A home services marketplace launched in 2024. Plumbers, electricians, builders on one side, homeowners on the other. Eight hundred jobs booked in the first quarter. The product worked. People loved it. The money moved.
Industry Marketplace development · Stripe Connect · KYC at scale · UK
Marketplace development for the platform that survives. its first payout dispute.
Marketplace development for UK founders and B2B teams building two-sided platforms — Stripe Connect split payouts, KYC at scale via Onfido, trust + safety flows, dispute resolution, and supplier + customer onboarding. Every payout, refund, and moderation call lands with an audit log you can defend when the chargeback arrives.
3marketplace builds shipped since 2019
0double-charges in production
12minmedian supplier KYC onboarding
Why UK marketplace founders sign
You build for the user. We build for the user, the regulator, and the acquirer at once.
Online marketplace development isn’t a feature you bolt on once disputes start. Split payouts, KYC at scale, and an audit log per job are decisions you make in week one, or pay months to retrofit.
“The audit log per job was the thing that ended the chargeback storm. Stripe stopped asking, our suppliers stopped escalating.”
001
0
UK marketplace platforms shipped to production since 2019.
002
0
Double-charges, sanctions breaches, or data leaks in production.
003
0%
Median supplier KYC auto-approval at onboarding.
The founder this page is for800 jobs/quarter · chargebacks 1.2% · 0.18%
Lucia founded a UK marketplace. The bookings flowed. The disputes had nowhere to go.
Then the first major payout dispute hit. The tradesperson said the job was done. The customer said it wasn’t. There was no audit log per job, no documented dispute flow, no KYC evidence captured at signup. The payout was reversed by hand. The chargeback cost £240. Two more followed in the same week.
We rebuilt the spine over twelve weeks. Stripe Connect onboarding with full KYC via Onfido. Split payouts on job completion with a 48-hour customer confirmation window. A dispute workflow with evidence intake and human review. An audit log per job and payout. Chargeback rate dropped from 1.2% to 0.18%. This page is for the marketplace founder who’d rather build with the auditor in mind on day one.
The marketplace pain. The architectural answer.
Every marketplace founder who emails us is fighting one of these eight things. Each one is brutal to fix once money and reputation are flowing. Each one is a single architectural decision made on day one of our build.
- 01
“The tradesperson says completed. The customer says didn’t. We have no evidence either way.”
Audit log per job + 48-hour confirmation window. The job lifecycle is audit-logged. The customer gets a 48-hour confirmation window with photos and receipts uploaded. A dispute review queue holds the evidence and the resolution. Chargeback rate drops six-fold.
- 02
“Five chargebacks in a week. Stripe started threatening to suspend our account.”
Chargeback prevention + idempotent refunds. 3DS2 and Stripe Radar on payment. An idempotent refund flow. A documentation pack auto-generated for each chargeback dispute. Your Stripe Connect platform health stays protected.
- 03
“Manual KYC took 5 days per supplier. Onboarding backed up the moment we grew.”
Onfido + Stripe Connect at scale. Onfido KYC at signup. A 12-minute median onboarding. 78% auto-approval. Escalation to a human only for unclear cases. The flow scales to 1,000+ suppliers a month without growing the team.
- 04
“A supplier’s family posted five-star reviews. The marketplace’s credibility started eroding.”
Verified-booking reviews + anomaly detection. Reviews come only from verified bookings. Anomaly detection runs on review patterns. IP and device fingerprinting catches family and sock-puppet accounts before they distort the ratings.
- 05
“The platform fee was wrong on 14 payouts. Suppliers escalated. Reconciliation took a week.”
Idempotent split math + nightly reconciler. Stripe destination charges with idempotency keys. The platform fee is calculated server-side, never in a spreadsheet. A nightly reconciler checks every payout. Split-math errors become architecturally impossible.
- 06
“We started taking EU customers. VAT got confusing fast. Stripe Tax wasn’t configured.”
Stripe Tax + OSS for cross-border. Stripe Tax enabled with OSS for B2C cross-border. VAT calculated per region. A documentation pack auto-generated for OSS quarterly returns. US sales tax handled by the same automation.
- 07
“A supplier was flagged for serious misconduct. We had no path to suspend and investigate.”
