7 ms·

Ask HN: How do you get paid for remote freelance work?

44 points by tbarbugli 12y ago

Are there any better alternatives to ol' Paypal?

tschellenbach 12y ago
at 2.9% + 30 cents stripe isn't all too bad https://stripe.com/nl/pricing https://stripe.com/nl/pricing you have to build your own checkout page though
- gizmo 12y ago
  Stripe charges closer to 5% when processing USD credit card charges, as it says on the website.
- tomasien 12y ago
  That's a ton (it's really 5%) for for convenient international movement of money, I actually agree it's not horrible given the dearth of better options. Something built on BTC/Steller/Ripple will probably improve upon this soon, and HOPEFULLY somebody nails international ACH and makes it super easy/safe/reliable in the next few years. That would help Steller/Ripple/BTC networks and provide a non-crypto option which, let's face it, no matter how bullish you are on crypto it's gonna be a while before you can reliably expect someone to participate in the crypto economy.
patio11 12y ago
Easiest for (without loss of generality) US clients: Establish a US bank account and get paid with checks, ACH (in-country electronic transfers), or wire transfers. Easiest for you: Establish a bank account in your country and instruct your US clients to pay you with international wire transfers. US clients are often not very experienced with international wire transfers and it causes hitches for their internal processes and banks, so the US account option will save you a lot of friction on a per-client basis in return for having more headaches up front. (The easiest way to set up a US bank account if you don't physically reside in the US is to do it through a local branch of a US-homed megabank. Despite the general impression of a lot of freelancers on this matter, international commerce is in fact fairly routine and "the Patriot Act" -- Know Your Customer and anti-moneylaundering regulations -- are not an absolute barrier to this.) You should probably avoid using Paypal for transfers of more than a few hundred dollars. I like Paypal, don't get me wrong, but they're not well-suited to running a consultancy on top of.
- tbarbugli 12y ago
  Thank you for your answer; would you mind expanding a bit on Paypal?
  - patio11 12y ago
    I like Paypal and have processed somewhere north of $100k through it. That said: 1) Paypal's fraud algorithms are tuned by having lots and lots of comparatively small transactions at comparative high frequency rather than few comparatively high transactions at comparatively low frequency. My account looks very unrisky because it accumulated $100k in $25 chunks over years. I think Paypal would quite possibly need to enquire if I got $25k in a $25k chunk once. Unfortunately, "First-time interaction between US-based Paypal account and foreign-based low-history Paypal account is a huge transfer" will quite possibly set alarm bells ringing in their fraud department, and you might find your money tied up for a while as you try to demonstrate that you're not a criminal enterprise. (Many HNers will accuse Paypal of trying to steal the money and, on this issue, many HNers are fools, but there is a very real risk of you having to deal with complications that you don't need.) 2) Your best customers can't pay with Paypal. I'm not exaggerating: they can't pay with Paypal. There is literally no button at their company which pays you with Paypal. They have an entire department of people who are capable of moving PDFed invoices into an accounting system and clicking a button which generates a check or an ACH payment, but there is no button to click which says "Transfer $25k to our Paypal account then send it to 'tbarbugli."
    - vacri 12y ago
      Your best customers can't pay with Paypal I've always been amused with the creativity that Finance can show if it's in their interests, and the lack of creativity when the issue is irrelevant to them. Having had a long background in support, I must admit that I'm jealous of that political power :)
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- edanm 12y ago
junto 12y ago
What's wrong with bank transfers? Or do you mean internationally remote?
- tbarbugli 12y ago
  for EU-US payments bank transfers seems quite expensive to me
  - makimoto 12y ago
    check transferwise.com. Been using them for maybe 2 years now, and am a very satisfied customer indeed.
  - iamwithnail 12y ago
    They are - I'd try something like Transferwise, that's what we use to pay our international contractors. Or Stellars.
    - lucaspiller 12y ago
      +1 on TransferWise. For other countries I've found Hifx (http://www.hifx.co.uk/ http://www.hifx.co.uk/) to be fast and not too expensive.
  - thibaut_barrere 12y ago
    How much do you pay typically?
  - patio11 12y ago
