Members have the ability to pay transactions online through Hello Club with credit and debit card payments in 39 countries worldwide. These payments are processed securely through Stripe, a trusted and PCI compliant global online payments provider. 

We use Stripe Connect to link your own Stripe account to the Hello Club payments platform. This way, all money that your members pay is deposited straight into your own bank account.

In order to enable card payments for your club or organisation, you need to sign up for a Stripe account first. 

Once you’ve got an account, go to the Integrations module, click on the Stripe integration card and follow the steps there to connect your account to Hello Club.

Payment processing fees for credit and debit card payments are largely determined by Stripe, and may vary from country to country. Sometimes rates vary between domestic and international cards as well.

In addition to Stripe's fees, Hello Club will charge a small amount on top of each transaction to maintain the integration and cover related expenses.

You can view the total fees for your country on our Pricing page. These include both the Hello Club fees and the Stripe fees. A breakdown of Stripe's fees can be found on the Stripe website.

For more details on how these fees work and who is charged for them, see our article on payment processing fees.

Stripe’s fees largely depend on the arrangements they have in place with banks in various countries as well as what they are charged by credit card companies. 

As they have different agreements with different countries, some countries may have lower fees than others, and some countries may have special rates for domestic cards while others don’t.

We add a little bit on top of what Stripe charges to cover the costs of maintaining the Stripe integration. This allows us to provide a seamless payment experience for your members and make reconciliation easier for administrators.

There are many benefits to using online payments through Hello Club that you wouldn't otherwise get with just Stripe or with other platforms. To name a few:

So there's a lot more to this integration than simply processing payments, and maintaining these functionalities takes some effort as we have to make sure we keep up to date with Stripe's API changes and security updates. We use the extra fees to cover the cost of this maintenance.

All fees can be fully passed on to your members as a convenience fee though, so the fees don’t have to paid for by the club.

This depends on Stripe’s payment processing speeds, but in general this should be no more than a few days or up to a week, depending on your country.

For more details, check the Stripe website.

This is a common misunderstanding that occurs when your organisation is not covering payment processing fees, or partially covering payment processing fees. It is easily clarified with some math though, so let's dive in with some examples!

Note: For these examples we'll use the applicable fee structure for New Zealand cards, which at the time of writing is 3.05% + $0.50 per transaction. The same calculations can be applied for the fee structure of your country.

Example 1

Let's say a member has to pay $100 for their membership renewal, and that your organisation is not covering payment processing fees. This means the member will have to pay slightly more to cover the payment processing fee, so that your organisation receives the full $100.

Base payment amount: $100.00

The member will be charged: $103.66

Variable payment processing fee component: 3.05% x $103.66 = $3.16

Fixed payment processing fee component: $0.50

Total payment processing fee: $3.16 + $0.50 = $3.66

Payout to your organisation: $103.66 - $3.66 = $100.00

The mistake that is often made, is that the $3.66 fee is compared to the base amount of $100, which would work out as a 3.16% fee. This is incorrect however, since the member did not pay $100 through Stripe, but $103.66 instead. So the fee has to be calculated based on the amount that was actually processed through Stripe.

Example 2

Let's use the same $100 payment for this example, but now assume that your organisation is covering $1.50 of these fees per transaction. This means if the total fee works out to be more than $1.50, the member will still have to pay a bit extra to cover the rest of the payment processing fee. Your organisation can be expected to receive $98.50 after the fee has been deducted.

Base payment amount: $100.00

The member will be charged: $102.11

Variable payment processing fee component: 3.05% x $102.11 = $3.11

Fixed payment processing fee component: $0.50

Total payment processing fee: $3.11 + $0.50 = $3.61

Payout to your organisation: $102.11 - $3.61 = $98.50

Similar to before, the fee needs to be calculated based on the amount that was actually processed through Stripe, which is $102.11 in this example and not $100.00.

There are a few reasons why your Stripe payout amount can differ from the sum of payments processed through Hello Club. The most common reasons are:

The easiest way to check why there's a difference is by logging in to your Stripe dashboard and viewing the details of the specific payout. If there are any fees, refunds, or charges that were not processed through Hello Club, you will be able to find them in the payout summary or in the list of transactions.

Stripe may decide to reserve a certain amount of funds to prevent negative balances due to disputes and refunds. This means they will hold on to a part of your payout and keep it in reserve for a certain amount of time.

According to Stripe, this can happen for various reasons:

When a reserve is applied to your Stripe account, you will receive a notice from the Stripe support team that lays out the terms of the reserve. Reserves are usually applied for 45-180 days and can be for any amount, from 5-100% of processing volume.

If you believe a reserve has been applied in error or have additional documentation to support its removal, you can contact Stripe support by replying to the notification email you received or via their support page.

Yes, but at present you can only process refunds through your Stripe dashboard. We’re working on allowing you to issue refunds straight from Hello Club as well. Have a chat with us if you want to find out more.

If a member doesn’t recognise a certain payment and disputes this with their bank, you may have to go through a dispute resolution process. Stripe will inform you if this happens, and guide you through the necessary steps.

Often, the member simply didn’t recognise a payment and once the situation has been clarified they will likely approve the payment.

Yes, you can pass on your payment processing fees to your members if you want. Stripe will still deduct these fees from your account directly, but Hello Club will charge your members a little bit extra for each transaction to exactly cover these fees.

If you have any questions or if you'd like a hand setting up your Stripe account, have a chat with us or send us an email any time.