Split Payment
Definition
A single buyer payment divided across multiple recipients — platform and sellers — at settlement.
A split payment divides a single buyer payment across more than one recipient at settlement — typically a marketplace or platform and one or more sellers, and sometimes additional parties such as tax authorities or shipping providers. Rather than the platform collecting the full amount and paying sellers separately afterward, the payment is apportioned as it settles, with each party's share routed to their account. A split payment is the settlement-time expression of a marketplace's funds-flow model, and it determines who receives funds, who is merchant of record for each share, and who bears the fees and dispute liability on it.
Split payments let a marketplace settle a single buyer charge directly to the parties owed — the platform's commission and each seller's share — instead of pooling funds and disbursing later. Providers such as Adyen for Platforms and Stripe Connect implement this through connected accounts and application fees.
The operational consequence is liability, not convenience: how the split is structured sets who is merchant of record on each share, and therefore who funds a refund, who owns a chargeback, and who carries any reserve. For how those consequences play out day to day — payouts, holds, negative balances, split refunds, and disputes — see the marketplace split-payment operations runbook.
Related terms
Connected Account
A connected account is a seller or service-provider account that a platform crea...
Master Merchant Account
A master merchant account is the merchant account a payment facilitator holds wi...
Payment Facilitator
A Payment Facilitator (PayFac) is a company registered with card networks that c...
Sub-Merchant
A sub-merchant is a business that accepts card payments under a payment facilita...