Connecting Stripe (getting paid)
To sell anything through Product CMS — physical products, digital downloads, bundles — you need your own connected Stripe account. This page walks through connecting it, what happens right after, and the handful of things that trip people up along the way.
What “Connect your Stripe account” actually does
This is the part that confuses people most, so it’s worth being explicit: connecting doesn’t hand BlnkSpace your money or your Stripe login. You get your own real Stripe account with your own full Stripe Dashboard — the same one you’d see if you signed up for Stripe directly, outside BlnkSpace entirely.
| What that means | |
|---|---|
| You are the merchant of record | Payments settle to your bank account on your normal Stripe payout schedule — BlnkSpace never holds your funds. |
| Refunds, disputes, payouts | All happen directly in your own Stripe Dashboard, same as any other Stripe account — BlnkSpace only triggers a refund on your behalf when you click “Issue refund” in Orders, it never happens without you. |
| Platform fee | BlnkSpace takes a small percentage automatically on each sale via Stripe’s own application-fee mechanism — it’s deducted at the time of the charge, not billed separately. |
| Disconnect anytime | One click in Settings. Your Stripe account itself is untouched — it’s yours regardless of whether it’s connected to BlnkSpace. |
Before you start
- A Stripe account (new or existing) — stripe.com/register if you need one.
- Your business details on hand — legal name, address, bank account — Stripe’s own onboarding form asks for these directly, BlnkSpace never sees or stores them.
- A few minutes to complete Stripe’s onboarding form in full — see the callout below on why finishing it matters.
Connecting your account
Open any Product CMS or Product Card block’s settings panel — the Stripe connection card is the same everywhere selling is possible.
You’re redirected to Stripe’s own hosted onboarding — a page on Stripe’s domain, not BlnkSpace’s. This is expected; BlnkSpace never asks for your Stripe login directly.
Business details, bank account, identity verification. Finish the whole form — see the callout right below for why a half-finished account looks “connected” in BlnkSpace but can’t actually take a real payment yet.
Back on the Product CMS panel, now showing a connected state with your account ID. Product syncing to Stripe happens automatically at this point — nothing else to click.
After connecting
Every product/variant you’ve created gets pushed to your Stripe account the moment you connect (or reconnect). You can also trigger this manually with the “Sync products” button any time — useful right after editing prices.
Off by default. If you switch it on, Stripe calculates and collects tax automatically at checkout on your behalf — but you still need to set up your tax registrations in your own Stripe Dashboard first (the toggle links straight to Settings → Tax there). This is your tax liability, not BlnkSpace’s — the toggle only turns on Stripe’s calculation, it doesn’t file anything for you.
One flat rate for the whole store, applied automatically whenever a cart contains a physical (non-digital) item. Leave it unset and shipping shows as free.
A note on test mode vs. live mode
This one confuses even experienced Stripe users, so it’s worth spelling out plainly: whether BlnkSpace is processing real charges or Stripe’s test charges is a platform-wide setting, not something in your Stripe account and not something you control from your own Dashboard. There’s currently no indicator in the Product CMS panel showing which mode is active — if you’re ever unsure whether a checkout you just ran was real, check whether the payment shows up under Stripe’s Live or Test data toggle in your own Dashboard (top-left), not anything inside BlnkSpace itself.
Do I need to set up a webhook?
No. If you’ve used Stripe directly before, you may be used to registering your own webhook endpoint and secret — none of that applies here. BlnkSpace runs one shared webhook for the whole platform; order creation, stock updates, and refund syncing all happen automatically on BlnkSpace’s side. There’s nothing to configure in your Stripe Dashboard’s Webhooks section for this to work.
Disconnecting and reconnecting
Disconnecting removes the connection from BlnkSpace only — your Stripe account itself is completely unaffected, and nothing is deleted on Stripe’s side.
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | What it means |
|---|---|
| Connect button redirects with "onboarding_expired" | The onboarding link timed out before you finished. Click Connect again — it reuses the same account, no data lost. |
| Shows "connected" but real checkouts fail | Almost always an unfinished Stripe onboarding form. Log into your own Stripe Dashboard and check for outstanding verification requirements. |
| Products don’t show up as sellable after connecting | Click "Sync products" manually — it usually runs automatically on connect, but a manual sync never hurts and picks up any price changes made since. |
| Tax isn’t being calculated at checkout | Confirm the tax toggle is on AND that your tax registrations are actually set up in your Stripe Dashboard’s Tax settings — the toggle alone doesn’t configure registrations for you. |
| Disconnected by accident, or Stripe shows the app was removed | Reconnect from Product CMS settings — you’ll go through Stripe’s onboarding again, but nothing about your actual Stripe account is lost. |
| Wondering if a charge was real or test | Check the Live/Test toggle in your own Stripe Dashboard (top-left) — BlnkSpace doesn’t show this anywhere in its own UI today. |