Stripe Connect

Payments infrastructure for software platforms and marketplaces that onboard users, route funds, and take an application fee.

Best Fordefault start when you want payments revenue without becoming a PayFac.
Not Forresidual economics you own. Stripe keeps the license and the rate card.
San Francisco and Dublin
Updated 26 Aug 2026

The default starting point for platforms that want payments revenue without becoming a PayFac. Fast to integrate; Stripe keeps the license and the rate card.

What it is

Stripe Connect is Stripe’s product for software platforms and marketplaces that need to accept payments and move money among more than two parties. The platform holds a Stripe account, creates a Connect application, and onboards connected accounts for its users. Money can be charged directly on a connected account, or charged on the platform and then routed onward.

Stripe’s public docs describe three charge types: direct charges, destination charges, and separate charges and transfers. Platforms can take an application fee on those flows. Connect is sold as a way to embed payments without the platform first registering as a payment facilitator.

Who it’s for

Two shapes, from Stripe’s own docs:

SaaS platforms, where connected accounts accept payments from their own customers. This is the usual vertical software case.
Marketplaces, where the platform collects from a buyer and pays out sellers or service providers.

It is a fit for a vertical software company that wants to monetize payments—take a rate on volume—without standing up its own PayFac license, KYC operation, and acquiring relationships on day one.

Standout details

Onboarding can use Stripe-hosted flows, embedded components in the platform’s product, or APIs the platform builds itself.
Stripe’s Connect product page states that Stripe handles identity verification, KYC, and sanctions checks during onboarding; tokenizes card data to help with PCI; and relies on Stripe’s licenses.
Platforms can specify earnings per transaction via application fees. Stripe publishes Connect pricing separately; this listing does not repeat a rate card.
The same Connect page lists adjacent Stripe products a platform can offer users, including Terminal, Tax, Billing, Capital, and Issuing. Those are Stripe products. They are not this page.
Stripe names Shopify and DoorDash as Connect customers on the Connect product page.

Sources: stripe.com/connect, docs.stripe.com/connect, How Connect works, Understand how charges work, Stripe newsroom.

Honest verdict

Connect is the well-known default. Public docs, a documented application fee, and a path to live payments without becoming a PayFac are why it is the first listing here.

What it is not: a PayFac license you own, or a published interchange-plus buy rate you mark up at will. Stripe remains the licensed party. Pricing is usage-based and set by Stripe. If the job is to ship payments revenue this quarter, start here. If the job is to own underwriting, residual economics, or a white-label acquiring program, wait for other names in this directory—or go read those vendors yourself.