Ask HN: What payment processor can a private individual use to offer a service?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22901410

by nenadg • 6 years ago

21 17 6 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I'm finishing one hopefully ineresting service and want to offer it, but I have a problem finding payment processor that allows private individuals outside of the US.

And I would just like to avoid registering company in this testing phase.

Is there anything out there that HN can point me to?

q92z8oeif• 6 years ago

Afraid the answer will be None.

bellwether• 6 years ago

You can receive payments using your individual social on PayPal I believe. I don't know if that opens up their checkout and subscription APIs though. It's a bit of unique test case, so if PayPal and Stripe don't work for you, I think you'll have a hard time finding a solution. Perhaps try talking to a business in the cannabis industry? They often have a lot of hurdles to overcome when accepting payments.

nenadg3• 6 years ago

That's the same conclusion I came upon, also interesting case for someone to build it :).

tipsysquid2• 6 years ago

My company Gilded[1] can help small businesses or individual contractors get paid with cryptocurrency (stable coins), Stripe (local fiat currencies) integration, or wire transfers.

Setting up a Coinbase account and getting paid with Gilded would be fairly easy. Also, USDC (stablecoin) can be exchanged 1:1 on Coinbase and can be quickly exchange for fiat in your bank account.

Happy to help or discuss specific scenarios.

[1] https://gilded.finance

RabbitmqGuy2• 6 years ago

Hi, I looked around the website and it looks like a cool service.

But I was unable to figure out;

1. What countries are supported for sellers.

2. What countries are supported for buyers.

tipsysquid2• 6 years ago

Thanks for taking a look!

We're a non-custodial service allowing our customers to create invoices anywhere, payable by anyone. We don't touch your funds, which makes us global without restrictions.

If you are curious about on/off ramping stablecoins into your bank account, we have a deep integration with Coinbase which is available in 80+ countries and have partnerships with several stablecoin companies.

seanwilson3• 6 years ago

Try https://paddle.com?

I use them for a paid Chrome extension (https://www.checkbot.io, you can see the Paddle checkout when you click the buy buttons) as an individual.

Paddle let you sell worldwide via subscriptions and individual purchases where they handle country specific tax for you. Obviously you need to declare the income you make to the government but that shouldn't require you to form a company (in the UK at least) and this structure means you don't have to do accounting for EU VAT which I've heard is a huge plus.

Let me know if you've got any questions like integration tips. Generally for a SaaS for example, you accept purchases via Paddle's embeddable JavaScript checkout then use a web hook sent from their server to trigger account creation, email confirmation etc. from your server.

mytailorisrich3• 6 years ago

On the other hand, in the UK forming and maintaining a company is so simple and cheap that you might want to do it anyway to keep your business finances and liabilities separate.

seanwilson3• 6 years ago

It's not simple though in the sense that you'll then have more ongoing paperwork to do each year for taxes and your accountancy costs will be higher (I wouldn't recommend doing company tax filings by yourself). The OP mentioned testing an idea out so creating a company only for this might not be worth the hassle and you risk doing your taxes wrong if you're not careful.

nenadg3• 6 years ago

This is cool, I'll check it out. Thanks!

RabbitmqGuy2• 6 years ago

I have had success with PayPal in the past to power payments for my service [1]. Their API and documentation (or lack thereof) wasn’t great but it worked in far more countries than the likes of stripe.

You could also try gumroad.

1. https://errorship.com/

miluge• 6 years ago

Snipcart might solve your problem!

nenadg3• 6 years ago

Update: I've tested Paddle, and it seems it's perfect. Thank you all for kind answers, and special thanks to @seanwilson for bringing Paddle up.

question11• 6 years ago

no one said crypto? stable USDT, EURT, Bitcoin?

Ask HN: What payment processor can a private individual use to offer a service?

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