When a buyer pays for your file, the money goes somewhere before it reaches you. Where exactly it goes is the single most important thing to understand about any platform you sell on, and almost nobody explains it.
The first way: the platform holds it
The buyer pays the platform. The platform records that you are owed the money and shows you a balance. Later, on the platform's schedule and under the platform's rules, it sends you a payout.
Everything about that arrangement is a decision someone else makes: when the balance is released, what the minimum payout is, which countries can receive it, what happens if a buyer disputes a charge, and what happens to the balance if your account is closed. You are a line in someone's ledger.
The second way: the money never stops at the platform
You connect your own payment account — your own Stripe account, in your own name, with your own bank details. The buyer's card is charged on your account. The money lands in your balance, on the payout schedule you set, in your currency.
- The customer's receipt carries your business name, not the platform's.
- Refunds and disputes are handled by you, with the tools of a real payment account, not a support ticket.
- Your payout schedule is a setting you control.
- If you leave the platform tomorrow, your payment account, your customer records and your money stay where they are.
How to check which one you are on
You do not have to read the terms of service. Look at two screens.
- 1The receiptBuy something from your own store. Whose name is on the receipt and the card statement line — yours, or the platform's?
- 2The payout pageDoes it show a balance the platform will send you later, or does it link to a payment account in your own name with its own dashboard?
If the receipt says your name and the payout page is your own account, the money is yours from the first second. If not, you are holding a promise, and promises have terms.