I am a Stripe super fan. I truly believe they are top five in the list of companies making the internet a better place. However, I recently had the misfortune of making a mistake and hope to save others from making the same.

If you are in the process of creating a corporate entity, there are a couple highly recommended options. Stripe Atlas is one of those. If you start an Atlas application on a Stripe account that has not yet been activated, that account is permanently locked until you complete the Atlas filing. You cannot go live. You cannot launch. The only recourse is to delete the entire Stripe account associated with the application and start over.

While it's maddening to have to recreate all your settings, products, pricing id's, re-upload your logos, add your EIN, re-customize Checkout, re-customize Billing Portal, etc. The especially painful part is if you qualified for credits (for instance via the Segment Analytics Startup Program, Product Hunt Founders Club, or YC Startup School) you lose the credits. The Stripe Support team will not transfer them to a new account.

I have talked with ~ 6 different support people both on the standard Stripe & Atlas teams and even reached out internally to salespeople I've worked with in the past for enterprise contracts. No luck. No one had a solution.

TL;DR - Do not even look at the "Start Application" button for Stripe Atlas unless you are 100% sure you will complete the application.