Billing & payments
How money moves.
Stripe Connect, application fees, refunds, and failed-payment recovery — the full picture of how dollars flow through Cinch.
Last updated May 14, 2026·By the Cinch team
The two pricing tracks
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You own this knob
The two tracks below are how you pay Cinch. They have nothing to do with what your members pay you. Membership tiers, day-pass rates, guest fees, promo codes — every dollar amount your members see is a knob you control.
Cinch has one flat plan, plus a launch deal and a golf-only pass-through option.
- Cinch Standard — $249/mo flat, every feature included, zero transaction fees from Cinch. You connect your own Stripe account; payouts land in your bank directly.
- Founding 10 — $99/mo for the first 12 months for the first 10 paying customers. Same product as Standard. Auto-rolls to $249/mo on month 13.
- Public Golf pass-through— $0/mo to the course. A $1.50 online booking fee is shown clearly to the golfer at checkout and collected via Stripe’s `application_fee_amount` at settlement.
Standard Stripe processing applies on top
On any plan, Stripe’s standard card-processing rates (typically 2.9% + 30¢ online) apply to every charge. That’s Stripe’s rate, not ours.
Setting up Stripe Connect
- 1Open /admin/settings/paymentsYou’ll see a “Connect Stripe” button.
- 2Stripe OAuth flowSign into your existing Stripe account, or create a new one. Stripe handles the KYC; we never see your bank info.
- 3Pick your payout scheduleDaily, weekly, or monthly. Cinch defaults to daily for fastest cash flow.
- 4DoneMembers can pay. On Standard, Cinch’s $249/mo is billed separately; on the Public Golf plan, the $1.50/booking fee settles automatically at the Stripe layer — you don’t see an invoice from us.
Refunds
Refunds happen at the booking level. Two options:
- Refund to card— money goes back to the member’s original payment method. Stripe takes approximately 5–10 business days to land. Stripe doesn’t refund its processing fees. On the Public Golf pass-through plan, Cinch refunds the $1.50 booking fee with the order.
- Refund to account credit— the dollar amount becomes a credit on the member’s next bill. Faster, no processing-fee leakage, no chargeback risk. Members generally prefer this for small amounts.
Refunds older than 60 days
Stripe limits how far back you can refund a charge. Beyond 60 days, refund-to-credit is the only option. Cinch falls back automatically.
Failed-payment recovery
Cards fail. The recovery flow happens automatically:
- Day 1— Stripe’s smart-retry attempts the card on the next-likely-success day (usually next business day).
- Day 3 — second retry + a card-update email to the member with a self-serve Stripe-hosted update link.
- Day 7— SMS reminder if the email goes unread (using the phone number on the member’s account).
- Day 14— escalates to your front-desk exception queue with the member’s last visit date.
Tax handling
Cinch integrates with Stripe Tax for tenants in jurisdictions where sales tax applies to memberships, day passes, or retail. Toggle it on in /admin/settings/tax; Stripe handles the calculation + remittance per-state.