    Charge more. Seriously. Wire transfer fees come out in the wash if you charge appropriate amounts for engineering services. I don't love spending ~$1k on them a year either but the business clearly supports them just like it supports the ~10 things that are more expensive than that.
  - stephenr 12y ago
    I’ve always insisted on wire transfers to my (originally Australian, now Thai) bank account. I looked at PayPal once (as I was asked by a US client if they could pay that way) and basically it seemed like it was only financially effective for small invoices. As soon as it went over $1K the “fixed price” of a wire transfer worked out better than a percentage based fee structure like Paypal.
presty 12y ago
What, no one saying bitcoin? :)
- paulbaumgart 12y ago
  Volatility is scary! And the user experiences of most Bitcoin-related tools leave a lot to be desired. Both are temporary problems.
  - tbarbugli 12y ago
    well one is not supposed to keep bitcoins in your wallet in this case; just use it to transfer the funds between the two peers.
- tbarbugli 12y ago
  good point, this should be what BT is made for (or at least a very good use case) and yet, no mention.
  - PeterisP 12y ago
    There were valid mentions about the many purchasing businesses who are unable to pay in Paypal due to their procurement bureaucracy rules. I seriously doubt that they'd able to pay in Bitcoin as well. Otherwise, Bitcoin may be an okay option for the receiver; maybe a bit of a hassle to do proper accounting/taxes. Locally, I see options to 'cash out' BTC that will cost me something like 2.5% due to buy/sell spread - not the cheapest option but similar to accepting the same amount from a credit card. I'd personally prefer good wire transfers, though - if worldwide transfers would be more similar to EU-wide bank transfers, then that'd be better than Bitcoin for freelance invoicing.
  - patio11 12y ago
    I'm going to again solidify my position as HN's Official Bitcoin Critic with this, but the reason I didn't suggest it is because BTC is a terrible method for doing international payments. 1) See elsewhere on this page where we explained that most companies are unwilling to add new payment types to accommodate individual vendors. This is as true for Bitcoin as it is for Paypal. It is probably more true, actually, since Paypal is a known-to-be-legal regulated subsidiary of a US Fortune 500 company and Bitcoin is Bitcoin. 2) Suppose you issue a US company an invoice for $10,000 and say "You can settle this invoice in Bitcoin." How are they actually supposed to do that? My impression is that the best option currently is to connect their bank account to Coinbase (note: non-starter!), wait a few days for it to be connected, then purchase $10k worth of Bitcoin at market price. $10k is +/- 17 BTC, which they won't actually be allowed to purchase in a day. It will actually take four days of repeated work to buy that $10k of Bitcoin. Then they can actually transfer it to you and, yay, you now have BTC. 3) But wait! What happens if the BTC price changes over the ~7 business days it takes from the time your client starts taking action on your invoice to the time they send you your BTC? Answer: somebody pays for this risk. Volatility is an implicit tax on transactions. One of the parties is going to be short BTC and one will be long BTC for the week, and given that BTC can very easily move 20% in a week, that means that your $10k invoice might be $8k or $12k. 3a) Clients do not like when $10k invoices turn into $12k invoices because To The Moon, Yo. 4) Suppose you have +/- $10k worth of BTC. How do you solve the Last Quarter Mile problem to your own bank account and/or local currency? Your options are a) send the BTC to an unregulated exchange and accept counterparty/currency risk (then hope that getting a large wire transfer from them doesn't cause your bank to reevaluate how desirable your business is) or b) attempt to deal with LocalBitcoins sellers multiple times, which apparently combines the wonderful trust of the clandestine drug economy with the mind-altering properties of currency exchanges. 4a) Time you spend on figuring out how to turn $10k of Internet money into $10k of local currency is time you aren't spending lining up your next $10k engagement. 5) If at any point you or one of your counterparties screw up in securing any computer or trusting any member of the Bitcoin economy, your $10k vanishes into the ether. You should neither accept nor request BTC for professional services. They're more expensive end-to-end than dealing with banks and expose you to multiple unique sources of risk. You have plenty of risk in your business already, and if your risk appetite is high, there are more lucrative forms of risk you can "buy" than transacting in BTC, such as attempting to move your consulting practice upmarket.
petecooper 12y ago
