Affiliate system built on top of Stripe

Question

I'm trying to build an affiliate system. I currently have a Stripe Plan setup for customers that bills them monthly. I'd like to give a percentage-based commission to affiliates.

Is there a way to automatically pay stripe customer when another customer gets billed off of this plan? Is this possible to configure in a existing Stripe plan?

Alternatively, is there a way to setup a Stripe plan for an affiliate that pays them rather than charge them every month? I could subscribe the affiliates to such a plan, but I would also need a way to multiply the payment based on how many customers they referred.

What's the solution?

Answer 1

If your affiliates have Stripe you can create a Transfer to the connected account using destination

// Create a Charge:
$charge = \Stripe\Charge::create(array(
  "amount" => 1000,
  "currency" => "eur",
  "source" => $token,
  "transfer_group" => "ORDER42",
));

// Create a Transfer to the connected account (later):
$transfer = \Stripe\Transfer::create(array(
  "amount" => 877,
  "currency" => "eur",
  "destination" => "{CONNECTED_STRIPE_ACCOUNT_ID}",
  "transfer_group" => "ORDER42",
));

https://stripe.com/docs/connect/charges-transfers

Alternatively you can use the application_fee to take an application fee on charges and subscriptions:

// Create a Charge:
$charge = \Stripe\Charge::create(array(
  "amount" => 1000,
  "currency" => "eur",
  "source" => $token,
  "application_fee" => 123,
), array("stripe_account" => "{CONNECTED_STRIPE_ACCOUNT_ID}"));

https://stripe.com/docs/connect/direct-charges#collecting-fees

Answer 2

You can now use the transfers API to pay out to other accounts than your own through their API:

https://stripe.com/docs/tutorials/sending-transfers

Answer 3

You can add an invoice item with negative amount so affiliate has to pay less on next subscription charge (https://stripe.com/docs/api#invoiceitems).

I don't think you can pay your customers via Stripe.