Stripe and Billing
How Arcalotl uses Stripe Checkout, Stripe Billing Portal, products, prices, webhooks, refunds, and disputes.
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.
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.
Billing Portal
Members use /manage to view subscription status 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.
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 and annual prices. Weekly, one-time, and other unsupported intervals are ignored by the import flow.
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.
Creator-facing refund controls are not part of the public docs surface yet. Refunds are handled through Stripe or support workflows unless your Arcalotl team has enabled an admin tool for your environment.
Fees
Arcalotl fees and Stripe processing fees are separate.
- Arcalotl transaction fees are collected as Stripe application fees.
- Recovery fees apply only when Arcalotl recovers or saves revenue through retention workflows.
- Stripe processing fees are charged by Stripe.
See Pricing for fee examples.