Send payouts with Stripe

You can now use Stripe to programmatically send bank transfers to anyone with a US bank account. This makes it easier to build businesses like Lyft or Exec that involve sending many payments to others. You can use the API to transfer money to vendors, service providers, sellers, or anyone else you need to pay as part of your business.

To use it, charge your customers as you normally would. Once you’ve enabled transfers, you’ll be able to pay out to any number of accounts instead of having the funds automatically deposited in your main bank account.

You can collect recipient bank account details directly with our API or with Stripe.js (which means sensitive details never touch your server). Once you create a recipient, you can transfer funds to them with a single API call:

curlhttps://api.stripe.com/v1/transfers\
  -usk_test_mkGsLqEW6SLnZa487HYfJVLf:\
  -damount=3000\
  -dcurrency=usd\
  -ddescription="Amber Feng - Jun 05 2013"\
  -dstatement_descriptor="MAY SALES"\
  -drecipient=rp_1xITEl4DYvhVlE

Marketplaces

A growing collection of companies—many enabled by the explosion of mobile devices—are using the internet to create new markets.

Lyft and Sidecar use the spare capacity of existing cars and drivers to provide transportation. Shoptiques is creating a central hub for one-of-a-kind inventory from small boutiques. Exec creates a market for on-demand labor. These, and many others, are bringing networked efficiency to previously analog systems and are creating new kinds of marketplaces.

These marketplaces require payments on two sides. As ever, you have to charge the customer, but as the provider shifts from being a single entity to a multiplicity of suppliers, you also need to coordinate complex payouts.

We want to expand commerce on the internet. When we saw what these businesses needed, we saw a great opportunity to do so.

Use and Rollout

As with much of what we release, we’ve been testing this for a few months. Production users today include Lyft, Exec, Sidecar, Postmates, Homejoy, Kitchensurfing, HomePolish, Flightfox, and Shoptiques, among others.

The API is available immediately to businesses in the US, and we’re working on support for other countries too. It costs a flat 25¢ per transfer.

We’re really excited to see what you build. Get started with the documentation below, and as ever, please let us know what you think!