Set Up Automatic Payouts

On Siren Plus and Pro, Siren can send payouts for you through Stripe Connect Express or PayPal Payouts, from your own Stripe or PayPal account. You still approve rewards and create fulfillments, as How to Pay Collaborators describes. Once a fulfillment creates a payout in a currency you’ve set up, Siren sends it in the background.

On WordPress, store credit is separate, and it’s on Siren Essentials and up. See Pay in Store Credit and Custom Currencies.

Setup has three parts, in this order: choose a method for each currency, add your Stripe or PayPal credentials, and have each collaborator set up where their money goes. The WordPress plugin and Siren Cloud share these screens. Where a step differs, it has a sentence that starts “On WordPress” and one that starts “On Siren Cloud”. Follow the one for your platform and skip the other.

Before you start

You need your Stripe account’s secret key, or your PayPal REST app’s Client ID and secret. Each collaborator also has to say where their money goes: they connect Stripe or add a PayPal email on their portal’s Profile page, as How Collaborators Get Paid Automatically describes. You can also add a collaborator’s PayPal email from their page in the admin, where the “Stripe payouts” card shows whether their Stripe account is connected and ready. Payouts to someone who hasn’t started setting up wait for them. A Stripe setup they started and didn’t finish makes payouts fail instead, as Waiting or failed explains.

Choose a method for each currency

Siren pays a currency for you once it has an autofulfiller, which is the payout method you pick for that currency, such as Stripe Connect for USD. Siren sends every payout in that currency through it. On WordPress, go to Siren > Fulfillments and click “Manage Autofulfillers”. On Siren Cloud, go to Reward > Fulfillments and click “Manage Autofulfillers”, or click “Set up payouts” in the “Get started” card on your dashboard. Both open the same dialog. Then, in the dialog:

To change a currency’s method, click the pencil on its row. To go back to paying a currency yourself, remove its row and confirm with “Remove”. On WordPress, a store credit currency shows as “Internal Credit” with an “Auto-managed” badge, and it has no edit or remove buttons.

On a Siren Cloud plan below Plus, Stripe and PayPal appear under “On a higher plan”, with an “Upgrade to Plus” link.

Add Stripe credentials

Pick “Stripe Connect” in the method list, and a “Stripe credentials” panel appears under the table. Administrators and Platform Managers can save credentials. On Siren Cloud, that’s Admins and Platform Managers. In the panel, paste your live secret key into “Secret key” and click “Save credentials”. The status line then reads “Secret key: configured”. Siren stores the key encrypted and never shows it again. The secret key is all Siren needs to send Stripe payouts. A field you leave blank keeps its saved value.

On WordPress, the panel also has an optional “Webhook signing secret” field. Payouts send without it. With it, Siren hears from Stripe when a collaborator’s account becomes ready, which sends their waiting payouts, and when Stripe reverses a transfer in full, which marks that payout “Failed”.

On Siren Cloud, the panel has no signing secret field, and you don’t have to connect Stripe as a sales source to pay through it. A store that sells only through Shopify can pay collaborators through Stripe with the secret key alone. Siren Cloud hears Stripe’s payout events, such as a transfer Stripe reverses in full, only through a Stripe sales connection, and checks them with that connection’s signing secret, which you manage under Integrations, Stripe. The panel says whether that connection has a secret. Without one, a payout that Stripe reverses keeps reading “Paid”. Waiting payouts go out either way, as Payouts waiting on a collaborator describes.

Add PayPal credentials

Pick “PayPal” in the method list, and a “PayPal credentials” panel appears under the table. In the panel, paste your app’s Client ID and Client secret into the fields with those placeholders. Under “Environment”, choose “Live” to pay collaborators real money. Choose “Sandbox” only with a PayPal sandbox app, whose payouts move no money. A new connection’s list shows “Choose one”, and “Save credentials” stays off until you pick one. Click “Save credentials”, and the status line reads “Client ID: configured” and “Client secret: configured”. Siren stores the client secret encrypted and never shows it again.

