Fee Structure
If you are using Violet Payments, which is built on Stripe, Violet takes care of wiring all the funds to respective parties involved in an order. Violet takes into account Stripe fees, tax, shipping and the commission rate associated with any merchants involved before transferring any funds. Violet then charges the customer the full amount, calculates what needs to be sent to each party and uses Stripe to transfer the final amount. This is all automated. Your merchants can visit their own Stripe Express dashboards to see the total amounts being transferred after each transaction. Since Violet uses your Stripe account for payments, the commission earned for each Order will get added to your Stripe balance, while transfers to merchants will deduct from your Stripe balance.
Stripe fees are deducted from the Channel’s commission, not the Merchant’s payout. If commission rate is not high enough (e.g. set to 0%), the Distribution associated to the Order will be negative and will decrease the funds available in your Stripe balance. For example, the following Distribution record highlights the breakdown of funds various Order scenarios:
| Scenarios | Order with 0% commission from merchant | Order with 20% commission from merchant |
|---|---|---|
| Order Total | $100.00 | $100.00 |
| Bag Total | $100.00 | $100.00 |
| SKU 1 | $90.00 | $90.00 |
| Bag Subtotal | $90.00 | $90.00 |
| Discount Total | 0 | 0 |
| Shipping Total | $5.00 | $5.00 |
| Tax Total | $5.00 | $5.00 |
| Commission Percentage | 0% | 20% |
| Payment Provider Fee (2.9% + 30c of Order Total) | $3.20 | $3.20 |
| Merchant Gross (pre-commission) | $100.00 | $100.00 |
| Merchant Commission on Distribution | $0.00 | $-18.00 |
| Merchant Fee on Distribution | $0.00 | $0.00 |
| Merchant Distribution Amount | $100.00 | $82.00 |
| Channel Commission on Distribution | $0.00 | $18.00 |
| Channel Fee on Distribution | $3.20 | $3.20 |
| Channel Distribution Amount (hypothetical, we do not make the actual transfer) | $-3.20 | $14.80 |
Some important callouts:
- Stripe has a fixed fee of 2.9% + 30c charged for the total amount that the shopper pays (the order total). If you have a custom relationship with Stripe that changes these fees, Violet dynamically incorporates the custom fee structure.
- The channel’s commission is calculated on the cost of the item and does not include tax or shipping (the order sub-total). The tax and shipping are paid out in full to the merchant.
- If there is a multi-merchant order, the fee contribution for each merchant is based on the contribution of each Bag amount to the total value of the Order. Since fees are not paid by merchants, this breakdown is only visible on Channel Distributions.
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