I integrated Stripe into a two-sided marketplace. Here's what actually happens

I spent all day making money move. It was harder than I expected. At some point in building a marketplace, you shift from adding features to setting up the behind-the-scenes systems. This includes payment processing. This work often goes unnoticed and rarely gets shared online, but if mistakes happen, real people can lose real money. That’s how I spent my entire week. Adsloty is a marketplace where sponsors pay to reserve ad slots in newsletters. Writers earn money after the ads run. While this sounds simple, there is a complex system behind it that ensures every penny goes to the right place at the right time. Here’s what I built, what went wrong, and what I learned. Stripe Connect: paying writers directly The first decision was about how writers get paid. I could collect all the money myself and manually send payouts. However, that would be a nightmare to handle and a legal headache right from the start. Instead, I chose Stripe Connect. Each writer links their own Stripe account to A