One of the most critical decisions for every business is which platform to use to accept payments from your customers. However, for micropreneurs, getting a good payment solution is not always an easy task. Unfortunately, the situation gets worse for e-Residents owning a company in Estonia. In this article, I want to compare the available payment solutions for e-Residents and solopreneurs based on my experience.
If you are a freelancer and your customers pay you only when you issue an invoice, you are good to go. Nevertheless, if your business is a SaaS, subscription product, or you cannot rely on your customers to pay you on a regular basis, you need a good payment solution.
Note: although stressing alternatives for e-Residents, this article might be useful for most solopreneurs & small business owners. All you can read is based on my personal experiences unless stated otherwise. Obviously, yours might be different.
Your Payment Solution Is A Key Piece In Your Business
Quoting one of the most cited books on entrepreneurship, “The $100 Startup”:
“The basics of starting a business are very simple; you don’t need an MBA (keep the $60,000 tuition), venture capital, or even a detailed plan. You just need a product or service, a group of people willing to pay for it, and a way to get paid.”
One might think that accepting payments for your business should not be that hard. It’s 2018 after all, the year Elon Musk launched a car into space.
However, if you are a micropreneur or a small company, and especially if you need to accept recurring payments, it’s not easy at all.
Let’s say you decide to open a new business. You find a market, perhaps build an MVP or initial draft to solve the problem, publish a website to test the waters… And look for options to accept payments. Then is when you realize that this last part is going to be harder than you thought.
While it might seem like there are lots of alternatives out there for small businesses, the reality is quite different. If you, like me, are an e-Resident and own a company in Estonia, your options narrow down.
Why?
Challenges For Solopreneurs, Startups, And Freelancers
Most payment gateways want to deal with big companies. While I can understand that -big companies with high figures means big bucks for the middleman- that leaves small businesses in a precarious position. When you are starting, you cannot offer realistic profit estimates or sales forecasts. You are just starting.
That adds a lot of pressure to solopreneurs and freelancers. They often need to prove -or at least promise- enough sales for the payment gateway to consider you a “customer worth making business with”. And that’s ridiculous in 2018.
As far as I know, the resources you are using from a completely digital payment gateway, even if you don’t have any sales for months, are negligible. So why not letting that small business thrive and start generating revenue?
Additionally, for small business owners, most payment solutions present certain problems.
First, most of them require you to fill a series of legal documents and comply to sometimes obscure and hard to understand regulations. While it’s true that most micropreneurs and freelancers need to know something about managing a business, that stuff usually requires the help of a professional lawyer or economist.
In addition, many providers won’t allow you to withdraw your funds, or won’t send you your money, unless you exceed a certain revenue threshold. This is obviously to avoid fees for small transfer. Nonetheless, when you are a freelancer or solopreneur, you need your money every month, even if it’s just 150€.
Finally, some payment platforms send you the money with a significant delay. We are talking about 2-3 months here. That might be OK for medium to big companies, but it’s quite a significative time period for solopreneurs and freelancers.
Challenges For e-Residents And Estonian Companies
If you are an e-Resident owning a company in Estonia, the situation is actually worse. For starters, many payment solutions don’t support companies established in the Baltic countries. Concretely, Stripe, one of the best -in my opinion- payment solutions out there, still don’t show the least indication of interest in supporting e-Resident companies.
Yes, that tweet is from 2015. Three years later, still no news from Stripe.
That’s quite unfortunate, as I had been using Stripe quite happily in the past. They have the easiest onboarding and user interface, hands down. Also, if you are a developer like me, their API and integration options for your business are simply the best. You cannot possibly find something easier and better documented to start accepting payments for your startup, SaaS or project.
Probably when they decide to support Estonia and e-Resident companies, it will be too late.
Secondly, in my experience, the ones who support Baltic companies tend to be pickier when accepting them. Expect being requested a lot more information, and having to prove some revenue or potential customers.
Payment Solutions For e-Residents & Solopreneurs
So, what payment solutions for e-Residents and solopreneurs are available to your business? They all look perfect on paper. However, when you start working with them, you discover the small print, hidden fees, and other awkward surprises. So let me describe the ones I know or have used myself:
Paypal
It’s safe to assume that if you use Paypal, you are probably not happy about it. It’s one of these old companies that were a breakthrough back in their time, but haven’t managed to adapt since then (Amazon being another prime example). With everything that’s happening lately in the Fintech world and the myriad of alternatives out there, Paypal has simply become obsolete.
Another important problem is their fees. While they are not extremely high for large payments, they can be quite steep for small transfers. If you charge a small amount of money to a lot of customers -i.e: you offer online courses for 3 or 4 euros- the commission fee can be painfully high.
One thing that really gets on my nerves is that their fees are applied to the amount you received, not added on top of it. That means that if you request 100€ to a customer, Paypal will deduct their fee (around 3,20€) from that amount, so you will receive 96,80€. That makes it very difficult for you to know beforehand how much you need to ask your customer to pay you to get exactly the money you want.
