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Ask HN: How to accept payments from users and pay out partners?

6 points by alexgpark ↗ HN
- 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!

9 comments

[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 33.2 ms ] thread
drsim
Stripe 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
Actually with Paypal, you can use something called MassPay using their API.
Mz
Thanks 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-ove...

https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/mass-payments

codegeek
Good 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
Thanks.

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
> 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
Bitcoin
alexgpark
not 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
Not 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.