How Do Direct-to-Bank Payouts Work for Creators?

A follower's card is charged on the creator's own Stripe connected account, not on a Brillay account. The full sale lands in that Stripe balance, Stripe's processing fee is charged against it, and Brillay's 8% fee on paid work is pulled out as a Stripe application fee. The remainder waits there until Stripe's scheduled payout deposits it into the creator's bank account. Tips let followers send a one-time thank-you, with nothing for you to deliver and no membership for them to join.

Followers pay the price you set as guests, with no follower account needed. Brillay has no monthly fee or follower minimum: one link can hold one-time questions, Personalized Videos, Custom Work, Tips, Goals, and free Brand Collaboration Inquiries. Brillay charges 8% when a follower pays for work and 5% on tips and goals, and Stripe pays you out in 41 supported countries. Payments and payouts run entirely through Stripe. Businesses running on Stripe generated $1.9 trillion in total payment volume during full-year 2025, equivalent to roughly 1.6% of global GDP, according to Stripe's own 2025 annual letter (Stripe, "Annual letter 2025"). Understanding the chain from card to bank account matters more than the price itself, because a payout that never arrives feels the same to a creator as a sale that never happened.

How does money move from a follower's payment to your bank?

Stripe charges the follower's card directly on the creator's own Stripe connected account. The full sale amount is added to that account's balance, Stripe's processing fee is charged against the same connected account, and Brillay charges 8% when a follower pays for work and 5% on tips and goals. The remainder stays with the creator until the next scheduled payout.

Brillay uses Stripe direct charges, so the creator's connected account is the account the payment is created on and the creator — not Brillay — is the merchant of record for the sale (how it works). Stripe documents the fee mechanics for that charge type explicitly:

"After the payment is processed on the connected account, the application_fee_amount is transferred to the platform." — Stripe, "Create direct charges"

Two consequences follow from the Stripe direct-charge model, and both are worth stating plainly because fee order and liability differ across Stripe charge types. First, the sale is created on the creator's Stripe account. Second, Stripe's own documentation states that with direct charges "the connected account is responsible for the cost of the Stripe fees, refunds, and chargebacks" — meaning the processing fee is a debit against the creator's balance rather than a Brillay markup (Stripe, "Connect and invoices").

Stripe's published rate for that processing step is 2.9% + $0.30 per successful domestic card transaction in the United States, on pricing the company describes as having "no setup fees, monthly fees, or hidden fees" (Stripe, "Pricing"). That 2.9% + $0.30 figure is the typical US domestic online-card rate rather than a universal Stripe fee, and Stripe prices international cards, currency conversion, and non-card methods separately.

A follower pays for a Paid Question, a Personalized Video, a custom request, a Tip, or a Goal contribution, and every one of those purchases follows the same route through Stripe. Stripe handles a follower's card number and a creator's bank account number inside its own systems. Brillay's role is to tell Stripe what was purchased, at what price, and which connected account the charge should be created on.

What is Stripe's standard payout timing?

Stripe pays a creator's available balance to their linked bank account on a recurring schedule that varies by country and industry rather than being fixed for every account. Stripe sets the available payout schedule by country and account; creators manage the payout options Stripe makes available inside Brillay. Standard payouts carry no separate Stripe transfer fee.

Stripe states the country dependency directly rather than promising a universal cadence:

"Stripe pays out funds to your bank account based on a predetermined payout timing, which varies based on your industry and country of operation." — Stripe, "Receive payouts"

Which schedules a given creator can actually pick is therefore conditional, not guaranteed: Stripe's support documentation says that "where supported, payouts default to daily, but can be configured to weekly, monthly, or manual on the Payouts tab of the Dashboard" (Stripe, "Payout schedules FAQ"). A brand-new account also waits longer for its very first payout while Stripe completes its initial review: Stripe schedules that initial payout to complete within 7–14 days of the first live payment, and says the window "can take longer depending on your industry, country of operation, and risk level".

Stripe charges nothing for the standard schedule: its pricing page states that a business can "pay out your funds on our standard schedule for free". How fast a balance becomes payable is set by payout timing, which Stripe defines per country rather than per platform; for eligible US merchants Stripe documents a faster ACH payout that "reduces the payout time from 4 business days to 2 business days from payment creation". Stripe also notes that payouts scheduled on weekends or holidays arrive on the next business day, so a Saturday sale is not a Saturday deposit.

How do you connect a bank account to receive payouts?

A creator enters their account and routing number directly into Stripe's own onboarding form during Brillay setup. Stripe verifies both the bank account and the identity of the person being paid before any payout is released, which is the reason a first payout takes longer to arrive than every payout after it.

You connect your bank through Stripe once, and Stripe sends future payouts there until you update your bank details through Brillay’s Stripe-powered payout setup. For most US creators the bank account itself is already in place — 95.8 percent of US households, about 128.0 million households, were banked in 2023, according to the FDIC's 2023 National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households (FDIC). Creators outside the United States connect a local bank account in their own country and are paid in the local payout currency, not in US dollars to a US account.

