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Card payouts and the Stripe Direct model

The Animal Traders lets sellers accept card payments from buyers in the app. Card payments are powered by Stripe using the Stripe Direct model (also called direct charges). The most important thing to understand is this: when a buyer pays by card, the money goes directly into your own Stripe account. It never passes through The Animal Traders’ account. Because of this, you are the merchant of record and you are fully responsible for your own sales. This page explains how that works, what you need to do to get set up, and what you are responsible for.

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What is Stripe?

If you haven’t heard of Stripe before, here’s the short version: Stripe is one of the largest and most trusted payment companies in the world. It safely handles card payments for millions of businesses, and your own Stripe account is private and belongs to you. You can set up your Stripe account with confidence. Here’s why:

• Trusted by the world’s top companies. Stripe powers payments for household names like Amazon, Google, Shopify, Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, Instacart, and DoorDash, alongside millions of small businesses. It has processed trillions of dollars in payments.
• Bank-level security and encryption. Stripe encrypts your sensitive data and protects it with the same class of safeguards banks use. Card numbers are tokenized so raw card details are never exposed to The Animal Traders or to other sellers.
• The highest security certification in the industry. Stripe is certified as a PCI Service Provider Level 1 — the most stringent level of certification available in the payments industry — and is audited regularly by independent security experts.
• Built for fraud protection. Stripe uses advanced fraud monitoring and machine learning to help protect you and your buyers from suspicious activity.
• A regulated financial company. Stripe is a licensed, regulated payments provider. Your money moves through infrastructure that meets strict financial regulations.
• Your account is yours. When you connect Stripe, you create (or link) your own private Stripe account. You control your bank details, you can sign in to your Stripe dashboard at any time, and The Animal Traders cannot move or withdraw your money.

In other words, the same technology trusted by some of the biggest companies on the planet is protecting your money and your buyers’ card details. The Animal Traders chose Stripe specifically so that your payments are handled by a proven, secure, industry-leading provider — not by us. You can learn more directly from Stripe at stripe.com and read about their security practices at stripe.com/docs/security.

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What “Stripe Direct” means

Stripe supports several ways to route money between a marketplace and its sellers. The Animal Traders uses direct charges, where each seller connects their own Stripe account and charges are created directly on that account. In practice this means:

• Each card payment is created on your connected Stripe account, not on a platform account.
• Buyer funds settle directly to you. The Animal Traders never holds, escrows, or controls your money.
• You are the merchant of record for every card sale you make.
• Your payout schedule, balance, and bank transfers are managed by Stripe, not by The Animal Traders.

This is a direct-deposit (trust) model. The Animal Traders connects you and the buyer and records the sale, but the payment relationship is between you, the buyer, and Stripe.

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Who can accept card payments

Card payouts are available to:

• Individual sellers with seller mode enabled on their profile, and
• Organization admins, who set up payouts on behalf of their organization.

Buyers and non-admin organization members do not see payout setup. If an organization is selling, an admin connects the organization’s own Stripe account, and sales for that organization settle there.

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What you are responsible for

Because payments go directly into your own Stripe account, you are the merchant of record. Before you can connect your account, you must read and accept these responsibilities. You are responsible for:

• Fulfilling the sale — delivering the animal, item, or service as described.
• Refunds — issuing refunds when appropriate.
• Chargebacks and disputes — responding to any dispute a buyer opens with their card issuer.
• Stripe’s processing fees — the card-processing fee on each sale is paid by you.
• Customer service — handling buyer questions and problems for your own sales.
• Taxes — reporting and paying any taxes that apply to your sales. See Sales tax and seller responsibility.
• Legal and regulatory compliance — meeting the laws and rules that apply to what you sell and where you sell it.

You must check the box accepting these responsibilities before The Animal Traders will generate your Stripe onboarding link. If the terms are updated later, you may be asked to accept the new version before you can keep selling.

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Set up card payouts

1. Open the Sell tab and go to Payouts & earnings.
2. In the Card payouts section, read the How payouts work notice.
3. Check I understand and accept these responsibilities and choose Accept & continue.
4. Choose Set up payouts. You’ll be taken to Stripe to connect your account.
5. Complete Stripe’s onboarding (identity, business details, and a bank account or debit card for payouts).
6. Return to the app. Your status updates automatically.

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Onboarding statuses

The Card payouts card shows your current status:

• Not set up — you haven’t started, or you still need to accept the responsibilities notice.
• In review — Stripe needs a bit more information before you can accept payments. Choose Continue onboarding to finish.
• Active — you’re fully set up. Buyer card payments will settle directly into your Stripe account.

