Setting up Stripe payments

If you want your client to pay the deposit the moment they sign — by card, ACH, Apple Pay, or Google Pay — you need to connect BidCraft to Stripe. It's a one-time setup, takes about 10 minutes, and you stay inside BidCraft the whole time (no redirect to a separate site).

What you'll need before you start

Have these handy before you click the button:

• Your business legal name and EIN (or SSN if you're a sole proprietor)
• Your business address
• A bank account where you want payouts to land — routing and account number
• A driver's license or government ID, for identity verification

This is normal Stripe onboarding — same info you'd give them if you set up a Stripe account directly. The difference is BidCraft is the one connecting it.

Walking through setup

Open Settings → Connected Apps in the sidebar — that's where HighLevel and Stripe live. Expand the Stripe tile and you'll find the Set up your account panel (it reads Continue setup if you started once and stopped partway).

[!steps]

1. Open the Stripe tile. A Stripe onboarding form embeds right inside BidCraft — no new tab, no redirect.
2. Pick your business type (individual, LLC, corporation, etc.). Stripe asks slightly different questions for each.
3. Enter business info: legal name, EIN/SSN, address, phone, website if you have one.
4. Add your bank account for payouts. This is where Stripe deposits the money after a client pays. Payouts typically arrive in your bank account within 2 business days of a successful payment.
5. Verify your identity. Upload the ID and confirm a few personal details (date of birth, last 4 of SSN).
6. Review and submit.

Stripe runs a quick verification in the background. For most individuals and sole proprietors, approval is instant — you're back on the Stripe tile within seconds with a green Active badge. For LLCs and corporations, it can take a few business days while Stripe verifies the business documents.

What you can do once it's active

Once the Stripe tile shows the green Active badge, three things turn on:

Auto-deposit on signature. When a client signs a proposal, BidCraft automatically creates the first milestone invoice (the deposit) and emails them a pay link. They can pay by card, ACH, Apple Pay, or Google Pay right then.

Manual milestone invoices. From the project Payments section, you can fire any milestone invoice in the schedule whenever you're ready — typically at the halfway point and at completion.

A real Stripe account of your own. You get a full Stripe dashboard for your business — every payment, payout, tax document, customer, and dispute. And the Stripe tile inside BidCraft grows two panels you'll use often: Account management (change your bank account, business details, and tax info without leaving BidCraft) and Payouts (track scheduled and recent transfers to your bank).

[!note] You're the merchant of record — the Stripe statement your client gets shows your business name on the charge, not BidCraft. As far as the homeowner can tell, they're paying you directly.

Payment methods enabled by default

When the setup completes, your clients can pay by:

• Card (credit and debit, including international)
• Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Link (Stripe's saved-card autofill) — these ride along with card, so they show up automatically on phones and browsers that support them
• ACH bank transfer (lower fees, slower clearing — typically 3–5 business days)

You don't have to configure any of this; it just appears on the pay page your client sees. One caveat on ACH: it only turns on once Stripe has approved bank payments for your account. If you don't see the bank-transfer tab on a pay page right after setup, that approval is usually still working through — card payments work the whole time.

What if you skip this step?

[!warning] If you don't set up Stripe payments, the rest of BidCraft still works — proposals send, clients sign, the audit trail captures everything. But when the homeowner signs, no deposit invoice fires. You'll have to collect payment some other way (check, Venmo, your own invoicing) and the project Payments section will sit empty. Most contractors find that the signature-to-deposit gap is where deals stall out. Connect Stripe before your first send and that whole motion is automatic.

A note on fees

Stripe charges its own standard processing fee on each payment — that comes off before the money reaches your bank, exactly as it would if you'd set up Stripe yourself. You can see the per-transaction breakdown in your Stripe dashboard.

BidCraft can also take a small platform fee on top, but it's set to zero for accounts by default, so on a normal plan the only thing coming out of a payment is Stripe's own processing fee. If a platform fee ever applies to your account, it's deducted automatically before your payout — nothing for you to track or remit.

Next steps

• Deposits and milestone invoices — what the first signature triggers
• Refunds and disputes — handling the rare bad day
• The client signing experience — what your homeowner sees that triggers the deposit