stripe says $1,418 collected, my bank got $1,247 — where did the other 12% go

Most of that gap is three things and only one of them is a fee.

Timing first, because it is usually the biggest and it is not a loss at all. Payouts run on a rolling delay, commonly a couple of business days for established US accounts and longer in some regions, so the last days of your calendar month land in the next bank month. On a month with a weekend at the end that alone can look like six or seven percent vanished. It comes back next month, which is why the gap never quite closes if you compare calendar months forever.

Fees second. The headline rate plus a fixed amount per charge is the base, and the fixed part is what hurts you specifically: on a nineteen dollar plan a thirty cent fixed fee is another one and a half percent on top of the percentage. Cards issued outside your country add a surcharge, and if the charge currency differs from your payout currency there is a conversion cost on top of that. Stacked, an international charge in a foreign currency can land meaningfully above what you budgeted. Check the current published rates for your country rather than trusting a number from a forum, they get revised.

Third, one off events. A single dispute is the disputed amount plus a fee. A partial refund shows as a negative line. Any paid add ons you switched on have their own line item.

Stop reading the dashboard chart. Download the itemised payout reconciliation report and reconcile one payout end to end. It will account for every cent and take you forty minutes.

The international part is where my equivalent gap lived, and I made it worse before I made it better.

I was presenting prices in local currency to look friendly, which meant nearly every European charge picked up both the foreign card surcharge and a conversion cost on the way to my payout currency. My effective rate on those was several points above what I had modelled.

What I did not expect was the fix being a wash. Switching everyone to a single currency removed the conversion line on my side and moved that cost to the customer's bank instead, which their statement shows as an unfamiliar foreign transaction. Read the room in your market before doing this.

Count charges, not dashboard cards. Two days of settlement timing plus one dispute explains most twelve percent gaps I have been shown.

Twelve percent is too high for fees alone unless nearly everything is international, so before you accept an explanation, look for a discrete event.

Candidates in order of how often I have seen them: a payout that failed and was returned, sitting in your balance rather than your bank. A dispute you did not notice because the email went to a forwarding address. A refund you issued from your phone and forgot. A paid feature you enabled during setup that bills monthly.

One of those usually accounts for most of the mystery and the rest is arithmetic.

Not your situation but related and it caught me out badly: the very first payout on a new account can take considerably longer than the ongoing schedule, on the order of a week or two after the first successful charge. I had budgeted around a two day delay, told myself the money was late, and spent an evening convinced something was broken. It was just the first one.