Trust + safety workflow + audit trail. A suspension flow built into the supplier dashboard. An investigation queue. An evidence audit log. A reinstate or permanent-ban path. The whole workflow is Online Safety Act-aware from the start.
- 08
“A customer wants a refund mid-job. We don’t know if Stripe Connect can do partial.”
Escrow + partial refund + supplier protection. Stripe destination charges with delayed capture. A partial refund flow. Supplier protection for completed work. An audit log on every decision, so the next dispute starts with the evidence already attached.
MARKETPLACE SURFACES WE’VE SHIPPED
Eight marketplace surfaces, live in production
What lives on the two-sided spine. Each one wired idempotent, audit-logged, and built so your payout matches your bank statement and your dispute matches the evidence.
Two-sided onboarding
Buyer and supplier flows. Stripe Connect onboarding for suppliers. KYC at scale via Onfido. Express, Custom, or Standard Connect depending on the control you need.
Listing + search
Marketplace listings, filters, ranking, and sponsored placements. OpenSearch for listing search at scale. Built so the right supplier surfaces for the right buyer.
Booking + escrow
Booking flow with optional escrow until job completion. Stripe destination charges with delayed capture so funds release on the rules you set, not on trust.
Split payouts
Stripe Connect with platform fee, supplier payout, refund, and chargeback handling. Idempotency keys on every write. A nightly reconciler. Split math errors become impossible.
Dispute resolution
Evidence intake (photos, receipts, messages), a human review queue, a decision audit log, and an appeal path. Median resolution time of 38 hours across our builds.
Trust + safety
Review and rating flows, fake-review detection, ID verification badges, and reporting flows. Suspension and investigation wired in, Online Safety Act-aware.
Supplier dashboards
Earnings, upcoming jobs, payout schedule, tax docs, and performance metrics. Suppliers see exactly what they’ve earned and when it lands, no support ticket needed.
Buyer portals
Booking history, refund requests, dispute initiation, and communication threads. The buyer resolves their own problem before it becomes a chargeback or a one-star review.
Numbers from the two-sided spine
Real figures from marketplace founders who put the payout ledger and the dispute flow to the test.
0.18%
Chargeback rate, down from
The audit log per job ended the chargeback storm. Stripe stopped asking and our suppliers stopped escalating.
Three tiers, one payout ledger that survives the audit.
Three UK marketplace platforms have stress-tested these picks. Tier 1 runs every build. Tier 2 is what we reach for when the brief needs it. Tier 3 scales it to peak-day volume without a rebuild.
T1
What every marketplace build runs on
MERN + StripeMongoDBPostgreSQL (ledger)Node.js + ExpressReact + Next.jsTypeScriptStripe ConnectOnfido / VeriffOpenSearchClerk / Auth.jsTailwindMixpanelPlaywright
T2
When your marketplace brief calls for it
reach when neededPythonWorldpayModulr / BottomlineSumsubCurrencycloudJava + Spring
T3
The infrastructure that scales it
AWS + cloud-nativeAWSRDS / AuroraAWS LambdaS3 + CloudFrontKubernetes (EKS)Apache KafkaSQS + EventBridgeRedisTerraformDatadog + SentryVanta / DrataMicroservices
Recent client · UK marketplace · 2024
A home services marketplace at
A home services marketplace at
800 jobs a quarter, chargebacks down six-fold
Lucia’s two-sided marketplace, in real numbers. We rebuilt the spine with Stripe Connect supplier onboarding, KYC at scale via Onfido, split payouts on job completion, a 48-hour customer confirmation window, a dispute resolution workflow with evidence intake, and an audit log per job. Twelve-week sprint, behind a feature flag.
The sprint
12wk
Marketplace spine rebuilt
12min
Median supplier onboarding
The outcome
0.18%
Chargeback rate, from 1.2%
5d12m
Onboarding time cut
Track record
3
Marketplace platforms since 2019
0
Double-charges in production
HOW WE WORK WITH UK MARKETPLACE TEAMS
Three ways to start
We don’t publish prices on a page. Every marketplace scope carries different payment and trust weight. Pick the shape that fits and Mohit will send your real number inside 24 hours.
START HERE(01)
Marketplace audit week
One week, fixed cost. A 30-page brief mapping your build against Stripe Connect setup, KYC obligations, dispute flow, and cross-border tax. Architecture diagram and signed scope.
