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Ask HN: Least-friction [global] payment method for micropayments?

2 points| m52go | 5 years ago

I would like to experiment with micropayments for a service I run. I know most (all?) people have failed at this so far...but I still have hope, at least in my particular case.

Anyway I wonder if anyone here has suggestions for the smoothest, most friction-free payment method for paying 1 USD up to 20 USD on the open web (no mobile app, browser extension, etc).

Amazon Pay seems like a good bet to me since I imagine a good portion of people browse while logged in to Amazon. Maybe PayPal? I know Stripe and Gumroad have smooth payment flows, but they require inputting card information, which I think would be a turn-off.

Any ideas?

Target market is mostly non-technical people around the world so I don't expect JavaScript blocking or browser containers to be much of an issue.

2 comments

ayende|5 years ago

The main barrier you will have to deal with is that for most payment providers, the cost is 3%-5% + 0.3 $ - 0.99$ or something similar.

For micro payments, that means that most of your income is eaten by the fees.

Paypal offers micropay option, with a 5 cents plus 5% cost, meaning you'll pay just 10% in fees.

This is part of the reason micropayments are problematic

m52go|5 years ago

Yup, thanks. Actually thanks for mentioning PayPal again...I had discounted them at first because of the 5% fee but didn't realize their lack of a huge flat add-on actually makes them better for smaller payments.