If the panel says “No environment was chosen, so payouts go to PayPal Sandbox, which moves no real money. Choose Live to pay collaborators.”, choose “Live” and click “Save credentials”. If payouts read “Paid” but nothing reached your collaborators’ PayPal accounts, check that “Environment” reads “Live”. Payouts sent to the sandbox moved no money, and Siren won’t send them again, so tick them, click “Mark Unpaid”, and pay them yourself.

What happens when you create a fulfillment

Each payout in a currency with a method goes out in the background. On the fulfillment’s page it reads “Processing” while Siren sends it, then “Paid” once Stripe or PayPal accepts the transfer, “Failed” with the reason, or “Waiting” when the collaborator hasn’t set up Stripe or PayPal yet. “Paid” means the provider took the request. Siren doesn’t follow the money after that, except that a Stripe transfer reversed in full turns its payout “Failed”, with the reason, so you can retry it. A partial reversal leaves the payout “Paid”. A payout worth zero is marked “Paid” without contacting Stripe or PayPal.

Stripe sends only currencies that are money with two decimal places, so payouts in JPY, KRW, or a points or store credit currency fail. PayPal pays only the currencies PayPal supports. Siren also refuses JPY, HUF, and TWD for PayPal, and a points or store credit currency fails at PayPal. Siren adds no fees of its own and checks no minimum amount.

Send payouts that are still unpaid

Siren sends a payout for you when a fulfillment creates it. A payout created before its currency had an autofulfiller stays “Unpaid”, and so does one left unpaid for a reason in Payouts that stay unpaid. Once the currency has a method your plan includes, send these payouts from their fulfillment. Anyone who can mark payouts paid can send them. On Siren Cloud, that’s Admins and Platform Managers.

On Siren Cloud, fulfillments are under Reward > Fulfillments.

To send several fulfillments at once, tick them on the Fulfillments list, click “Send automatically” in the bar above the table, and confirm. Siren sends the unpaid and failed payouts of each one through the method set for its currency.

A notice then says how many payouts are being sent. Each one goes through the same steps as a payout sent when its fulfillment was created, so reload in a moment to see it “Paid”, “Failed”, or “Waiting”. Siren checks each payout again just before it sends it, so a payout marked paid in the meantime isn’t paid twice. The notice also counts the payouts it didn’t send, with the reason:

• No automatic payout method for the currency. Pay these yourself, for example with the CSV export.
• Already paid, or already being sent.
• The payout method isn’t part of your plan.
• Waiting on the collaborator’s setup. Siren sends these once they finish.
• The collaborator is in the Trash or deleted. Restore them and send again, or pay the payout yourself.
• Could not be queued. Send again.

While the “Send with” button shows, the fulfillment’s “Fulfill Payouts” button reads “Export CSV”. Exporting marks the payouts paid without sending any money, so use it only for payouts you pay another way.

When a payout fails

On the Fulfillments list, a fulfillment with a failed payout shows “Needs attention”, and the status filter’s “Needs attention” choice lists them all. Open the fulfillment to see a notice, the reason under each “Failed” badge, and when Siren last tried.

On WordPress, site administrators also see a notice on every admin screen that counts the failed payouts, with a “Review payouts that need attention” link. It goes away once none is left. On Siren Cloud, your Admins get the “Payout failed” email instead, with what Stripe or PayPal said and a button to the payouts that need attention. It starts on, and you can change it under Settings > Notifications, as Notifications and Email describes.

Common reasons:

• The collaborator clicked “Connect Stripe” and didn’t finish Stripe’s form, as Waiting or failed explains.
• Stripe reversed the transfer in full after the payout was paid.
• Your Stripe or PayPal balance is too low.
• Your credentials are missing or don’t work.
• The currency isn’t one the provider can send.

