How fees work and what lands in your Stripe

When a parent pays for a class, they pay one single amount that already includes everything. This article explains what that amount is made of, who gets what, and — the part most people ask about — exactly what shows up in your own Stripe account.

The key thing: payments land in YOUR Stripe account

Bookabee uses Stripe Connect with "direct charges". In plain terms, that means the payment goes directly to your own connected Stripe account — you are the merchant of record. Bookabee never holds your money. The fees are then deducted from that charge inside your Stripe account, which is why you can see all of it on your own Stripe dashboard.

What the parent actually pays

The parent does NOT see "class price + fees" as separate things to pay. We gross the price up into one total, designed so that after all the fees come out, you still receive the full headline class price. The "booking fee" we show the parent bundles together two separate fees:

• Bookabee's platform fee — our cut, set by your plan's booking fee rate.
• An estimate of Stripe's processing fee — the standard UK card rate (roughly 1.4% + 20p), so the parent's payment covers Stripe too.

A worked example

Say a class is £9.25 and your plan's platform fee is 1%. The parent is charged a single total of about £9.69, made up of:

• Class price (you keep this): £9.25
• Bookabee platform fee (1%): about £0.10
• Estimated Stripe processing fee (1.4% + 20p): about £0.34
• Total the parent pays: about £9.69

The whole point of grossing up is that after Stripe and Bookabee take their slice, you are left with the full £9.25 you set as the class price.

What you see on your own Stripe

Because the charge lands on your account, nothing is hidden from you. On your Stripe dashboard you'll see the full gross amount the parent paid (about £9.69 in the example), and then two deductions against it:

• Stripe's processing fee (about £0.34) — deducted from your account as a processing fee. Stripe bills you, the merchant, directly for this; it is NOT taken invisibly "at source" by someone else before it reaches you.
• Bookabee's platform fee (about £0.10) — shown as an "application fee" routed to Bookabee.
• Your net payout — roughly £9.25, the full class price.

Two things to keep in mind

• The Stripe fee shown to the parent is an ESTIMATE based on a standard UK card. If a parent pays with an international or commercial card, Stripe charges more, and your account absorbs the difference — so on those bookings your net can dip slightly below the full class price. For standard UK cards it works out exactly.
• Your platform fee rate comes from the plan your company is on. Check the Payments section of your dashboard to confirm the rate that applies to you.