Background: I'm a UK freelancer working with UK, EU, US and RotW clients. Per other commenters, my UK and EU clients are usually happy to pay by bank transfer. My invoices include UK payment details, along with IBAN and SWIFT details. I am also starting to include Paypal details to go with the path of least resistance. Now, US clients tend to pay via Paypal or US check. In the past I've used brokers like AuctionChex[1], and also used a USD deposit account with CITI[2]. AuctionChex went out of favour with me when their exchange rates went into free fall for no obvious reason, and CITI screwed me for fees after a mistake at their end. I no longer use either. With the CITI USD account, it is possible to have it fee-free if you're careful: if you have a current account and 2 standing orders set up, hold a certain balance and you transfer in a given amount per month, there is no fee for either the current account or the USD account. Now, I take the hit on USD checks and use my business bank (NatWest) account for it. They charge a set-fee to process the cheque, around 10GBP for the value I deposit, and I just mark it on my accounts as a bank charge. My accountant is happy, and there are no shady brokers in the equation. [1] http://auctionchex.com http://auctionchex.com [2] http://www.citibank.co.uk/personal/banking/international/eurocurrent.htm http://www.citibank.co.uk/personal/banking/international/eur...
kphild 12y ago
Transferwise! For payments from the US to my country (EU) there is a fixed 1% fee. In addition, their exchange rate is 3% better than in my local bank. Clients send the money with ACH or wire transfer. I have it in my bank after two days. Overall, much faster and cheaper than Paypal or international transfers.
BrandonM 12y ago
I'm a US employee who's been working part-time and traveling abroad for the last 2-1/2 months. I have a Charles Schwab Investor Checking account that has no-fee ATMs all over the world (no ATM fee, no conversion fee, ATM fee reimbursement). My employer does direct deposit into that account, but they also accept ACH and wire transfers, and you can also use their mobile app to deposit checks with your smartphone. I'm not sure how difficult it is for a non-US-citizen to open one of their accounts, but perhaps it's worth looking into.
davedx 12y ago
It depends on the company. I always try to get people to pay with direct bank transfer, which is very easy within Europe now everyone has an IBANN by default, but seems to be trickier for clients with US bank accounts. I've so far been paid by: direct bank transfer; Paypal; check. Bitcoin is a viable alternative for overseas transfers and is worth investigating.
oafitupa 12y ago
Bitcoin.
someguy1233 12y ago
I would say Bitcoin, although my background is a little different to yours. I primarily get hired to build Web applications which deal with some type of bitcoin payment (no bitpay or coinbase), so it makes sense for me to be paid in Bitcoin. I'm a Bitcoin evangelist, so I generally pay for most things with bitcoin, so I don't have the issue of converting it to fiat.
pmorici 12y ago
Bitcoin, hands down. Specifically Bitpay You can get paid in 9 different currencies in 33 countries with 0% fees. Zero exchange rate risk unless you want it. Bitpay is especially nice for freelancing because you can issue manual invoices. https://support.bitpay.com/hc/en-us/articles/201890513 https://support.bitpay.com/hc/en-us/articles/201890513 I use Bitcoin, Paypal, and Stripe in my own business and I like Bitcoin the best by far. No charge back hassles, zero fees, no waiting 3 days for ACH payment confirmation. There is one draw back that I see, that being that right now it isn't quite popular enough yet that it can be your only payment method. Some people are just not going to be capable of using it. That said you would be surprised I suggested it to a parts supplier I was working with who because of their location costs me $110 per wire to pay invoices. At first he told me no way until I told him flat out he was losing business on my smaller orders because even though his product was best on price the very high transaction fees made them more expensive for orders under several thousand dollars. They were interested in it all of a sudden. Funny how that works.
betadreamer 12y ago
I actually use square cash and it's been great! No fees, it's simple. It's good as long as your pay doesn't exceed the weekly limit. (2500)
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
flanmaximondo 12y ago
After months of frustration, I recently set up a way getting paid using credit card via stripe through WordPress. Main advantage: knowing a deposit is paid immediately. For whoever's interested, I did a write up on what I did on my blog: http://trenvopress.com/2014/08/stripe-for-freelancers/ http://trenvopress.com/2014/08/stripe-for-freelancers/
- tbarbugli 12y ago
  thats cool thanks for sharing this!
zura 12y ago
Sending invoices and getting paid by standard bank wire transfer.