Fix the cause, then click “Retry” on the payout. Or pay it another way, tick it, and click “Mark Paid”. “Mark Unpaid” turns a failed payout into one you pay yourself, so it can’t be retried after that. After “Retry”, the payout can read “Failed” for a few seconds while it’s sent again, so reload to see the result. If “Retry” leaves a payout on “Failed” with the same reason, check that its currency still has a method your plan includes and that the collaborator isn’t in the Trash, or pay it yourself. Collaborators see “Failed” on their Payments tab, but not the reason.

Payouts waiting on a collaborator

A payout to a collaborator who hasn’t connected a Stripe account, or hasn’t added a PayPal email, waits for them instead of failing. On the fulfillment’s page it reads “Waiting”, with a line such as “Waiting for Casey Lee to set up Stripe” under it, and a notice above the table counts the waiting payouts. A waiting payout has no “Retry” and doesn’t count as failed, so the fulfillment doesn’t show “Needs attention”. The collaborator’s portal dashboard shows how much is waiting, with a “Set up payouts” button that opens the payout cards on their Profile page.

Once their Stripe account can take transfers, or once they save a PayPal email, Siren sends their waiting payouts on its own. Siren asks Stripe about the account each time their Stripe card loads, such as when they come back from Stripe’s form to their Profile page. A PayPal email you add from their page in the admin sends their PayPal payouts too. A payout waiting on the other method keeps waiting. You can also pay a waiting payout another way, tick it, and click “Mark Paid”.

Waiting or failed

A Stripe payout waits only while the collaborator has no Stripe account in Siren. Their account exists from the moment they click “Connect Stripe”, before they fill in Stripe’s form. From then on, Siren sends each new payout to that account. If they left Stripe’s form unfinished, Stripe refuses the transfer, and the payout reads “Failed” with Stripe’s reason. It shows “Needs attention” like any other failure. Their Stripe card reads “Your Stripe setup is incomplete. Finish onboarding to receive payouts.” and its button reads “Continue Stripe setup”. On their page in the admin, the “Stripe payouts” card says their setup is incomplete.

So a collaborator who never started has payouts that wait and then go out on their own. A collaborator who started and stopped has payouts that fail. Ask them to finish with “Continue Stripe setup”, then click “Retry” on each failed payout. Payouts that were already waiting before they clicked “Connect Stripe” keep waiting, and go out once their account can take transfers.

On Siren Cloud, the collaborator gets the “Payout waiting on setup” email when a payout starts waiting, and once more a week later if it still waits. They also get the “Payout setup needed” email when they join a program whose currency you pay out through Stripe or PayPal before they’ve set that method up. Both start on, and you can edit, switch off, or delete them under Settings > Notifications, as Notifications and Email describes. The WordPress plugin sends neither email.

Payouts that stay unpaid

Siren leaves a payout unpaid, without trying to send it, when its currency has no method, when your plan doesn’t include the method, or when the collaborator is in the Trash. Siren doesn’t send these later on its own, and “Retry” doesn’t apply to them. A payout that already failed stays “Failed” in these cases, and “Retry” leaves it as it is. Once you fix the cause, send them from their fulfillment, as Send payouts that are still unpaid describes. Or pay them yourself, tick them, and click “Mark Paid”. Payouts in new fulfillments go out on their own once the cause is fixed.

If a payout stays on “Processing”, check it in Stripe or PayPal. Click “Mark Paid” if the money went out, or “Mark Unpaid” if it didn’t, and pay it yourself.

When a WordPress site moves to Siren Cloud, its payouts run in Siren Cloud. Its store credit payout rules move with it, but its Stripe and PayPal settings and collaborators’ PayPal addresses don’t. Connect your Stripe or PayPal account in Siren Cloud and choose a method for each currency there. Stripe and PayPal payouts the plugin had queued may stay unpaid, as Move a WordPress Site to Siren Cloud explains.