The payment plumbing behind the creator economy is starting to crack. For years, many online creators treated big-name processors like Stripe as a necessary evil: pay the fees, follow the rules, and hope your account doesn’t get shut down.
Now, a growing number of creators say they’re done gambling with their income. Jean-Marie Cordaro, founder and CEO of French payments startup Bonzai, says he’s watching a “silent but structural” shift as creators move their businesses off mainstream processors after surprise suspensions and frozen funds.
A “silent exodus” from mainstream payment processors
Cordaro says the pattern has been consistent since Bonzai launched in 2023. Week after week, creators, online course sellers, and digital entrepreneurs arrive with the same story: an account suspended without warning, money locked up with no clear explanation, and support requests that go nowhere.
“It’s not a bug. It’s a feature,” Cordaro argues. In his view, traditional payment processors were built for conventional businesses, and when a creator’s model doesn’t fit neatly into their risk boxes, the default response is to cut them off.
What he’s describing isn’t a niche complaint. The creator economy is now a global industry worth hundreds of billions of dollars, spanning everything from paid newsletters and video subscriptions to online coaching and private communities. When payments fail, the entire business can stall overnight.
Why creators are leaving, and why the switch is worth the pain
Walking away from an established processor isn’t simple. Creators have to migrate their checkout systems, notify customers, rebuild sales funnels, and reconfigure subscriptions. That’s real time and real money.
Cordaro’s argument: more creators are willing to absorb that disruption because the cost of staying has become even higher. He points to three main drivers.
1) Security.If your revenue can be frozen overnight with no practical path to appeal, you can’t build a stable business. Cordaro says payment instability quickly becomes business instability.
2) No real dialogue.Creators don’t just resent the shutdowns, they resent the silence. They describe automated decisions, limited human support, and few meaningful explanations or remedies.
3) A risk model that doesn’t fit digital businesses.Traditional processors often assess risk using frameworks designed for physical goods and conventional retail. Digital products, online training, and membership communities can look “high risk” through that lens, even when they’re legitimate. Cordaro says that mismatch is exactly what Bonzai was built to address.
Bonzai’s pitch: approve first, punish less
Cordaro says Bonzai’s core idea is straightforward: compliance upfront instead of enforcement after the fact.
Bonzai validates products before they go on sale, he says, so the company understands what it’s processing and can reduce the odds that creators wake up to frozen funds. “It’s not a constraint,” Cordaro says. “It’s a commitment.”
That approach isn’t cheap. It requires human teams to review products, tighter processes, and ongoing communication with users. But Cordaro says the model has helped Bonzai reach 500,000 active users in a market where trust is the hardest currency to earn.
“This movement is going to accelerate,” Cordaro says
Cordaro believes the current shift isn’t a temporary blip, it’s creators realizing how exposed they are when their entire income depends on infrastructure they don’t control.
Once a creator experiences a sudden freeze, he argues, the relationship with a payment processor changes permanently. More creators will go through it, he says, and more will start shopping for alternatives designed specifically for creator-style businesses.
Bonzai’s goal, Cordaro says, is to build a payments system that’s stable, human, and tailored to creators, starting in France and expanding internationally as the backlash against surprise shutdowns spreads.