44 points by tbarbugli 12y ago

Are there any better alternatives to ol' Paypal?

at 2.9% + 30 cents stripe isn't all too bad https://stripe.com/nl/pricing https://stripe.com/nl/pricing you have to build your own checkout page though

gizmo 12y ago
Stripe charges closer to 5% when processing USD credit card charges, as it says on the website.
tomasien 12y ago
That's a ton (it's really 5%) for for convenient international movement of money, I actually agree it's not horrible given the dearth of better options. Something built on BTC/Steller/Ripple will probably improve upon this soon, and HOPEFULLY somebody nails international ACH and makes it super easy/safe/reliable in the next few years. That would help Steller/Ripple/BTC networks and provide a non-crypto option which, let's face it, no matter how bullish you are on crypto it's gonna be a while before you can reliably expect someone to participate in the crypto economy.

patio11 12y ago

Easiest for (without loss of generality) US clients: Establish a US bank account and get paid with checks, ACH (in-country electronic transfers), or wire transfers. Easiest for you: Establish a bank account in your country and instruct your US clients to pay you with international wire transfers. US clients are often not very experienced with international wire transfers and it causes hitches for their internal processes and banks, so the US account option will save you a lot of friction on a per-client basis in return for having more headaches up front. (The easiest way to set up a US bank account if you don't physically reside in the US is to do it through a local branch of a US-homed megabank. Despite the general impression of a lot of freelancers on this matter, international commerce is in fact fairly routine and "the Patriot Act" -- Know Your Customer and anti-moneylaundering regulations -- are not an absolute barrier to this.) You should probably avoid using Paypal for transfers of more than a few hundred dollars. I like Paypal, don't get me wrong, but they're not well-suited to running a consultancy on top of.

tbarbugli 12y ago
Thank you for your answer; would you mind expanding a bit on Paypal?
- patio11 12y ago
  I like Paypal and have processed somewhere north of $100k through it. That said: 1) Paypal's fraud algorithms are tuned by having lots and lots of comparatively small transactions at comparative high frequency rather than few comparatively high transactions at comparatively low frequency. My account looks very unrisky because it accumulated $100k in $25 chunks over years. I think Paypal would quite possibly need to enquire if I got $25k in a $25k chunk once. Unfortunately, "First-time interaction between US-based Paypal account and foreign-based low-history Paypal account is a huge transfer" will quite possibly set alarm bells ringing in their fraud department, and you might find your money tied up for a while as you try to demonstrate that you're not a criminal enterprise. (Many HNers will accuse Paypal of trying to steal the money and, on this issue, many HNers are fools, but there is a very real risk of you having to deal with complications that you don't need.) 2) Your best customers can't pay with Paypal. I'm not exaggerating: they can't pay with Paypal. There is literally no button at their company which pays you with Paypal. They have an entire department of people who are capable of moving PDFed invoices into an accounting system and clicking a button which generates a check or an ACH payment, but there is no button to click which says "Transfer $25k to our Paypal account then send it to 'tbarbugli."
  - vacri 12y ago
    Your best customers can't pay with Paypal I've always been amused with the creativity that Finance can show if it's in their interests, and the lack of creativity when the issue is irrelevant to them. Having had a long background in support, I must admit that I'm jealous of that political power :)
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
edanm 12y ago

junto 12y ago

What's wrong with bank transfers? Or do you mean internationally remote?

tbarbugli 12y ago
for EU-US payments bank transfers seems quite expensive to me
- makimoto 12y ago
  check transferwise.com. Been using them for maybe 2 years now, and am a very satisfied customer indeed.
- iamwithnail 12y ago
  They are - I'd try something like Transferwise, that's what we use to pay our international contractors. Or Stellars.
  - lucaspiller 12y ago
    +1 on TransferWise. For other countries I've found Hifx (http://www.hifx.co.uk/ http://www.hifx.co.uk/) to be fast and not too expensive.
- thibaut_barrere 12y ago
  How much do you pay typically?
- patio11 12y ago
  Charge more. Seriously. Wire transfer fees come out in the wash if you charge appropriate amounts for engineering services. I don't love spending ~$1k on them a year either but the business clearly supports them just like it supports the ~10 things that are more expensive than that.
- stephenr 12y ago
  I’ve always insisted on wire transfers to my (originally Australian, now Thai) bank account. I looked at PayPal once (as I was asked by a US client if they could pay that way) and basically it seemed like it was only financially effective for small invoices. As soon as it went over $1K the “fixed price” of a wire transfer worked out better than a percentage based fee structure like Paypal.

