Stripe and Billing

Arcalotl uses Stripe Connect with Direct Charges. Members start in Discord, pay through Stripe Checkout, and manage billing through Stripe Billing Portal.

Money goes directly to the connected Stripe account. Arcalotl collects platform fees as Stripe application fees.

Checkout

When a member chooses a plan in /subscribe or from the subscribe channel, Arcalotl creates a Stripe Checkout Session for the connected account. Donations use the same checkout flow, but the member chooses the amount on the Arcalotl checkout page before paying.

Stripe Checkout covers the sensitive payment steps:

• Card entry
• Payment authentication
• Payment method storage
• Initial subscription payment
• Hosted checkout security

Arcalotl listens for Stripe events and grants the configured Discord role after Stripe confirms the subscription. For one-time payments and donations, Arcalotl grants access after Stripe confirms the payment.

Billing Portal

Members use /manage to view subscription status, change same-tier billing options, upgrade or downgrade related tiers, and open Stripe Billing Portal.

Stripe Billing Portal is where members update payment methods and billing details. Arcalotl does not ask staff to collect card details and does not expose card entry inside Discord.

One-time purchases and donations do not appear as manageable subscriptions in Billing Portal.

Products and prices

When you create a plan through Arcalotl, Arcalotl creates the matching Stripe product and prices in your connected Stripe account.

When you import an existing Stripe product, Arcalotl links local plans to the selected monthly, annual, and one-time prices. Weekly and other unsupported intervals are ignored by the import flow.

Donation paths are created by Arcalotl and charge the selected one-time amount within the configured minimum and maximum.

Webhooks

You do not configure normal Stripe webhooks by hand. Arcalotl receives Stripe events on its platform webhook endpoints and updates subscriptions, access, analytics, payment recovery, refunds, disputes, and account status from those events.

Arcalotl turns those payment events into the Discord subscription experience: role access, member messaging, payment recovery, retention workflows, and dashboard activity.

Refunds and disputes

When refund or dispute events affect access, Arcalotl resolves the related subscription from the charge or subscription record and updates Discord access automatically.

The dashboard Subscribers view supports two creator-facing actions:

• Cancel at period end: Schedule cancellation while the member keeps access until the current billing period ends.
• Refund and cancel: Fully refund the latest recorded Stripe charge and cancel access when Stripe confirms the refund.

Use Stripe or a support workflow for partial refunds, older charges, or cases where Arcalotl does not have a recorded refundable charge. See Subscribers for the dashboard support workflow.

Fees

Arcalotl fees and Stripe processing fees are separate.

• Arcalotl transaction fees are collected as Stripe application fees.
• Recovered payments, cancellation saves, and term upgrades use the same transaction fee.
• Stripe processing fees are charged by Stripe.

See Pricing for fee examples.