands through multi-tier Stripe subscriptions. Cad Cam Masters, where dental labs hire freelance CAD designers, runs its marketplace payments through Stripe automatically.

   On Cad Cam Masters, the hard part wasn’t Stripe. Large 3D design files were stalling the servers during checkout. We moved uploads to a separate AWS pipeline that runs in the background.

5. 05Buy now, pay later

   AutoBuffy, a US auto parts store, had no buy now, pay later option, unlike most US stores. We added Klarna through Stripe, with PayPal, AfterPay, debit and credit options alongside it. Buy now, pay later lifted sales by 50%.

6. 06What caused the most trouble

   Across these builds, four things took the most work, and none of them was the checkout itself.

   1. Seller onboarding. Stripe verifies each seller’s identity before paying out, and an unfinished check holds their money. Show sellers their onboarding status clearly.

   2. Refunds and disputes. A refund or chargeback has to be split correctly between buyer, seller and platform, including partial refunds.

   3. Webhooks. Stripe reports payments, payouts and disputes as events. Your records must update from them, and cope with the same event arriving twice.

   4. Currencies and regions. Selling across countries, as Cinekit does in the UK, Europe and the US, brings several currencies and tax rules. Card fraud also rises across borders. The ECB and EBA found card fraud rates were ten times higher when the other party was outside the EEA (joint report, 2024 (opens in a new tab)).

7. 07What to decide before you build

   1. Who holds the money, and when does the seller get paid?

   2. What happens on a refund: money back to the card, or store credit?

   3. Do you need deposits, and how long do bookings last?

   4. Are sellers individuals or businesses, and in which countries? That shapes onboarding, and whether Standard, Express or Custom Connect accounts fit.

   5. Will you earn through a commission, a subscription or both?