Most Stripe connections go through on the first try. When one doesn't, it's almost always one of the following. Work down the list.
Stripe greys out the account: "connected to another platform"
You're on Stripe's account picker, the account you want is listed, and it can't be selected — Stripe says "This account is connected to another platform. Please create a new account."
This is Stripe's rule, not a Studio limitation, and no setting on either side changes it. When a Stripe account is created by a platform — Squarespace, Wix, Shopify, a giving provider, a church management suite, or Studio's own "Create one" — Stripe treats that platform as responsible for it and won't let a second platform connect to it. Only a standalone account, one the organization opened directly at stripe.com, can be connected to more than one platform.
To see which platform owns an account, open that account in the Stripe Dashboard and look under its name in the top-left account switcher: the platform is printed right there (for example, "Squarespace"). A banner near the top usually names it too.
Two things that look like the fix but aren't. Disconnecting Stripe inside the other platform's own settings — Squarespace's Selling → Payments panel, for instance — only switches off that platform's checkout. It doesn't hand ownership back, and the account stays blocked. And Stripe's own help article points you to Settings → Team and security → Installed Apps to revoke a platform's access: on an owned account there is no Installed Apps section at all. That section only appears where a third-party app is connected and can be revoked, so its absence is itself the confirmation that the account is owned rather than merely connected. Don't keep hunting for it.
Sometimes Stripe doesn't grey anything out — it just hands you a different account. Since June 2021 a platform can't connect to an account another platform controls, and Stripe's response is not always a visible block: it can walk you through creating a second, empty account and connect that one instead. Everything then looks successful. Studio holds a real account id, the panel goes green, and the organization's donors, giving history and recurring gifts are all still on the account they thought they had just connected. Studio flags this when it happens — if the message after connecting says the account was created just now and is empty, that is what happened. Don't send donors to it until you've read the rest of this section.
Who this hits. Any account a platform created, which is most of them: Planning Center Giving creates a new Stripe account for every church it onboards and offers no way to connect an existing one, so every church leaving Planning Center meets this. Squarespace, Wix, Shopify, Tithe.ly, Pushpay and Subsplash are the same story. An account is only free of it if the organization opened it themselves at stripe.com.
Four ways forward, best first. The first one keeps everything and is the one to try before any other — it is easy to miss because it runs through the platform you're leaving rather than through Stripe.
- Have the old platform disconnect the account, then convert it to a direct account. Stripe's rule: "If a platform disconnects your account via the API, you will also have the ability to transition your account to a direct Stripe account and remove all platform controls." So when the organization cancels Planning Center, Squarespace or whoever created the account, they should explicitly ask that platform to disconnect the Stripe account as part of offboarding. Stripe then offers to make it standalone, and once it is, Studio connects to it normally. Nothing moves and nothing is copied — it is the same account, so the giving history, the donor records, the saved cards, the active recurring subscriptions, the balance and the bank account all stay exactly where they are. No data migration, no donor re-entering a card, no gap. Sequence matters: they have to be finished with the old platform first, so plan the cutover before asking for the disconnect.
- Ask Stripe support to make it standalone. The same destination without the old platform's cooperation — worth trying when they won't disconnect, or won't do it on your timeline. Message Stripe from the account's own dashboard and ask for it to be detached from the platform that created it. They don't always agree, but it costs one message.
- Have the organization open a standalone account at stripe.com themselves, then come back to Studio, click Connect Stripe, and pick it. Use this when they want to own the account outright and keep it separate from whatever built the old one.
- Use "Create one" in Studio. Fastest path: Studio makes a fresh account for the workspace and Stripe walks through signup. The old account and its history stay where they are, untouched.
Routes 3 and 4 leave the old account exactly as it is — the previous platform keeps working on it, and nothing here switches anything off. Payouts and reporting simply live in two places until the organization stops using the older tool. Route 1 is the opposite: it requires them to be finished with the old platform, because the disconnect is what frees the account.
What about just using their Stripe API keys instead of connecting? It would sidestep the block — API keys have nothing to do with Connect — but don't. Stripe calls storing another account's secret keys bad practice, and a secret key is total access: refunds, payouts, every donor record, the bank details. It also breaks how Studio charges platform fees, and it leaves the old platform able to see every gift Studio processes, since they still control the account. The account being locked is the symptom; sharing keys keeps the lock and adds the liability.
Moving to a new Stripe account without losing the recurring donors
Only for when routes 1 and 2 have both failed — if either worked, the account came across whole and none of this applies. If you are on a fresh account, the giving history and the recurring donors are the two things that don't follow. Work in this order — the order is the point, because two of these steps take days and the organization can't be off-line while they run.
