You can get paid directly inside a DM by connecting Stripe to Inrō. Once it's set up, the contact taps a payment card in the chat, pays on a secure Stripe page, and the money lands in your own Stripe account. Inrō tracks the status automatically so your scenarios can react to who paid.
Before you start
Payments are a paid-plan feature, and connecting Stripe is a separate step from your Inrō plan. Even on a paid plan, you can't collect anything until your Stripe account is set up and able to take charges.
You don't paste any secret keys. Inrō connects to a Stripe account that you set up through Stripe's own secure onboarding, reached from your payment settings inside Inrō.
Set up your Stripe account
Open the Payments page, then click Settings (or go to your account menu and open Payment settings). You'll see three steps, each with its own status badge.
General settings. Pick the country you operate in and the currency you want to receive payments in. Inrō loads the currencies Stripe supports for that country. You can also choose a payment card background (default, purple, yellow, dark, or your own uploaded image) to brand the card contacts see, and optionally turn on Ask to accept terms with a link to your terms of sale.
⚠️ Country and currency lock once your Stripe account is created. Set them carefully, because you can't change them yourself afterward.
Account information. Choose Individual or Company and fill in the matching details (name, date of birth or company name, address, phone). These also lock once Stripe is created.
Set up Stripe account. This launches Stripe's hosted onboarding ("set up a free Stripe account in 2 minutes"). Follow Stripe's steps, then return to Inrō. The step shows Completed once your account is created and able to take charges.
You don't copy any API keys. The whole connection happens through Stripe's own secure onboarding, so there's nothing to paste back into Inrō.
Send a payment link
There are two ways to send a payment, and both produce the same card and checkout.
Manually from the inbox. Open a conversation and click Request payment (the euro icon). Enter the amount, check the live fee preview, and send. The card lands in the DM.
Automatically with the Payment link action. Add a Payment link action to any scenario or campaign. It builds the payment from the amount you set and waits for the contact to pay before continuing down the "paid" branch, with an expiry branch if they don't. The action is a Pro feature and stays greyed out until Stripe is set up. For how the branches work inside a flow, see Conversion Actions: Links, Payments, Bookings & Surveys.
What the contact pays, and your fees
When the contact taps the card, they reach a secure Stripe page and pay by card or SEPA debit. The amount they pay is the amount you request plus the fees.
Two fees come out of each payment:
Inrō's service fee, a percentage of the amount you request. The standard rate is 3%. The exact rate for your account is shown on your payment settings, and a promo code can lower it.
Stripe's processing fee, roughly 1.5% plus €0.25.
The amount you receive is the amount you requested minus those two fees. The smallest payment you can request is 1 unit of your currency, and there's a minimum service fee of about €0.50.
⚠️ While a payment is still awaiting, the fee figures are an estimate, because the exact Stripe fee depends on how the contact pays.
Payment statuses
Every payment moves through a clear set of statuses, which you can see on the Payments page and in each payment's detail drawer.
Status | What it means |
Awaiting payment | The link was sent but not paid yet. |
Payment confirmed | The charge succeeded through Stripe. |
Marked as paid | You manually marked it paid (for example, paid out-of-band). Counts toward your received total. |
Payment attempted | A charge was tried but didn't go through. The contact can retry. |
Payment failed | The charge failed. |
Payment refunded | A paid payment was refunded. |
Payment cancelled | The request was cancelled. |
If a payment is stuck on Awaiting even though the contact says they paid, open the payment and click Refresh payment status to re-check it against Stripe.
Receipts and invoices
Receipts apply to Company accounts. After paying, a contact on a company account sees a Request invoice button, where they enter their billing details and download a PDF invoice. You can also download that invoice yourself from the payment's detail drawer.
⚠️ The PDF invoice assumes 20% VAT. That's France-specific, so don't treat the invoice as correct for every jurisdiction without checking.
Refunds
To refund a payment, open it and use Refund. Inrō issues a full refund through Stripe and sets the payment to Refunded.
⚠️ The in-app refund is always for the full amount. If you need a partial refund, do it from your Stripe dashboard (use the View Stripe dashboard link). Inrō will pick up the refund the next time it syncs with Stripe.
Balance and payouts
The Balance view (the Balance button on the Payments page) shows your Stripe balance: Available now, Available soon, and the total still Awaiting payment. The Transfers history lists each payout to your bank, with the destination, amount, status, and arrival date.
Payouts to your bank are handled by Stripe, not Inrō, and run automatically every 1 to 2 business days. To change the schedule or see the full picture, open your Stripe dashboard.
You can also activate a promo code on the Payments page. An active code can lower your service-fee rate for as long as it's valid.
🐾 Netsuke's Tips
Use the awaiting branch of the Payment link action to follow up with contacts who opened the checkout but didn't finish. A short reminder an hour later recovers a lot of abandoned payments.
The amount the contact pays includes the fees on top of what you request, so set your price as the amount you want to receive and let Inrō add the fees.
Connecting Stripe and being on a paid plan are two different things. If the Payment link action is greyed out, check that your Stripe onboarding shows Completed, not only that your plan is active.
To collect a deposit before a booking, attach a payment to an appointment instead of sending a standalone link. See Appointments & Calendar: Manage Bookings in Inrō.
What's next?
To let contacts book a time as well as pay, connect Calendly: Send Booking Links to Your Contacts, or use Inrō's built-in Appointments & Calendar: Manage Bookings in Inrō.