Stripe Integration for Marketplace Platforms

The account-type decision, Standard versus Express versus Custom Connect, is the single highest-leverage choice in a marketplace build, and it's expensive to reverse once sellers have onboarded. Standard hands Stripe's own dashboard to your sellers (least platform liability, least control); Custom puts you fully in the UI and compliance seat (most control, most ongoing obligation); Express sits in between and is the right default for most two-sided marketplaces.

The Payout and Dispute Questions to Answer Before Launch

• Who funds a refund when the buyer disputes after the seller has already been paid out?
• What's your payout schedule per seller: instant, daily, or a rolling reserve for risk?
• Does your platform take a fee as an application fee, or via separate transfers?
• How does KYC/onboarding friction change between Standard, Express, and Custom?

Most of the marketplace integrations we're brought in to fix weren't broken on day one. They broke when transaction volume made an unhandled edge case (a seller-funded refund with insufficient balance, a payout landing before a dispute window closes) common enough to matter. We architect for that volume from the first Connect account created, not after the first support ticket about a negative balance.