Connect Payouts
Sway does not hold your money. Ticket buyers pay your account, through Stripe. Until that account exists and Stripe has approved it, an event can have Sway Tickets switched on and still take no payment at all.
Payouts belong to the promoter page, not to the event and not to your user account. One promoter, one payout account, shared by every event that promoter organises. You connect it once.
Prerequisites
Two things, and both of them bite late rather than early.
A promoter page on which you are Manager or Admin. The Stripe account belongs to the people who manage the page: without the permission to edit its settings, the Payouts tab says Payouts are handled by the page's managers instead of showing the account.
Your bank details and an identity document, to hand. Stripe asks for both in a single pass. Leaving that pass halfway is what produces a half-finished account, and a half-finished account is the state that leaves your event unable to sell.
Connect Stripe to a promoter page
- Open Manage, then your promoter page.
- Go to Settings → Payouts. While no account is linked, the tab shows Connect to Stripe.
- Press Connect this page to Stripe. Sway hands you over to Stripe.
- Fill in the details Stripe requires:
- Who is being paid, business or individual.
- An identity document.
- The bank account the money should land in.
- Finish on Stripe. It sends you back to Sway.
The guided setup takes you to that tab by itself if you answered yes to selling tickets, waits while you are on Stripe, and moves to the next step on its own once you are back.
Check that the account is live
Once connected, the tab opens on the Connected Stripe account card: the account ID (masked, with buttons to show and copy it), one block saying where the account stands, and three separate indicators under it. The block names the first thing to fix, most serious first: Stripe onboarding is not finished, Stripe has not activated payments yet, Payouts are on hold, or Ready to take payments once everything is on. Until then it carries Complete on Stripe, which takes you back to Stripe where you left off.
The indicators are not the same thing, and knowing which one reads No tells you what to do.
| Indicator | What it means |
|---|---|
| Details submitted | You finished Stripe's form. It does not mean Stripe accepted it. |
| Charges enabled | You can take money. This is the one Sway Tickets requires. |
| Payouts enabled | Stripe can transfer the balance to your bank. |
Charges and payouts are independent. An account can be allowed to take payments while transfers are still on hold, or the reverse. Selling needs Charges enabled; getting the money out needs Payouts enabled.
If charges are not enabled, the block reads Stripe has not activated payments yet and says that ticket sales for the events paid to this page are blocked until it does. The decision is Stripe's, and Sway only reports it. If the account cannot be read at all, the tab says Could not load the Stripe account with a Try again button: that is a failed request, not a missing account.
Turn on Sway Tickets
Wait until Charges enabled is green, then:
- Open the event.
- Check that Sway Tickets is on in its settings.
- Add at least one ticket type.
That order matters. An event created with Sway Tickets on but no working payout account looks fine to you and fails at the moment a buyer tries to pay.
Other settings on this tab
Once connected, the same tab also carries:
- Business information: what Stripe holds about the account, read-only, with Capabilities at the bottom, what Stripe has cleared it for: Card payments and Transfers, each Active, Inactive or Pending.
- Account settings, once payouts are enabled: the Payout schedule (Daily, Weekly, Monthly or Manual, with the day or the date when it applies), the Statement descriptor, the name buyers see on their bank statement, 5 to 22 characters with a counter, Auto-debit negative balances, and Manage on Stripe, which opens Stripe in a new tab.
- Earnings & payouts (Sway Boost): the Available, Pending and Paid out balances, recent revenue and payout history. Request payout needs €50 available, and the line beside it says how much is still missing.
- Tax information (Sway Partners): the legal details and tax numbers Sway needs to pay Boost earnings, and the Sway Partners agreement to accept.
Changing the account settings or the tax information raises one bar at the bottom of the screen, You have unsaved changes, with Discard and Save changes. When Save cannot run yet, the bar says why instead, for instance The statement descriptor needs 5 to 22 characters or Add the legal name to save.