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

[alexgpark]

- 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]

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.

[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.

[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.

[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.