5-day senior auditPayments + KYC mappingArchitecture brief + ADRsNo commitment to build
Marketplace audit week
MOST COMMON(02)
Marketplace build sprint
8 to 14 weeks. The full marketplace surface end to end. Two-sided onboarding, listing + search, booking + escrow, split payouts, dispute workflow, trust + safety suspension flow.
MERN + Stripe Connect + AWSKYC + disputes + audit log30-day walk-away both waysIP assigns on every commit
Marketplace build sprint
RESCUE(03)
Payout + dispute rebuild
7 to 12 weeks. Your existing marketplace with the chargeback storm or the broken split payouts. We rebuild the gaps and ship the audit log per job.
Gap audit + remediationSplit-payout + reconciler rebuildDispute workflow + evidence intakeAudit log retrofit per job
Payout + dispute rebuild
PROOF(04)
From £65K, fixed scope
From £65K on an 8 to 14 week fixed-scope sprint. Three marketplace platforms shipped since 2019, zero double-charges in production. The same seniors who sign your scope write every commit.
From £65K8-14 weeksFixed scopeReplies in 24h
From £65K, fixed scope
What marketplace founders actually ask before signing
Pain-first, soft-second. The questions every founder asks before they trust a studio with two-sided money flows.
Full Connect onboarding flow. ID and business verification via Stripe. Banking details captured. We use Express, Custom, or Standard Connect depending on the control and experience you want over the supplier journey. Median supplier onboarding time after implementation is 12 minutes. Stripe Connect marketplace development is the spine we build every two-sided platform on.
3DS2 on payment. Stripe Radar enabled. A job-completion confirmation window before the payout releases. An auto-generated documentation pack for every chargeback dispute. Across our marketplace builds, the chargeback rate sits under 0.25% median, down from the 1.2% we typically inherit.
A built-in dispute resolution workflow. Evidence intake for photos, receipts, and messages. A human review queue with an audit log. A decision plus an appeal path. Median resolution time across our builds is 38 hours, and every decision lands with the evidence already attached, so the next dispute starts from facts, not memory.
Yes. Stripe Tax enabled with OSS for EU B2C. VAT calculated per region. A documentation pack auto-generated for OSS quarterly returns. US sales tax handled through the same Stripe Tax automation. You don’t configure it after the fact; it’s designed in at week one of the build.
Onfido or Veriff at signup. A 12-minute median per supplier. 78% auto-approval, with the 22% that are unclear escalated to a human with reasoning attached. Onboarding scales to 1,000+ suppliers a month without you hiring an ops team. Custom marketplace software development at this volume is exactly what we do.
Three things make this hard to fake. The 30-day walk-away clause goes both ways and refunds the unused portion. Payments are milestoned 25/25/25/25, so you never pay more than 25% ahead of working software. And we’ve been shipping since 2019, UK VAT registered, listed on Companies House. You can check us before you sign.
Yes, with 14 days’ notice. Engineers move to other projects, your repo stays where it is, your spend pauses. Resume with 14 days’ notice and we pick up at the same sprint board, same engineers. No cancellation fee, no restart fee. We’ve done this six times in 2025.
That’s the point of marketplace development done our way. You get a 30-page architecture brief, six ADRs minimum, the split-payout reconciliation flow, the KYC process, and the dispute audit trail, all documented. The brief is written to the question your acquirer’s CTO will ask about how money moves between two sides, so they read it once and stop asking.
In context
Inside the work.
A look at the kind of marketplace development surface we hand over — real screens, real data, documented and yours from day one.
One paragraph. That’s it.
Tell us what you’re building, who your buyers and suppliers are, and the payout, dispute, or compliance question you’re most worried about. Mohit reads every first email and replies inside 24 hours: a clear yes, a clear no, or the one question that decides it.
What happens after the email lands
- < 24h
A personal reply.
Yes, no, or the deciding question. Straight to your inbox, not a team thread.
- Week 1
Audit week begins.
We map your payout, KYC, and dispute flows, write the trade-offs, hand you a signed scope.
- Week 14
Audit-ready marketplace.
Split payouts, KYC, disputes, and the audit log per job your acquirer’s CTO reads cold.