Platform Account

The platform account is the primary Stripe account that owns a Stripe Connect integration. It's the business at the center of a marketplace or platform — the one that onboards sellers as connected accounts, routes payments between parties, and collects its cut of each transaction.

What the platform account controls

The platform account holds the API keys and Connect settings for the whole integration, and it is responsible for:

• Onboarding connected accounts and collecting the verification each seller needs to get paid.
• Choosing the charge model — direct charges, destination charges, or separate charges and transfers.
• Collecting fees via an application fee on transactions its sellers process.
• Bearing platform-level responsibility, which for some account types includes negative balances, refunds, and disputes.

Depending on the model, a payment may settle first to the platform's own balance and then move to a seller, or land directly on the seller with the platform taking a fee.

Platform vs connected accounts

The distinction is one of ownership. There is one platform account per integration, and it can have thousands of connected accounts beneath it. The platform's balance holds its own earnings — application fees plus any on-behalf-of or destination-charge funds it's routing — while each connected account holds its own.

For accounting, keep the two ledgers separate: platform revenue (fees the platform earns) is a different number from the gross volume flowing through the integration to sellers. Confusing the two overstates how much money the platform actually keeps.