Stripe Integration

Stripe is the payment backbone of Vanio. Every charge, refund, payout, deposit, and staff payment flows through your Stripe account — so you own the money relationship with your guests and staff, and Vanio never holds funds.

Connecting Stripe takes about three minutes and unlocks the majority of Vanio's revenue features: direct bookings, deposits, damage waivers, staff payouts, tips, and automatic reconciliation.

Why Stripe

• You own the account — Vanio connects to your Stripe, not the other way around. If you ever leave Vanio, your account and payment history stay with you.
• Global coverage — 45+ countries, 135+ currencies, local payment methods (Apple Pay, Google Pay, SEPA, iDEAL, Bancontact, Klarna, Afterpay, and more)
• Best-in-class security — PCI Level 1 compliance handled for you, 3D Secure automatic, fraud screening built in
• Fast payouts — money lands in your bank in 1-2 business days (or instantly with Instant Payouts)

Connecting your account

1. Go to Settings → Payments
2. Click Connect Stripe
3. Sign in to Stripe (or create a new account)
4. Grant Vanio permission to charge and refund on your behalf
5. You're back in Vanio and ready to take payments

If you don't have a Stripe account yet, Stripe walks you through business details, bank info, and ID verification — usually 10-15 minutes. Vanio doesn't see any of this.

What Stripe powers in Vanio

• Direct bookings — charge guests at booking or check-in
• Security deposits — authorize a hold before arrival, capture or release after checkout
• Damage waivers — small non-refundable fees on every booking
• Upsells — early check-in, late checkout, pet fee, cleaning upgrades
• Staff payouts — pay cleaners and maintenance directly to their bank accounts
• Guest refunds — partial or full, in one click, with automatic reconciliation
• Subscription billing — for long-stay tenants or recurring cleaning contracts

Fees

Stripe's standard processing fees apply (typically 2.9% + 30¢ per card charge in the US, varies by country and payment method). Vanio doesn't take a cut of processing — the Stripe fee is the only fee on guest charges.

For staff payouts, Stripe Connect fees apply when you pay contractors or employees. These are transparent and shown in your monthly summary.

Dashboard views

Under Reports → Payments you see everything in one place: charges, refunds, deposits held, payouts scheduled, and fees. Every line links straight to the matching reservation or task, and you can export to CSV for your accountant any time.

Refunds

Issuing a refund takes one click:

1. Open the reservation
2. Click Refund
3. Pick full or partial amount
4. Confirm

The refund is processed by Stripe immediately. Guests see it on their statement within a few days, depending on their bank.

Disputes and chargebacks

If a guest disputes a charge, Vanio notifies you and automatically assembles evidence (booking confirmation, guest messages, photos, access logs) so you can respond in one click. Most disputes are won when evidence is well-organized — Vanio does the heavy lifting.

Payments across multiple booking sites

If you publish listings on more than one booking site — for example, your own direct-booking site and a partner portal — and each site has its own connected Stripe account, Vanio automatically charges through the correct account for the site the guest is actually booking on.

Previously, a listing published on several sites could occasionally be charged through the wrong account, which caused the payment form to appear blank with no explanation. That issue is resolved: checkout is now always scoped to the site the guest is using.

If a payment account isn't set up correctly for a site, guests will now see a clear message — "This property cannot accept payments right now. Please contact the host." — instead of a blank payment box. If a guest reports this to you, check that the Stripe account connected to that booking site is fully activated and able to accept charges. You can verify this under Settings → Payments.

[Screenshot: Settings → Payments showing connected Stripe accounts per booking site]

Redirect-based payment methods (Klarna and similar)

Some payment methods — like Klarna — work by sending your guest to an external page to complete payment, then redirecting them back to your booking site. Occasionally a guest finishes paying but never makes it back to your site (they close the tab, lose their connection, or simply walk away). Previously, this meant the booking was never recorded in Vanio even though the payment went through successfully.

Vanio now recovers these bookings automatically. When a payment is confirmed by Stripe but the corresponding booking is missing, Vanio detects the gap and creates the reservation on your behalf — no manual entry needed.

What to expect when a booking is recovered

Recovered bookings appear in your reservations list just like any other booking, but with one difference: because the detailed price breakdown (base rent, cleaning fee, taxes) is only available during the normal checkout flow, Vanio records the full paid amount against the base price and sets the cleaning fee and taxes to zero.

You'll be able to identify these bookings easily — they are flagged in the reservation detail view so you know a correction may be needed.

[Screenshot: Reservation detail showing a recovered booking flag and the pricing breakdown fields]

After a booking is recovered, review and correct the pricing breakdown:

1. Open the recovered reservation
2. Look for the recovery notice at the top of the reservation detail
3. Go to the Pricing section
4. Update the base price, cleaning fee, and tax fields to reflect the correct breakdown
5. Save your changes

The total charged to the guest is always accurate — only the line-item split needs your attention.

Fraud prevention

Vanio automatically blocks fraudulent accounts at signup and at the point a subscription is created. When a payment card has been used to create multiple accounts in a short period — even if the fraudster changed their name, email address, or location — Vanio detects the pattern and cancels the subscription before it becomes active. No listing is published and no trial period begins.

This happens entirely in the background. Legitimate customers are never affected, and you don't need to configure anything.

If a genuine customer contacts you because their signup was declined: this can occasionally happen if their card was previously used on an account that was removed for policy violations (for example, a shared corporate card). Ask them to reach out to Vanio support, who can review the case and manually clear the block.

Common questions

Do I need a separate Stripe account for each property? No — one account handles all your properties. If you want to separate payouts by property, use Stripe's multi-account feature.

What if I already use Stripe for something else? Perfect — connect the same account. Vanio only sees the charges it creates.

Can I use a different payment processor? Stripe is the only fully supported processor today. PayPal is planned for non-card flows.

Is there a sandbox mode? Yes — switch to Stripe Test Mode from the Payments settings to run test charges without moving real money.

I list properties on multiple booking sites. How does Vanio decide which Stripe account to charge through? Vanio always uses the Stripe account connected to the specific site the guest is booking on. You don't need to do anything — this is handled automatically. If a site's Stripe account isn't fully set up, guests on that site will see a clear error message rather than a broken payment form, so you'll know something needs attention.

A guest says they saw a message that the property "cannot accept payments right now" — what should I do? This means the Stripe account connected to the booking site they were using isn't able to process charges. Go to Settings → Payments, check that all your connected accounts are fully activated, and make sure the account assigned to that site has charges enabled. If you're unsure which account is the problem, contact Vanio support.

A guest paid with Klarna but I don't see the booking — what should I do? Vanio recovers these automatically within a short time of the payment being confirmed. Check your reservations list again after a few minutes. If the booking still hasn't appeared, contact support with the guest's name and payment date.

A recovered booking shows the wrong price breakdown — is the guest's charge affected? No. The amount your guest was charged is always taken directly from the confirmed payment and is correct. Only the internal line-item split (base price, cleaning fee, taxes) needs to be updated manually in the reservation's Pricing section.

A new customer says their signup was blocked but they look legitimate — what should I do? Contact Vanio support with the customer's details. Support can review the account and remove the block if it was triggered in error, for example by a shared payment card.

Stripe is the one integration you should set up first. Everything else gets more useful once it's connected.