When you sell a ticket, where does the money go first, and who is holding it while you wait? The answer to that question separates ticketing platforms more sharply than any feature list, and Stripe Connect is the plumbing behind the good answer. This guide explains what Connect is, why tickts and platforms like it use it, what it means for your cash flow, and what you actually have to do.
Two ways a platform can handle your money
| Platform holds the money | Stripe Connect | |
|---|---|---|
| Where a payment lands | The platform's own account | Your own Stripe account, on the spot |
| When you are paid | On the platform's schedule, often after the event | On your Stripe payout schedule, before the event |
| Who is holding it meanwhile | The platform | Stripe, on your behalf |
| If the platform fails | Your money is in their estate | Your money is in your account |
| Refunds | Through the platform's ledger | From your own balance, through Stripe |
What Connect is
Stripe Connect lets a platform build the checkout while each seller keeps their own Stripe account underneath it. tickts creates the payment; Stripe puts the money into your account. tickts never holds it, and there is no platform balance for your takings to sit in. You see every charge in your own Stripe dashboard, alongside anything else you sell through Stripe.
Why it matters for a small organiser
- Cash flow. Deposits, venue hire and the act get paid before the night. Money that arrives as tickets sell, rather than in a lump afterwards, is money you can use.
- Your name on the statement. Buyers see your business on their card statement, not a ticketing company's, so fewer people dispute a charge they do not recognise.
- Your relationship with the processor. The account, the payout schedule and the dispute history are yours. If you ever leave the platform, the account goes with you.
- Nothing to reconcile twice. A refund you make on tickts is a refund on your Stripe account; the two cannot disagree.
Connecting, step by step
- From the Overview page in your tickts dashboard, press Connect with Stripe.
- Stripe asks for your business details, an ID check and a bank account. Most organisers finish in about five minutes.
- Stripe sends you back to tickts, connected. You can build events and save them as drafts before this step; paid events go on sale once it is done.
Payouts, and why the first ones feel slow
Two things happen on Stripe's side. New UK accounts typically start on a seven-day rolling delay, so a sale on Monday pays out the following Monday, and that delay shortens as the account builds a history. And a payout schedule can be daily, weekly or monthly, set in your Stripe dashboard. If your bank shows nothing a week after your first sale, the money is almost always sitting in your Stripe balance waiting for its date.
A refund comes out of your Stripe balance. If your takings have already paid out to your bank, a refund can fail until new sales arrive or you top the balance up in Stripe. Refund promptly, or keep a small float.
What it costs
Stripe's processing fee on a UK card is 1.5% plus 20p per transaction, which is what you pay on tickts; there is no booking fee and no commission on top of it. You choose whether to absorb it or pass it on to the buyer at checkout. Pay by Bank, switched on in your own Stripe account, costs roughly a third of a card and carries no chargebacks, and it then appears beside card at your checkout automatically.
Disputes
Because the charge is on your account, a chargeback is yours to answer, and Stripe gives you the tools. tickts helps: the order page carries the evidence a dispute needs, the buyer's confirmation, the ticket, the scan record if they attended, and a checkout that showed the price plainly is the strongest defence there is. A dispute is rare on tickets sold at face value with no surprise fees, which is not a coincidence.
What stays the same if you use PayPal instead
tickts also connects to PayPal, and the principle holds: the money settles into your own PayPal account and tickts is not in the payment path. PayPal's processing fee is 2.9% plus 30p, and a few Stripe-built features, gift cards, payment plans and memberships among them, are not offered on a PayPal-only account.