Your status is read directly from Stripe (based on whether charges and card payments are enabled on your account) plus your accepted responsibilities. It refreshes automatically when you return to the Payouts screen, so if you just finished a step in Stripe, give it a moment to update. If Stripe pauses onboarding partway through, you can always return to Payouts & earnings and choose Continue onboarding to pick up where you left off.

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Help filling out the Stripe onboarding form

When you choose Set up payouts, Stripe takes over and walks you through its own secure, hosted onboarding form. This is a Stripe Standard account, which means you get a full Stripe account and dashboard of your own. The form is hosted and managed by Stripe — The Animal Traders never sees the details you enter.

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What Stripe will ask for

Exactly what’s required depends on your country and whether you sign up as an individual or a business, but Stripe typically asks for:

• Your business type — individual/sole proprietor, company, or nonprofit.
• Personal details — legal name, date of birth, home address, and contact info.
• Identity verification — a government-issued ID, and sometimes a photo, to confirm who you are.
• Tax information — for example, the last four digits of an SSN (US individuals) or an EIN/business tax ID.
• A payout bank account — a bank account (or in some cases a debit card) where Stripe deposits your money.

Stripe asks for this information to verify your identity and to comply with financial (“know your customer”) regulations. You can always sign in to your own Stripe dashboard later to update these details.

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Which industry should I choose?

Stripe asks you to pick an industry to “satisfy risk and compliance obligations.” Stripe shows a curated, grouped list of supported industries — it does not list every possible business, and there is no exact “animal sales” or “pet” category. So your goal is simply to pick the closest available match. The options Stripe shows can be different depending on whether you set up as an individual or as a business, so use the guidance that matches how you signed up:

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Stripe Tax: which product type?

During or after onboarding, Stripe may offer Stripe Tax — an optional, free service that monitors when and where you might need to collect sales tax. If you choose to set it up, Stripe asks you to “pick the primary product type you sell.” The options are usually:

• Digital goods (e.g. software, audio books, digital photos)
• Services (e.g. professional services, landscaping, personal care)
• Physical goods (e.g. clothing, medical supplies, electronics)

Recommended: choose Physical goods. Live animals and most pet supplies are tangible items, so Physical goods is the correct primary product type for animal sales. Only pick Services if what you actually charge for is a service (such as training or boarding) rather than the animal or goods themselves.

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Official Stripe guides

If you get stuck on any step of the form, these official Stripe resources walk you through it:

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How pricing and fees work

When a buyer pays by card, the amount they pay can be different from a cash price, because card sales carry processing and platform fees.

• Stripe processing fee — Stripe charges a per-transaction fee (assumed at 2.9% + $0.30 by default). As the merchant of record, you pay this fee out of each sale.
• Platform fee — The Animal Traders takes a platform fee on each sale. It is collected automatically at the time of the charge.

To help you price card listings, the app suggests a recommended card price that “grosses up” your cash price so the buyer effectively absorbs the processing and platform fees, and you still net your intended cash price. You are free to set a different price. Your earnings view shows your net amount per sale — what’s left after the processing fee and any platform fee.

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Coupons

Sellers can create their own coupons to share with buyers:

• Coupons can be a percentage off or a fixed amount off.
• Buyers enter the code at checkout, and the discounted total is calculated and confirmed on the server before payment.
• You can deactivate a coupon at any time from the Coupons section of Payouts & earnings.

Coupon codes are managed inside The Animal Traders (they are not Stripe promotion codes), and the final charged amount is always computed on the server, never by the buyer’s device.

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Earnings and payouts

The Earnings section of Payouts & earnings shows:

• Total earned — your net across completed sales.
• Pending — sales that haven’t fully settled yet.
• Sales — the number of completed purchases.
• Recent transactions — a list of recent orders with their status (Paid, Pending, Refunded, and so on).

These figures are a snapshot of activity inside The Animal Traders. Because this is a direct model, the actual money, balance, and bank payouts live in your Stripe account. To see your available balance, payout schedule, or to change your bank details, open your Stripe dashboard.

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Refunds, disputes, and chargebacks

As the merchant of record, you handle refunds and disputes:

• Refunds are issued against your Stripe account. When a sale is refunded, it appears as Refunded in your transaction list.
• Disputes and chargebacks are raised by the buyer through their card issuer and are handled in Stripe. The Animal Traders records dispute activity and notifies its admins, but the response and any liability are yours.

Keep clear records and communicate with buyers to reduce the chance of disputes.

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Frequently asked questions

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Related help

• Sales tax and seller responsibility
• Cash purchase confirmation
• Reviews and reputation
• Referrals and listing credits