- Ask Stripe to copy the payment methods across. Stripe migrates customer and payment-method data between two Stripe accounts on request — you can't do it yourself, because raw card numbers are involved, but Stripe does it routinely and it is free. Request it from the receiving account's dashboard. Stripe needs the customer records and the payment data together, and typically completes it within about ten business days. Start this first: everything else waits on it. Details at Stripe's data migration guide.
- Build the giving page in Studio while the migration runs, and leave the old platform's page live and taking gifts. Nothing is switched off yet.
- Import the giving history so year-end statements are complete. Studio can only issue statements for gifts it knows about, and a donor who gave through the old platform for eight months of the year will otherwise get a statement that under-reports them. See Importing Donors and Gift History from CSV.
- Recreate the recurring gifts in Studio against the migrated payment methods, then cancel them on the old platform. Do it in that order and on the same day: cancel first and a donor misses a month, recreate first without cancelling and they get charged twice.
- Point the donate button at the Studio page — the old page stops receiving new gifts even if the old site stays up.
- Only now disconnect the old platform, once gifts are landing in Studio and the recurring schedule has run once cleanly.
If Stripe declines the data migration, recurring donors have to re-enter a card. Assume roughly a third won't, plan an email sequence for it, and give the organization that number before they commit to the move — it is the real cost of leaving a platform that owns their Stripe account.
One thing to check before any of that: if the greyed-out account was created by Studio for this same workspace, you don't need to pick it at all — it's already attached. Look at the account id shown in Settings → Payments. If it matches, use Finish at Stripe or Continue Setup rather than the picker.
The panel still says "Onboarding Incomplete"
Stripe is still waiting on something. Nothing is lost. Go to Settings → Payments — the panel gives you the right button for your situation: Continue Setup if Studio created the account for you (it resumes where you stopped), or Finish at Stripe if you picked an account you already had, because Stripe only lets the account's own owner complete its verification. If Continue Setup keeps sending you back to the beginning, your browser is likely blocking third-party cookies for stripe.com; try again in a normal (non-private) window.
I finished on Stripe but Studio still shows not connected
Reload Settings → Payments. Studio re-checks your status with Stripe on load. If it's still not green, Stripe hasn't switched on charging yet — open your Stripe onboarding page and see what's outstanding. It's usually a document upload. More in Getting Verified.
Stripe rejected my website
Stripe checks that the URL you gave describes what you're charging for. Give your main organization site, not a deep link to a donation page — yourorg.org, not yourorg.org/donate/spring-appeal. The site should show what you do, how to contact you, and a refund policy. A parked domain or an empty coming-soon page gets flagged. If you genuinely have no site yet, your Studio public site URL works.
"Your legal name doesn't match our records"
Stripe compares against IRS records exactly. Check for a missing "Inc.", a dropped apostrophe, an ampersand where you typed "and", or a DBA entered where the legal name belongs. Copy it character-for-character off your EIN assignment letter.
The bank account was rejected
- Confirm the routing number is the ACH routing number, not the wire one — many banks have both and they're different.
- The account holder name must match your entity name. A personal account under an organization's Stripe profile will fail.
- Some online-only and prepaid accounts aren't supported. A standard checking account at a regular bank is safest.
My ID keeps getting rejected
Almost always a photo problem, not an identity problem. Lay the document flat on a dark surface, in daylight, no flash, all four corners in frame, no fingers over the edges. Photograph the physical document — not a scan of a photocopy, not a picture of a screen. Upload front and back separately when asked.
I don't see a Connect Stripe button at all
Two possibilities:
- The panel reads Connected via Studio platform — this workspace routes payments through Studio's own Stripe account, so there's nothing for you to connect and nothing is wrong.
- It says payment processing is managed by your Studio administrator — Stripe isn't switched on for this installation yet. Contact support.
I connected the wrong Stripe account
Go to Settings → Payments and click Disconnect, then connect again. One warning: existing recurring donations and subscriptions stay on the original account and keep charging there. Stripe can't migrate a live subscription between accounts. New payments go to the new one. If you have active recurring gifts, talk to support before disconnecting.
Payments work but nothing reaches my bank
That's a payout question, not a connection one. New accounts hold the first payout 7–14 days, and a verification item can pause payouts while charging still works. See When Does Money Arrive? and Getting Verified.
Still stuck
Split the problem: anything about your Stripe account itself — verification, documents, holds, payouts, disputes — goes to Stripe Support, who can see the reviewer notes Studio can't. Anything about Studio's screens, buttons, or what got recorded against a donor goes to Studio support.