presty 12y ago

What, no one saying bitcoin? :)

paulbaumgart 12y ago
Volatility is scary! And the user experiences of most Bitcoin-related tools leave a lot to be desired. Both are temporary problems.
- tbarbugli 12y ago
  well one is not supposed to keep bitcoins in your wallet in this case; just use it to transfer the funds between the two peers.
tbarbugli 12y ago
good point, this should be what BT is made for (or at least a very good use case) and yet, no mention.
- PeterisP 12y ago
  There were valid mentions about the many purchasing businesses who are unable to pay in Paypal due to their procurement bureaucracy rules. I seriously doubt that they'd able to pay in Bitcoin as well. Otherwise, Bitcoin may be an okay option for the receiver; maybe a bit of a hassle to do proper accounting/taxes. Locally, I see options to 'cash out' BTC that will cost me something like 2.5% due to buy/sell spread - not the cheapest option but similar to accepting the same amount from a credit card. I'd personally prefer good wire transfers, though - if worldwide transfers would be more similar to EU-wide bank transfers, then that'd be better than Bitcoin for freelance invoicing.
- patio11 12y ago
  I'm going to again solidify my position as HN's Official Bitcoin Critic with this, but the reason I didn't suggest it is because BTC is a terrible method for doing international payments. 1) See elsewhere on this page where we explained that most companies are unwilling to add new payment types to accommodate individual vendors. This is as true for Bitcoin as it is for Paypal. It is probably more true, actually, since Paypal is a known-to-be-legal regulated subsidiary of a US Fortune 500 company and Bitcoin is Bitcoin. 2) Suppose you issue a US company an invoice for $10,000 and say "You can settle this invoice in Bitcoin." How are they actually supposed to do that? My impression is that the best option currently is to connect their bank account to Coinbase (note: non-starter!), wait a few days for it to be connected, then purchase $10k worth of Bitcoin at market price. $10k is +/- 17 BTC, which they won't actually be allowed to purchase in a day. It will actually take four days of repeated work to buy that $10k of Bitcoin. Then they can actually transfer it to you and, yay, you now have BTC. 3) But wait! What happens if the BTC price changes over the ~7 business days it takes from the time your client starts taking action on your invoice to the time they send you your BTC? Answer: somebody pays for this risk. Volatility is an implicit tax on transactions. One of the parties is going to be short BTC and one will be long BTC for the week, and given that BTC can very easily move 20% in a week, that means that your $10k invoice might be $8k or $12k. 3a) Clients do not like when $10k invoices turn into $12k invoices because To The Moon, Yo. 4) Suppose you have +/- $10k worth of BTC. How do you solve the Last Quarter Mile problem to your own bank account and/or local currency? Your options are a) send the BTC to an unregulated exchange and accept counterparty/currency risk (then hope that getting a large wire transfer from them doesn't cause your bank to reevaluate how desirable your business is) or b) attempt to deal with LocalBitcoins sellers multiple times, which apparently combines the wonderful trust of the clandestine drug economy with the mind-altering properties of currency exchanges. 4a) Time you spend on figuring out how to turn $10k of Internet money into $10k of local currency is time you aren't spending lining up your next $10k engagement. 5) If at any point you or one of your counterparties screw up in securing any computer or trusting any member of the Bitcoin economy, your $10k vanishes into the ether. You should neither accept nor request BTC for professional services. They're more expensive end-to-end than dealing with banks and expose you to multiple unique sources of risk. You have plenty of risk in your business already, and if your risk appetite is high, there are more lucrative forms of risk you can "buy" than transacting in BTC, such as attempting to move your consulting practice upmarket.

