Connecting Stripe to StudioOps — StudioOps Help

StudioOps connects to Stripe as a payment provider for two flows:

Card payments at booking — deposits or full payment, on a Stripe-hosted checkout page.
Invoices — send a customer an invoice that they pay on a Stripe-hosted page; you get notified the moment it clears.

Stripe and Square are alternatives — your studio picks one card provider at connect time. Bank transfer is always available alongside, regardless of which card provider you've chosen.

You need a Stripe account already. If you don't have one, sign up at stripe.com first. It's free; Stripe's transaction fee is charged per payment.

1. Starting the connection

Go to Settings → Payments, find the Stripe section, and click Connect with Stripe.

You'll be asked one question first: is your studio a sole trader or a limited company? Pick the one that matches how you're registered with HMRC. This sets the right entity type on the Stripe account from the start; getting it wrong here costs time later because Stripe doesn't let you change it after some details have been filled in.

After you confirm, StudioOps creates a new Stripe connected account on your behalf and sends you to Stripe's hosted onboarding form.

2. Stripe's hosted onboarding form

Stripe asks for the things every payment processor needs to know about your business:

Business details — legal name, trading name, address.
Personal details — for the responsible person (you or your business partner): name, date of birth, home address. UK regulations require this for anti-money-laundering checks.
Identity verification — Stripe usually checks identity automatically from the details above. Occasionally it asks for a photo of your passport or driving licence.
Bank account — where Stripe should pay out your money. Sort code + account number; payouts land typically within 2-7 days after a payment clears.
Tax information — VAT number if registered, otherwise leave it blank.

The form takes about 10-15 minutes to fill in. Stripe saves your progress as you go, so you can leave and come back if you need to fetch a passport or bank details.

When you finish, Stripe sends you back to StudioOps.

3. The "card payments capability" status

After onboarding, StudioOps checks Stripe to confirm your account is actually ready to take card payments. The Settings → Payments page shows one of three banners:

Green — Active. You're ready. The next invoice you send via Stripe and the next deposit-at-booking will route through your Stripe checkout.

Amber — Pending. Stripe is still verifying something — usually a document review or an identity-check delay. Click Continue onboarding to see what's outstanding. Most pending states resolve within a few hours; some (document verification) can take up to 24 hours.

Red — Action required. Stripe needs you to do something specific — usually upload a document, fix a typo in your details, or confirm a bank account. Click Continue onboarding to see the exact requirement.

A small percentage of accounts hit a terminal state where Stripe declines the connection (e.g. unsupported business type, business model outside Stripe's terms). If that happens, the banner will say so, and you can either provide the additional information Stripe asks for or disconnect and use Square / bank transfer instead.

4. How customers see Stripe payments

When you send an invoice with Stripe as the chosen rail:

The customer gets an email with a private link to the invoice.
The invoice page shows a Pay by card button.
Clicking it opens Stripe's hosted checkout page; the customer enters their card details on Stripe's page.
Stripe processes the payment and notifies StudioOps within seconds.
The invoice is marked Paid automatically.

The customer's card data never touches StudioOps. We don't store card numbers, CVCs, or anything else card-related — Stripe holds all of it inside their own PCI-compliant environment.

For deposits at booking, the same shape applies: the customer picks a slot, gets routed to Stripe's checkout, pays, and the appointment confirms automatically. The slot is held for 15 minutes while they're paying.

5. Stripe's fees

Stripe charges its own transaction fee per card payment — check Stripe's current UK pricing at stripe.com/gb/pricing (at the time of writing, 1.5% + 20p for standard UK cards). The fee is deducted at settlement; StudioOps takes no cut on top of it.

Payouts land in your bank account on Stripe's payout schedule — typically 2-7 days after the payment cleared for a new account, often next-day after Stripe has seen a few weeks of activity from you.

6. Disconnecting Stripe

You can disconnect Stripe from Settings → Payments. New invoices and bookings stop routing through Stripe immediately. Existing paid invoices are unaffected; existing pending checkouts continue to work for the customer.

If you want to switch from Stripe to Square (or vice versa), disconnect the first one, then connect the second. You can only have one card provider connected at a time.

You can also revoke the connection from your Stripe account directly: Stripe Dashboard → Settings → Connected accounts → StudioOps → Disconnect.

7. Stripe vs Square — which to pick

Most studios are fine with either. Pick based on what you already use:

Already use Square for an in-person card reader? Stick with Square. Your in-person sales and your StudioOps sales then settle into the same Square account.
Already use Stripe for any other software (Squarespace shop, Shopify, SaaS billing)? Stick with Stripe. One dashboard, one settlement.
Neither? Either works. Square's fees are slightly higher for online card-not-present (around 1.9% + 0p at the time of writing); Stripe's are slightly lower (1.5% + 20p). The difference on a £50 transaction is a few pence.

The studio profile page and the booking widget look the same regardless of which provider sits behind the Pay by card button — your customer sees a clean checkout either way.

8. Importing your existing Stripe catalogue

If you already have Products + Prices in Stripe (e.g. you used Stripe for a previous booking tool or an online shop), StudioOps offers to import them on first connect. A banner appears on your dashboard: Import your Stripe catalogue? Click it to bring your existing Products across as StudioOps services without retyping.

There's a separate article — Importing your Square or Stripe catalogue — that walks through the import flow in detail.