"Split payment" means three different things, and Stripe handles each one differently.
This guide covers all three, and says which you can set up yourself and which need a developer.
Quick answer
Splitting money between businesses needs Stripe Connect and a developer. Paying in installments is an invoice payment plan, or a no-code checkout that charges the schedule for you. Taking a deposit isn't a separate product, just two payments arranged to suit. Most people want the second.
What "split payment" can mean
Splitting money between businesses. One customer pays once, and the money is shared between two or more businesses. A marketplace taking a commission, a booking site paying a venue, a platform paying its contractors.
Paying in installments. One customer pays you the full amount, but in several charges over weeks or months. A $1,200 course paid as four monthly payments of $300.
Taking a deposit. One price, two payments. Something up front, then the balance when the work is done.
The first changes who gets the money. The other two change when it arrives. Splitting money between businesses is a different problem from letting one customer pay over time, and Stripe solves them in different products.
Splitting money between businesses
Stripe Connect handles this. The customer pays your platform account, and you transfer each business its share. Stripe Connect calls this separate charges and transfers.
Connect is built for marketplaces and platforms, where one payment routinely has to reach several businesses. If that describes what you're building, it's the right product.
Setting it up takes more than a normal Stripe account. You need a Connect platform account, and every business receiving money has to be onboarded as a connected account.
Every method Stripe documents requires a developer: the Checkout Sessions API, the Payment Intents API, or the mobile SDKs. There's no way to configure it from the Stripe Dashboard.
This is worth knowing because the phrase "split payment" sends people to Connect who don't need it. If you sell your own products or services and you want a customer to pay in installments or leave a deposit, that's a different problem, and the next two sections cover it. Checkout Page doesn't do marketplace splits either.
Paying in installments
A payment plan divides one fixed price into a set number of charges. A $1,200 course becomes four payments of $300, and once the fourth is paid the customer is finished. There are two ways to run this with Stripe.
Stripe's own route is an invoice payment plan. In the Dashboard, create an invoice and select Request in Multiple Payments under Payment Collection. Stripe defaults to four equal payments over four months. Edit payment plans lets you change the dates and amounts, add or remove payments, or rename them, and Use as deposit relabels the first payment and spreads the rest across what's left.
Two limits are worth knowing before you rely on it.
- It's in private preview. Stripe's documentation says the feature is in private preview and access is by request, so you may not be able to turn it on today.
- It doesn't charge the card for you. Stripe's documentation is direct: "Payment plans don't auto-charge customers with saved payment details. Customers must return to the payment page to make subsequent payments." Payment plans also can't be used on invoices set to charge automatically, and subscription invoices can't have them at all.
The second limit decides most cases. On a $1,200 course, the customer has to come back three more times and pay by hand, and each of those is a chance to forget or change their mind.
The other route is a checkout that charges each installment automatically. With Checkout Page, the customer pays the first installment at checkout and the rest are charged on the schedule you set. You can choose daily, weekly or monthly intervals and cap the number of payments. A customer portal lets people update their own card, so an expiring card doesn't stall a plan halfway through.
Payments run on your own Stripe account and you stay the merchant of record. Our guide to Stripe payment plans covers the setup in more detail, including how to handle a failed charge.
One thing to check first: if what you're selling has no fixed total and no end date, you want a subscription rather than a payment plan. We've covered Stripe recurring payments separately.
Installments don't change your processing rate, but they do change what you pay in fixed fees. Four charges of $300 carry the per transaction fee four times instead of once. In the US that's $1.20 rather than $0.30 on the same $1,200. Our breakdown of Stripe's processing fees has the detail.
Taking a deposit
A deposit isn't a separate Stripe product. It's a way of structuring payments: something up front, the balance when the work is done. There are three ways to set one up, and which suits you depends on whether you already have the customer's card.
The first route is a partial payment on an invoice. In the Dashboard, go to Billing, then Invoices, open an invoice with an open status and click Charge customer. You can charge any amount up to the balance remaining, as long as the customer already has a saved payment method.
Partial payments are something you charge, not something the customer chooses. Stripe's documentation says customers can't pay a partial amount on the hosted invoice page. That works when you already have the relationship and the card on file. It doesn't work when a new customer wants to leave a deposit themselves.
The other two routes don't need a card on file. Take the deposit through one checkout and the balance through another, or set up a payment plan where the first payment is larger than the rest.
Setting this up without a developer
Connect is the only one of the three that needs code. Installments and deposits can both be set up from a dashboard, and with Checkout Page they look like this:
- A course or coaching package paid in installments. The customer pays the first at checkout and the rest are charged automatically, so nobody has to chase anyone. That's what our payment plans do.
- A deposit now and the balance later. Take the deposit as the first payment and schedule the balance for a date that suits the work. Photographers, venues and anyone making something to order tend to sell this way.
- Several people paying their own share. If a group wants to split a cost, give them one page and let each person pay their part separately. It isn't one payment divided in two, but it's usually what they needed.
- Knowing who paid for what. Custom fields collect a name, a reference or a date alongside the payment, so you're not matching up payments by hand afterwards.
Every page carries your logo, your colors and your domain, and works on a phone.
Checkout Page is free up to $3,000 a month in sales, which covers a lot of deposits and payment plans on its own. There's also a 7-day free trial of the paid features that doesn't ask for a card, and nonprofits, charities and schools get 50% off. You can see the plans and start without one.
Splitting payments with Stripe FAQ
Can a customer pay with two different cards?
Not on Stripe's hosted pages. A single payment is charged to a single payment method, and Stripe's documentation says customers can't pay a partial amount on the hosted invoice page. If two people need to contribute, take two separate payments for two separate amounts, or charge each part against an invoice from the Dashboard.
Does Stripe charge extra for split payments?
No. None of the three carries a fee of its own. What changes your costs is the number of charges you make, so four installments mean four lots of the per transaction fee instead of one. Stripe Connect and Stripe Billing are priced separately from processing, so factor those in if you use them.
What's the difference between a payment plan and a subscription?
A payment plan has an end. A fixed total is divided into a set number of charges, and when they're done the customer stops paying. A subscription repeats on a schedule with no end date until someone cancels. A $1,200 course paid in four is a plan; a monthly membership is a subscription.
