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Ask HN: How to accept payments from users and pay out partners?
- We are first-time founders, working on launching an MVP of a content-platform
- Currently unincorporated + no business bank account
- Want to launch with a paid, premium option
- Want to pay our partners a commission as well
Thanks!
- drsim 11y agoStripe Connect and Braintree are set up for marketplace scenarios but you'd need a company. Possible to hack together something with the PayPal API too, simply paying out to an email address.
- codegeek 11y agoActually with Paypal, you can use something called MassPay using their API.
- Mz 11y agoThanks for that. Is that something you can do with just a simple individual account? Or is this something you need to upgrade your account for? If it involves upgrades, does it have monthly fees? Does it require a business account? Found a couple of overviews, but I don't see all of the above questions readily answered: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_batch-payment-overview-outside https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_batch-payment-ove... https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/mass-payments https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/mass-payments
- codegeek 11y agoGood question. For Mass Pay API, you actually need a business account. I don't think there is any extra fee though other than the usual transaction fee that paypal charges.
- Mz 11y agoThanks. The links I posted suggest the sender pays a fee upon use of MassPay, otherwise, no. There is no extra fee. Though I don't have a business account, so I don't really know what that entails.
- ProblemFactory 11y ago> but you'd need a company You absolutely need a company, and a chat with an accountant before you start singing contracts with and paying partners who create content for you. If you just wing it, there's a good chance that you will end up owing the government employment taxes.
- grover_hartmann 11y agoBitcoin
- alexgpark 11y agonot an expert on bitcoin transactions - i would still need to create a business bank account and incorporate and use a payments processor like Stripe to do that, right?
- grover_hartmann 11y agoNot really, it depends. You don't need a bank account to accept bitcoins, all you need is a Bitcoin wallet. If what you want is to convert bitcoin to fiat currency, there are lots of ways to do that. You can do that by using Circle/Coinbase and link your accounts to a bank account, have Coinbase/Circle convert it to cash for you. Other ways to do that is with an ATM, bitcoin credit/debit cards, localbitcoins.com, etc. I suggest Bitcoin because it's been way more flexible and easier for me when it comes to international payments. Good luck.