Does Brillay ever see or store your bank details?

No. Stripe collects and holds a creator's bank account and routing number inside its own systems. The Brillay dashboard shows payout status and balance, not the underlying account credentials.

With the Stripe direct-charge model, each sale is created on the creator's connected account and the sale proceeds are added to that account. Sharing banking information with an online platform for the first time is a common worry for creators, and the deeper breakdown of who can see what — plus how Stripe's tokenized storage differs from emailing a routing number — is covered in is it safe to share your bank details to get paid as a creator.

Can you get paid faster than the standard schedule?

Yes, where Stripe's Instant Payouts feature is available and the specific account is eligible. An eligible creator can push funds to a supported debit card or bank account outside the standard schedule for a percentage fee. Stripe states that instant funds "typically settle in the associated payout account within 30 minutes," including on weekends and holidays.

Stripe charges Dashboard users "a 1% fee for all Instant Payouts for CA, EU, UK, SG, NO, HK and MY, and a 1.5% fee for US, AU, NZ, and AE" (Stripe, "Instant Payouts"). In the United States a single Instant Payout must be at least 0.50 USD and at most 9,999 USD, and an account is limited to 10 Instant Payouts per day (Stripe). Eligibility is not automatic: Stripe's payout documentation states plainly that "New Stripe users aren't immediately eligible for Instant Payouts," and eligibility is shown in the Stripe Dashboard. Any Instant Payout fee is charged by Stripe and is separate from Brillay's 8% platform fee on work and 5% platform fee on tips and goals.

A creator who does not need same-day access can leave the standard schedule running and pay nothing extra for the transfer. The full cost comparison between standard and instant payouts is broken out in do creators pay a fee to receive payouts.

Is every payout one transfer, or does it batch multiple sales?

A payout is a batch, not a per-sale transfer. Every follower payment that becomes available during a payout window adds to the same rolling Stripe balance, and the scheduled payout moves whatever has accumulated as one deposit. Five sales made on the same day therefore arrive in a creator's bank account as one deposit rather than five.

Stripe does not publish the payout rail behind every standard payout, but it does attach a Trace ID created by its banking partner to each one and advises contacting the receiving bank with that Trace ID if a payout is still missing after 10 business days (Stripe, "Payout Trace IDs"). For context on the scale of US bank-to-bank deposits generally, the ACH Network processed 35.2 billion payments worth $93 trillion in 2025, according to Nacha, the organization that administers the ACH Network.

What can delay or pause a payout to your bank?

A payout can be delayed by incomplete Stripe verification, a risk review triggered by unusual account activity, or incorrect bank details that cause a transfer to fail and get returned. Stripe's own account-verification and risk processes control those delays.

Returned payouts are slow to surface: Stripe warns that "it can take up to 5 additional business days for your bank to return the payout and inform us that it failed," and that a payout's status can show as paid before changing to failed within those 5 business days. A creator who sees a payout stuck longer than the normal schedule should check their Stripe account for an open verification request before assuming something is wrong with Brillay. How Brillay's payout timing and minimums stack up against other creator platforms is covered separately in creator payout speed and minimum payout thresholds compared.

Frequently asked questions

Does Brillay pay creators directly, or does the money come from Stripe?

Stripe initiates the transfer to a creator's bank account. You set the price and choose the offer, and Brillay charges 8% when a follower pays for work and 5% on tips and goals, but the actual money movement — from the follower's card to the creator's bank — runs on Stripe's payout infrastructure, and the charge itself is created on the creator's own connected account.

How long does the very first payout take?

A brand-new, newly verified Stripe account typically has its first payout scheduled to complete within 7–14 days after the first live payment, and Stripe says that window can extend further depending on industry, country of operation, and risk level. Payouts after the first one follow the account's regular schedule.

Do you need a US bank account to receive Brillay payouts?

No. Brillay's Stripe onboarding currently supports creators in 41 countries, including Australia, Canada, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, Thailand, the United Kingdom, and most of the EU alongside the United States. Brillay's supported list is narrower than Stripe's own global availability list, so a country Stripe supports is not automatically a country Brillay pays out to. A creator in a supported country is paid to a local bank account in the local payout currency, and Stripe sets payout timing per country, so payout speed outside the US can differ from the US schedule. The specific setup is covered in get paid as a creator without a US bank account.

Is the 8% on work, 5% on tips and goals platform fee taken before or after the payout to your bank?

Before. Brillay charges 8% when a follower pays for work and 5% on tips and goals, and Stripe transfers the applicable amount to Brillay when the payment is processed rather than at payout time. By the time a payout is scheduled, that platform fee and Stripe's processing fee have already been accounted for, so what arrives in the creator's bank account is the post-fee balance.

Create your free Brillay page and see exactly what a follower's payment turns into once it reaches your bank.