Map your marketplace requirements to account type: Standard accounts give sellers full Stripe Dashboard access with Stripe branding and Stripe-hosted support; Express accounts give sellers a lighter Stripe-hosted dashboard with platform-controlled KYC; Custom accounts are entirely white-labeled with the platform building all seller-facing UI.
For Express: create an account with POST /v1/accounts setting type=express, then generate an onboarding link via POST /v1/account_links with type=account_onboarding; redirect the seller to this URL to complete Stripe-hosted KYC.
For Custom: create the account with type=custom and capabilities requested explicitly (card_payments, transfers); use the Connect Onboarding embedded component or build your own UI to collect and submit required fields via the Accounts API.
Configure the payout schedule on Custom and Express accounts via PATCH /v1/accounts/{id} setting payout_schedule.interval to daily, weekly, or manual; Standard accounts control their own payout schedule.
Use the account_links type=account_onboarding URL (Express) or the embedded onboarding component for Custom to collect missing information when requirements.currently_due is non-empty after initial creation.
Test onboarding flows in sandbox using Stripe's test mode account tokens (tok_bypassPending and similar) to simulate completed and incomplete KYC states without submitting real identity documents.
Known gotchas
Custom accounts place all compliance and support obligations on the platform — you must build dispute management, refund UIs, and tax form collection (1099 in the US) yourself; factor this operational cost into the account type decision.
Express accounts expose Stripe branding in the seller dashboard — if your marketplace requires white-label branding end-to-end, Custom is the only option, but Custom requires significantly more engineering and compliance overhead.
Switching a connected account from one type to another after creation is not supported — plan the account type before onboarding sellers at scale, as migration requires creating new accounts and re-onboarding existing sellers.
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