petecooper 12y ago

Background: I'm a UK freelancer working with UK, EU, US and RotW clients. Per other commenters, my UK and EU clients are usually happy to pay by bank transfer. My invoices include UK payment details, along with IBAN and SWIFT details. I am also starting to include Paypal details to go with the path of least resistance. Now, US clients tend to pay via Paypal or US check. In the past I've used brokers like AuctionChex[1], and also used a USD deposit account with CITI[2]. AuctionChex went out of favour with me when their exchange rates went into free fall for no obvious reason, and CITI screwed me for fees after a mistake at their end. I no longer use either. With the CITI USD account, it is possible to have it fee-free if you're careful: if you have a current account and 2 standing orders set up, hold a certain balance and you transfer in a given amount per month, there is no fee for either the current account or the USD account. Now, I take the hit on USD checks and use my business bank (NatWest) account for it. They charge a set-fee to process the cheque, around 10GBP for the value I deposit, and I just mark it on my accounts as a bank charge. My accountant is happy, and there are no shady brokers in the equation. [1] http://auctionchex.com http://auctionchex.com [2] http://www.citibank.co.uk/personal/banking/international/eurocurrent.htm http://www.citibank.co.uk/personal/banking/international/eur...

kphild 12y ago

Transferwise! For payments from the US to my country (EU) there is a fixed 1% fee. In addition, their exchange rate is 3% better than in my local bank. Clients send the money with ACH or wire transfer. I have it in my bank after two days. Overall, much faster and cheaper than Paypal or international transfers.

BrandonM 12y ago

I'm a US employee who's been working part-time and traveling abroad for the last 2-1/2 months. I have a Charles Schwab Investor Checking account that has no-fee ATMs all over the world (no ATM fee, no conversion fee, ATM fee reimbursement). My employer does direct deposit into that account, but they also accept ACH and wire transfers, and you can also use their mobile app to deposit checks with your smartphone. I'm not sure how difficult it is for a non-US-citizen to open one of their accounts, but perhaps it's worth looking into.

davedx 12y ago

It depends on the company. I always try to get people to pay with direct bank transfer, which is very easy within Europe now everyone has an IBANN by default, but seems to be trickier for clients with US bank accounts. I've so far been paid by: direct bank transfer; Paypal; check. Bitcoin is a viable alternative for overseas transfers and is worth investigating.

oafitupa 12y ago

Bitcoin.

someguy1233 12y ago

I would say Bitcoin, although my background is a little different to yours. I primarily get hired to build Web applications which deal with some type of bitcoin payment (no bitpay or coinbase), so it makes sense for me to be paid in Bitcoin. I'm a Bitcoin evangelist, so I generally pay for most things with bitcoin, so I don't have the issue of converting it to fiat.

pmorici 12y ago

Bitcoin, hands down. Specifically Bitpay You can get paid in 9 different currencies in 33 countries with 0% fees. Zero exchange rate risk unless you want it. Bitpay is especially nice for freelancing because you can issue manual invoices. https://support.bitpay.com/hc/en-us/articles/201890513 https://support.bitpay.com/hc/en-us/articles/201890513 I use Bitcoin, Paypal, and Stripe in my own business and I like Bitcoin the best by far. No charge back hassles, zero fees, no waiting 3 days for ACH payment confirmation. There is one draw back that I see, that being that right now it isn't quite popular enough yet that it can be your only payment method. Some people are just not going to be capable of using it. That said you would be surprised I suggested it to a parts supplier I was working with who because of their location costs me $110 per wire to pay invoices. At first he told me no way until I told him flat out he was losing business on my smaller orders because even though his product was best on price the very high transaction fees made them more expensive for orders under several thousand dollars. They were interested in it all of a sudden. Funny how that works.

betadreamer 12y ago

I actually use square cash and it's been great! No fees, it's simple. It's good as long as your pay doesn't exceed the weekly limit. (2500)

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

flanmaximondo 12y ago

After months of frustration, I recently set up a way getting paid using credit card via stripe through WordPress. Main advantage: knowing a deposit is paid immediately. For whoever's interested, I did a write up on what I did on my blog: http://trenvopress.com/2014/08/stripe-for-freelancers/ http://trenvopress.com/2014/08/stripe-for-freelancers/

tbarbugli 12y ago
thats cool thanks for sharing this!

zura 12y ago

Sending invoices and getting paid by standard bank wire transfer.