---
title: "How money settles"
url: /commerce/settlement
---

# How money settles

> How a priced call becomes money in your Stripe account, whatever its size, currency, payer or chain of products.

Every priced call settles one of three ways, in the buyer's currency, under one seller of record, across every hop of composition.

**Small calls, one charge.** A call under a card fee.

1. Drawn: balance or tab. Or 402: with offers.
2. Netted (until a threshold): many calls.
3. Charged (one charge): on Stripe.
4. Split (the take off): a line a payee.
5. Taxed (by location): a line a charge.
6. Paid out (converted once): on schedule.

No call is charged alone below what a charge costs.

## Three ways an agent pays
An agent pays from money already on Stripe, with a payment inside the call, or on a tab that settles later.

| Way | Reserve and capture | Final when | A refund | The smallest charge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| A balance or a buyer's budget | The gate reserves the price before the run and captures it on a result | The Stripe charge that funded it settles | Back to the balance or the budget, at once | The pack or the top-up; no call is charged alone |
| A payment in the call | The 402's payment challenge names the price; the proof in `Payment` pays it, and a miss refunds it | The rail confirms it | A new payment back on the same rail, from your balance | The rail's minimum; below it, the 402 offers a balance or a tab |
| A tab | Calls run on credit up to the tab's limit, each reserved and captured against it | The tab settles on Stripe at its threshold or the period's end | A line off the next settlement | The threshold, so no call meets a card fee alone |

A tab's limit grows with the buyer agent's [track record](/reference/contract.md#proof). An unpaid settlement closes the tab, and the next call meets 402 with its cure.

## Calls worth less than a fee
Balances, budgets and tabs net many calls into one Stripe charge, so a [price](/reference/platform.md#price) of $0.002 is never charged alone.

A price prints at its own precision in `X-Cost`, the receipt and the statement. The charge rounds once, to the currency's smallest unit, when it settles.

The take comes off each Stripe charge at your plan's rate, and each line of the sales record carries its share.

## Currencies
An Offer is written in one currency and sold in several: `currencies` converts at a published daily rate, or holds your own price table.

| Part | The rule |
| --- | --- |
| One number | The price a Customer sees on its price page, in `X-Cost`, in the quote and on the receipt is one number in its currency |
| Presentment and settlement | The Customer pays in its currency on Stripe; your payout lands in your Stripe account's currency at Stripe's rate that day |
| Splits and payouts | Each payee's line is fixed in the charge's currency, and converted once, at payout |
| Payment methods | Checkout offers the methods Stripe carries in the buyer's country |
| Tax in the price | Where a country prints prices with tax included, the price page and Checkout do too |
| A mandate's currency | A mandate and a budget name their currency; a price in another converts at the seller's published rule before the mandate checks it |

```ts title="definition.ts"
import { define, secret } from 'apis.dev'

/** Any company by its domain, priced in dollars, euros and pounds. */
export default define({
  name: 'companyfacts', domain: 'companyfacts.apis.dev',
  sources: {
    firms: { origin: 'https://firms.example.com', key: secret('FIRMS_KEY') },
  },
  Company: {
    domain:    { type: 'url!#',   from: 'firms', map: 'website' },
    employees: { type: 'number?', from: 'firms', map: 'headcount' },
  },
  offer: {
    'Company.get': 0.002,
    currencies: { EUR: 'daily', GBP: { 'Company.get': 0.0016 } },  // converted, or your own table
  },
})
```

## Seller of record and tax
The seller of record is named on every receipt, and tax is collected on each charge it makes.

| Who sells | Seller of record | Tax |
| --- | --- | --- |
| You, in every pattern | You | Calculated per charge from the buyer's location, and collected into your Stripe account |
| A Marketplace | You, for the whole sale; each supplier is paid its share | On the whole sale; each supplier's payout carries its own forms |
| A Customer, to its own customers | That Customer, on its own [connected account](/commerce.md) | On its own charges, with your fee as a separate line |

| What the product keeps | How |
| --- | --- |
| Registrations | Where the seller is registered, and each region's running total against its threshold, with an Event as one nears it |
| The buyer's location | The billing country, or for an agent's payment the country its mandate's issuer states, kept with the charge |
| Business buyers | A tax ID checked once, a reverse charge where one applies, and exemption certificates on file |
| Splits and payouts | Tax on the whole sale, never twice; each payee's forms at the year's end |
| Tax returns | An export per region and period, matched to Stripe |

## Money across composition
When your product is built on another, its money takes one of two shapes, and your file says which.

| Shape | Who sells | Receipts | A refund or a dispute | The take |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Resale | You sell the result at your price, and buy from the other product under your own mandate | Two: the buyer's from you, and yours from it, linked by `upstream` | The buyer disputes with you; you dispute with it on your own receipt, and its refund feeds your remedy | Each seller's rate, on its own charge |
| Pass-through | One charge, split between you and it at each one's printed price | One, naming both sellers and their lines | The buyer disputes a line, and a refund reverses that line's split | Each seller's rate, on its own line |

A [Source](/patterns/dataset-api.md#how-a-field-is-filled) with a `cost` is resale, as an [Agent API](/patterns/agent-api.md) buys and bills a run. A `split` to the other product's [Host](/reference/platform.md#host) is pass-through.

Each hop reconciles its own charges against Stripe, and the receipts' `upstream` links run from the first call to the last.

---

Every way to pay ends in a Stripe charge worth its fee, under one seller of record, with one tax line per charge.