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Who this is for

Bring your own Stripe is enabled per organization by Political Comms. If you do not see the Your Stripe account card on Billing > Payment Methods, contact support to have it turned on.
This applies to reseller organizations with sub-organizations underneath them. If your organization has clients, teams, or candidates set up as sub-organizations, you can connect your own Stripe account so their card payments and recharges settle directly with you instead of with Political Comms.

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Before you connect: what Stripe verifies

You can use a Stripe account you already have, or create a new one during the connection flow. Either way, Stripe verifies:
  • Company details. A US company or LLC settling in USD, with a legal entity name, EIN, and the identity of the business owner.
  • Business details. Industry: pick the one that matches your website. Consulting services fits most political consultants and firms, Advertising services fits digital advertising and direct mail shops, and Business services is the fallback. All three are standard-risk categories at Stripe. Do not pick Telecommunications or Political organizations, and never describe the business as telemarketing, robocalling, or lead generation: Stripe prohibits telemarketing outright and its review reads descriptions literally. Business type: Company, or the entity type you registered. Product description: describe what you sell to campaigns in the same words your website uses, because Stripe compares the two. A full-service firm might write: “We are a political consulting firm providing communication services to campaigns and committees, including strategy, digital advertising, direct mail, voter outreach programs, design, and print.” A texting-focused firm might write: “We are a political consulting firm running compliant peer-to-peer voter communication programs for campaigns and committees, including message strategy, list management, and reporting.”
  • Website. A live HTTPS site on your own domain, not a free subdomain from a site builder such as Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy Sites, Google Sites, or Carrd. The site should name your business, describe what you sell, and show how to contact you, along with privacy, terms, and refund policy pages.
  • Public details. Business name, logo, brand color, support email, support phone, support URL, and statement descriptor. These are what your sub-organizations and their card issuers see on receipts and statements.
  • Payouts. Adding a bank account is how you receive your funds, but it is not required to start accepting charges.

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Connecting

  1. Go to Billing > Payment Methods.
  2. Click Connect with Stripe.
  3. Sign in to your existing Stripe account, or create a new one.
  4. Review and Authorize the connection.
If the account you sign into is a Standard account already controlled by another platform, Stripe won’t let you connect it as-is. It walks you through creating a separate Stripe account instead, which you can then connect.

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After you connect

Once your Stripe account is connected and active:
  • Your direct sub-organizations can add a card and turn on auto-recharge. Their cards are stored on the Political Comms platform, but every charge runs as a direct charge on your connected Stripe account with your descriptor.
  • You are the merchant of record for those charges. They appear in your own Stripe dashboard, follow your payout schedule, and carry your statement descriptor, not ours.
  • To have Stripe automatically email your sub-organizations a receipt after each successful payment, enable Email customers about successful payments in your Stripe account settings.
  • Refunds and disputes for sub-organization charges are handled in your own Stripe dashboard. After issuing a refund in Stripe, adjust the sub-organization’s balance in the app to match.
Routing only ever goes to the direct parent. A sub-organization’s charges settle with its immediate parent’s connected account, not with a connected grandparent or higher ancestor.

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If Stripe pauses your account or you disconnect

If your Stripe account is disconnected, or Stripe itself pauses it, your sub-organizations are refused immediately: they cannot add a new card or trigger a recharge while the connection is down. Your organization’s billing roles receive a notification when this happens. Existing sub-organization cards are not removed. Once you reconnect a Stripe account, those cards and auto-recharge work again without needing to be re-entered.