I am being asked a lot about alternatives to PayPal I do want to start by saying that I am just one person dealing with a lot and I encourage you to do your own research and just as I have. It is also extremely important to do that regardless because you need to be reading the terms of service for all of these places. A hard lesson learned on my part even though I didn't do anything wrong, I have come to realize just how much fine print is in the terms of service with PayPal that is concerning.
So while I am giving you the bare minimum summaries. You need to make the best decisions for you, your business, and your situation in general.
Let's start with listing everything I am already currently aware of
Google pay | Apple pay | cash app | venmo | Wise | revolut | Western Union | Skrill | Zelle | stripe | Square | Comiss.io | patreon | Ko-fi | Facebook pay | payoneer | Subscribestar | Etsy
Let's talk about why PayPal is a monopoly.
Of all of these things I have listed they all are missing features that PayPal has in one way or another. Whether it is an anonymity, the ability to send via account to count, currency exchange, the ability to do business in general, organization of statements, or expanse of International availability, it is always something.
My top three picks personally ended up being:
Square, stripe, and cashapp
Initially I thought that I would be more interested in using Comiss.io , as my third however I have finally figured out a way to get a second cashapp, and after reading about cashapp more I have more confidence in it, especially to be used for more than just personal or side Hustle type things. I need things I can know I can rely on for business.
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Let's talk about grey areas
Google pay, Apple pay, venmo, Facebook pay
the problem with venmo is that it's owned by PayPal. I don't think I should have to say anything else on that.
Google pay and Apple pay require you to do absolutely everything from your phone. Well that is a personal choice that anyone can make that to me was a huge drawback. And while I may look into having them just as an available option for a few payments here and there it is not something that I would want to heavily rely on.
Facebook pay is rather new. I am not going to say that that is the reason to write them off however I have not done enough research on them and I personally have enough issues with Facebook and the way that they do things as it is so again that is a personal choice and research you need to do.
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Absolute NO’S for me
Skrill. has a specific line that says you are not to do business through that app. That is all I needed to see. Now do I think that you can personally get away with taking a few transactions here and there sure. But if you get caught, you get caught, and there it will be 0 chance of getting your account back because it is a clear and direct violation of their t o s. So that's on you I did not need the muss and fuss with that personally.
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Hitters. But not for me.
I don't know much about subscribestar so I won't be talking about it too much here but I am going to go ahead and lock the end with patreon because they seem similar.
I understand that patreon is currently dealing with a lot of changes. And I don't know how people personally feel about patreon. My patreon is set up to where it's basically low to no maintenance so I don't have much input. My only tier option is $2 and I don't know if that will ever change or not I tried to give him a tree on a full go but let's not even get into that….
Before I continue with everything I've been through I feel I deserve to shamelessly plug myself real quick. If you would like to support me for just $2 a month you could change my life. If every one of my followers gave me $2 I would never have to worry about shit like this again
My patreon is patreon.com/vexstacy
Alright so anyway.
Which patreon and subscribestar you are able to directly connect to your bank account. There is no middle man bullshit So it is a conversation between you patreon and your bank. This is amazing for people who don't want to deal with the frustrations of something like PayPal. however I personally just don't like attaching my commissions to a monthly subscription oh, so this is why I personally did not make this choice.
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Unsure / I’ve heard questionable things
About payoneer , Western Union, and Etsy
I have heard that dealing with payoneer you could run into the same issues as PayPal. For me that was enough to put me off.
Western Union…. look I don't want to spread any rumors or Miss information so I will just leave it at I personally after doing my own research would prefer not to do that with them. my opinion may change with further research because the amount of research that I did was probably not as thorough as it could have been. But what I got at a glance made me nervous.
Etsy. I know of three artists who are using this currently. And say that it works just fine. It even has the slightest advantage of having a review system. I'm also going to lump in eBay and mercari here. That's none of you will know I have a personal gripe with mercari but we're not going to get into that. if you are taking absolutely flat rate commissions and you are trying to stay as far away from PayPal as possible this is a viable option it seems. However I don't know anything about the fees for Etsy or any of that. Again you need to do your own research. I found what I liked and I also do not only do flat rate things so this just was not an Avenue for me. But you can explore it for yourself.
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Ko-fi
Listen I absolutely love Kofi for taking donations however I'm not sure I would feel the best about trying to run full business through it. So again here I don't have a lot of personal and put and you need to do your own research.
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Wise and revolut
Both Simply appear to be alternative card processor options. So I don't know if I just did not do the best with researching this but it did not make sense to have these two things as well as square and stripe.
however I do want to know that wise pouts having some of the lowest exchange rates and maybe a better option for someone else who is living outside of the US, rather than stripe or Square. So keep that in mind.
and have I mentioned do your own research?
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Zelle
Here's what I know about zelle. You can have a personal account and you can have a business account.
I'm going to be honest with you. Once I saw square and stripe I did not do any further digging into zelle. I also have some preconceived notions about how zelle works and the amount of private information it seems to need to give to other people? so there may be things I am just not educated on again I am one person just basically trying to figure out what's right for me so have I mentioned one more time that you're going to have to do your own research?
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Comiss.io
This was very back and forth for me just same way that you'll read in a moment that cash app was for me. Eventually cash app did end up replacing this option for me because I did not like the amount of money I would lose using comiss.io.
it was something I would have been willing to deal with if I felt like comiss.io was my only reasonable third option but since I ended up finding other things I am choosing not to go with them
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Personal winners
Stripe has integration with Kofi. Stripe has integration with a couple of other things if I recall correctly it's been a long couple of days so.
stripe and square are really neck-and-neck and honestly if it weren't for the integration with Kofi I probably wouldn't necessarily use stripe. But because of that integration and it just gives me one more way of keeping my money out of PayPal that is absolutely what I'm going to do..
I also like that when you sign up for stripe it does not ask you about these small income numbers. You either make less than a hundred thousand or you make more than that, period.
The availability of square and stripe are different. I believe square is available in six countries whereas stripe may be available in more than that. Again I don't know, you probably don't need me to say it again but I'm going to say it again do your own research.
Square was also one of the number-one vouched for Alternatives when I asked about it on Twitter. By people who are fursuit makers and even just 2D artists.
cash app was a surprising back and forth for me. My understanding was that you could not do business through cash app. I think I was running on dated information and that has since changed. I believe now you can have a cash app for business and a cash app for personal.
I don't know if upgrading to a business cash app would cause the same type of issues as getting a business PayPal.
so personally I am going to start my cash app option with just having it as a personal account and we will go from there but I think it is more than reasonable to say that at this point I am gun-shy.
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COMMISSIONERS READ
the only thing that requires you to also have an account in Order to send money, to my understanding, Skrill.
all the rest of these things do not function like PayPal.
Patreon, subscribestar , and possibly kofi do require you to have an account but not in the way that is similar to PayPal if that makes sense.
everything else such as square and stripe. these are credit and debit card processors.
meaning we as the sellers send you an invoice and you