The pipeline, in one breath
A card sale doesn't teleport into your bank. It goes: customer pays → the card networks settle it (a couple of business days) → it sits in your balance → your payout schedule sweeps the balance to your bank. Everything on this page is just those four arrows.
Your schedule
By default, payouts run weekly, on Mondays, one tidy deposit that's easy to match against your week. You can see (and adjust) the schedule under Service Settings in the Money, and every past payout is listed under Recent Transfers.
Weekly vs more often is a bookkeeping taste, not a money question, the money is yours either way. One deposit a week is genuinely easier to reconcile; frequent deposits feel nicer. Pick one and stop thinking about it.
The two delays that confuse everyone
The first payout is slow, about a week. Stripe holds a new account's first payout longer while they finish vetting. One time only. Don't schedule rent around your first week of sales.
"Paid today" isn't "payable today." A Saturday sale settles across business days and rides the *next* sweep. Selling on Monday morning and checking your bank Monday night will always disappoint, that's the settlement gap, not a problem.
When a payout fails
The money isn't gone, it bounced back to your balance because the bank details didn't work.
Open Bank Accounts and compare routing + account numbers against your actual banking app, digit by digit.
Fix what's wrong. Failed payouts retry, the queue clears once the account is right.
If the numbers are right and it still fails, check Pending Items, occasionally Stripe pauses payouts pending an extra verification item, and clearing that item unfreezes everything.
If something's off
- Balance shows money but no payout came. Check the schedule, if it's weekly, the sweep just hasn't run yet. Recent Transfers shows the last one and its date.
- The payout amount doesn't match your sales total. A payout = settled sales minus fees minus refunds for the period. Open any payout to see its breakdown before assuming something's missing.
- You changed banks. Update Bank Accounts before closing the old account, a payout to a closed account takes days to bounce back and re-send.