How you get paid: Stripe Connect, straight to your bank
The first question food truck owners ask about online ordering is "who holds my money?" On Find The Eats, the answer is you. Card payments go into your own Stripe account through Stripe Connect and pay out to your bank. Find The Eats never holds your funds.
What Stripe Connect is
Stripe Connect lets a platform like Find The Eats take payments on behalf of businesses without the money passing through the platform's bank account. Your truck gets its own Stripe Express account. Stripe verifies your identity, handles card security and fraud screening, and pays out to the bank account you add.
Connecting takes about three minutes
- In your Find The Eats dashboard, tap Connect payouts.
- Stripe opens its own secure sign-up. Enter your business details and the bank account you want paid to. Find The Eats never sees your bank or card numbers.
- Back in the dashboard, flip online ordering on. Your menu page starts taking card orders.
What goes through Stripe
- Online orders from your page
- Card payments at the window, paid by QR on the customer's phone (see window sales)
- Gift certificates sold online or by QR at the window
Cash sales and cards you run on your own terminal are recorded in Find The Eats but don't pass through Stripe.
Fees, with a real example
Two fees can come out of a card sale, and both are taken before the money reaches your Stripe balance:
- Stripe's card-processing fee, currently 2.9% + 30¢ per successful U.S. card transaction. Stripe sets it, not us.
- Find The Eats: a flat 25¢ per paid online order or online gift certificate. It's not a percentage, so a $60 catering order pays the same 25¢ as a $6 taco. Window sales pay no Find The Eats fee.
| $20 online order | Amount |
|---|---|
| Customer pays | $20.00 |
| Stripe card fee (2.9% + 30¢) | −$0.88 |
| Find The Eats platform fee | −$0.25 |
| To your Stripe balance | $18.87 |
When the money reaches your bank
Stripe holds your very first payout for about seven days after your first successful payment while it finishes verifying the account. That's Stripe's standard wait for new accounts and nobody can speed it up. After that, payouts follow your normal Stripe schedule. Your Stripe Express dashboard shows the expected date for each payout under Balances.
Refunds and disputes
Because the payment is yours, refunds and chargebacks come from your Stripe balance, the same as with any Stripe merchant. Stripe's Express dashboard shows every payment, refund and dispute.
Quick answers
- Does Find The Eats hold my money?
- No. Card payments go into your own Stripe Express account and pay out to your bank. Find The Eats only receives its flat 25¢ fee on paid online orders.
- How long until my first payout?
- Stripe typically holds a new account's first payout for about 7 days after its first successful payment. After that, payouts follow your normal Stripe schedule.
