Identify the buyer, platform, connected account, Stripe, card networks, processors, and banks in a Connect payment. You’ll map who provides the product or service, who handles the payment experience, and who ultimately holds or moves the money.

Trace a customer’s payment from checkout into Stripe’s money system at a high level. You’ll recognize pending funds, available funds, platform balances, connected account balances, and why money does not instantly become payout-ready cash.

Compare platform-as-seller and seller-as-seller models using merchant of record, liability, customer support, and statement descriptor clues. You’ll connect those choices to Connect patterns like direct charges, destination charges, and separate charges and transfers without diving into every object detail.

Apply the previous explanations in a guided problem.

Work through a gross payment and divide it into seller earnings, platform fees, Stripe processing fees, taxes, shipping, and refunds set-asides. You’ll see how application fees let the platform keep revenue while routing the rest to a connected account.

Reason through why a platform may hold back money before paying sellers. You’ll connect reserves, rolling reserves, negative balances, refunds, disputes, and account risk to the practical question of who absorbs a loss.

Apply the previous explanations in a guided problem.

Check your understanding with a short quiz.

Trace available funds from a Stripe balance to a seller’s or platform’s bank account. You’ll compare settlement timing, payout schedules, external bank accounts, standard payouts, and Instant Payouts as different timing choices.

Review this chapter with practice based on your mistakes.