Plastiq: Businesses Can Accept Payments

Update 8/25/20: This service has now launched for all businesses (previously in a beta), looks like the $600 bonus no longer being offered.

Original post: Bill payment service Plastiq launched a new service for businesses called Plastiq Accept which has no cost to set up and allows your customers to pay you with a credit card. By default the customer pays the fee, though you can set it up that you swallow the fee instead (I think ?).

My understanding is that this is meant for online businesses to get paid without having an official webpage for payments. You’ll have a link which you can send/email/text to your customers which will let them pay you through Plastiq. It sounds pretty similar to Paypal.me, though in the case of Plastiq the customer won’t have to sign up for an account to pay (I think?), they’ll just be brought to a web page where they can make the payment. They also have invoicing options, making it more user-friendly for businesses.

For those who sign up during the month of July, they have a special sign up bonus offer:

Direct Link to offer

For those who signup during the month of July, Plastiq is offering up to $100/month in credits through the end of the year, which means up to $600 total.
You’ll get $5 for each new customer who pays, up to $100/month for 20 new customers.
This bonus is not straight cash: you can either use the money to make your own payments using Plastiq (similar to FFD) or you give it back to your customers to reduce their fees.

If you have 20 new customers pay you per month for July through December, you’ll land up with the full $600 bonus. Let us know if you try it out and if you found it easy/useful.

If you are new to Plastiq, you can sign up with my Plastiq referral link and get a small FFD bonus (details here).

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14 Comments

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Vic (@guest_1043087)

August 25, 2020 20:47

#1043087

For those interested, they asked for these, in verbatim, for my “business”.

———
Thank you for submitting your request to Join our Plastiq Accept network. We’d be happy to evaluate your business for our service if you could please provide us with as much of the following information as available:
• A copy of your active business registration
• A link to the website associated with your business
• Any public review website associated with your business (e.g., BBB, Facebook, Yelp, etc.)
• For how long has your business been in operation?
• What is your average transaction size?
• What Goods or Services does your business provide?

Avi (@guest_1025847)

July 29, 2020 16:10

#1025847

I set up an account for my business to see how this works. I used a new-to-Plastiq email account. A human had to review my application and approved me about 24 hours later.

The fee for credit cards is 2.85%, same as with normal Plastiq. By default it charges the customer the fee, and I couldn’t find a way to change it so the business eats the fee.

From what I can tell, the customer has to log in to their Plastiq account to pay. I find this hard to believe, but that was my experience when setting up a payment request to test it out.

In summary, I really don’t understand the point of this product. PayPal is far more ubiquitous, and my existing free accounting software (waveapps.com) can accept credit cards without the customer creating an account.

Kelvin (@guest_1043160)

August 25, 2020 23:41

#1043160

Avi

The more appealing thing about Plastiq is (used to be?) for those that have difficulty linking online payment processors to bank accounts electronically (i.e., the ability to get funds by check). I know a student group at my university looked into this as a solution for accepting member dues and event fees specifically for that reason.