You Built a Business. Stripe Is Holding It Hostage.

You're a coach, course creator, agency owner, or consultant selling programs at $2,000, $5,000, $10,000+. Your business is legitimate. Your customers get results. Your revenue is growing.

Then Stripe freezes $47,000 of your funds for a "routine review." Or your account gets terminated because a single client filed a chargeback on a $5,000 coaching program. Or you get an email saying your "business model doesn't align with our acceptable use policy" and your account is closed effective immediately.

This is the Stripe tax on high-ticket businesses. You're not selling anything illegal or sketchy. You're selling transformation, results, and expertise. But Stripe's automated risk systems see high transaction values + digital products + the occasional dispute and flag you as a liability.

Why High-Ticket Businesses Get Flagged

The processing industry has a bias against high-ticket digital services. Here's why:

High Average Order Value

A $5,000 transaction generates more chargeback exposure than fifty $100 transactions, even though the chargeback rate is the same. Processors like Stripe are optimized for high-volume, low-AOV e-commerce. When they see $5K+ charges for "coaching" or "consulting," their risk algorithms flag it.

Digital Delivery = No Proof of Delivery

Physical products have tracking numbers. Digital services don't. When a coaching client files a chargeback claiming they "didn't receive the service," you're fighting an uphill battle with the card network. Even if you have contracts, session recordings, and login data, the dispute process favors the cardholder for digital goods.

Refund Requests and Buyer's Remorse

High-ticket purchases come with high expectations. When results don't happen overnight, some buyers look for an exit. If your refund process is unclear or slow, they go straight to their bank. One or two of these disputes on a low-volume account can push your chargeback ratio over threshold and trigger a termination.

The math problem: If you process $50,000/month across 10 transactions and get a single chargeback, your ratio is 10%. Visa's threshold is 0.9%. You're terminated. The same chargeback on an account processing 1,000 transactions is 0.1%. Not even a blip. High-ticket businesses need a processor that understands the unit economics are different.

The 2.7% Alternative

Through our partnership with Whop, high-ticket service businesses get a processing setup that's built for the way you actually sell.

Flat 2.7% Rate

No monthly fees. No gateway fees. No PCI compliance charges. No statement fees buried in the fine print. 2.7% on every transaction, with volume discounts as you scale. Compare that to the 3.5-5% most high-risk processors charge, plus all the added fees, and the savings compound fast.

No Rolling Reserve

Traditional high-risk processors hold 5-10% of your revenue in a rolling reserve for 6 months. On $100K/month in processing, that's $10K/month you can't touch. With Whop, there's no reserve. Your money settles on schedule.

24-Hour Onboarding

No 2-week underwriting process. No mountains of paperwork. No "we need 6 months of bank statements, 3 years of tax returns, and a letter from your accountant." Most merchants are approved and processing within 24 hours.

Built-In Commerce Tools

Checkout pages, subscription management, affiliate tracking, analytics, and payment plan support are built into the platform. You don't need to bolt on Kajabi, Thrivecart, and three other tools to manage your sales infrastructure.

Who This Works For

This setup covers the full range of high-ticket service businesses:

If you sell digital services or high-ticket offers at $500+, you qualify. The rate stays the same whether you're processing $10K/month or $500K/month (with volume discounts kicking in at higher tiers).