That’s a nightmare for your accountant later.
Why have I included it here then? Because it’s relatively easy -compared to other services, anyway- to start operating with them, and it’s one of the very little viable payment solutions for e-Residents as of now.
So pros:
- easy onboarding and setup
- you can start operating right away
- not much paperwork to be “approved”
- recurrent payments
And cons:
- ancient, unintuitive interface with a front page make up
- high fees for small payments
- hard to issue an invoice for the exact amount you want to receive
- accountancy problems
- no API integration or mobile support (you need Braintree for that)
Stripe
Stripe is the best payment gateway in existence today. Full stop. Their API is so well built, it makes the “code is poetry” tagline, unfittingly coined by WordPress, become true. Their documentation is top-notch, and their web interface is so easy to use, you don’t need a technical background to use it.
Stripe has not been available for Estonian companies until very recently. They had a beta program for ages, and it seemed they would never open their platform to e-Residents. To get a sense of how badly people wanted Stripe to support Estonia, some folks applied the following hack to use Stripe. They would open their account pretending to have a company in one of the supported countries. Then they’d change their business and bank account details to receive the payments in their Estonian corporate accounts.
As Stripe did not support Estonia when I opened my company, and I did not want to mess with such an important part of my business, I’m using another payment gateway, Mollie. I’ll talk about them later in this article.
It does not matter if you are a developer, or someone else will be in charge of integrating Stripe into your system. You will not find an easier to implement or better documented platform. And that matters a lot. It can save you a lot of time and money.
So here are the pros of Stripe:
- Easy, paperwork-less setup
- Superb user interface
- You can start accepting payments quickly
- Ability to negotiate fees for high sales volumes
- Fast and smooth verification process
- Recurrent payments with lots of options (trial periods, discounts, promo codes…)
- Developer-friendly API, amazing documentation
And the cons:
- Their fees are a bit high
Braintree
Braintree is the payment solution I chose for my company, one of the little viable payment solutions for e-Residents. It was acquired by Paypal, but luckily they started as a startup, so have a fresh approach, similar to Stripe, a nice user interface, and a good, well-documented API.
Their fees are quite good, usually at 1,9% + 0,30€, with discounts when income starts exceeding 60k a year.
Their dashboard is not quite as simple to use as Stripe’s one, and the API is somewhat more complex and less developer friendly. However, I think it’s safe to affirm that you can start using it quite soon if you spend some time on it.
The main drawback for me is the approval process and requirements. Initially, you are allowed to open a sandbox account and start exploring the platform. Then, when you are ready to switch to production, you need to implement it on your website. And this website needs to be fully compliant with a lot of requisites. HTTPS, no broken links, terms & conditions clearly visible, etc.
Also, you need to fill different forms and hand over a lot of information about your business. It’s quite a nightmarish process. Eventually, you are subject to a trial and your application gets approved or rejected.
And this is the worst part… I know a lot of legitimate businesses from fellow e-Residents whose applications have been denied.
So all in all, pros:
- one of the best payment solutions for e-Residents if you get approved
- low fees on transactions (1,9€ + 0,30€)
- Decent API and documentation
- recurrent payments
- developer friendly
And cons:
- difficult onboarding and setup
- random account freezes, asking you to proceed to verification again
- paperwork and regulations
- approval process and uncertainty on whether your application will be approved or not
PaymentWall
Paymentwall is often discussed as one of the very few payment solutions for e-Residents available. However, my recommendation is: Stay away from them.
To begin with, they have an ugly, unintuitive interface that makes Paypal look nice and modern. Seriously, the first time you land on your PaymentWall dashboard, your first thought will be: “what the …. is this?”.
Next, their “due diligence” approval process is even more difficult to understand and comply with than the one from Braintree. The amount of paperwork, requisites, and forms you have to fill and research is overwhelming, and you would probably need help from a lawyer or an accountant.
On top of that, your business and website will be subject to a deep examination. You better not have a broken link on your website, fella!
So then you get “approved”. Yahoo!!!! Well… Not so fast. Initially, your customers won’t be allowed to pay with debit or credit cards. You will only have some options available like paying with the card from local grocery chains or from phone payment services. Needless to say, none of your customers is going to pay you a single buck.
No. You need to apply for card payments, and if you get approved (and only then) your customers will be able to actually pay you.
Apart from those problems, their fee system is not clear. They have hidden fees, and you will end up paying more than you expect, sometimes up to 10% or more. To make things worse, payments to your account are subject to a 2-months delay, and you will only get paid if your earnings exceed 100€.
Pros:
- One of the few payment solutions for e-Residents
- recurrent payments
And cons:
- unintuitive interface, seriously, ugly and unintuitive
- paperwork
- approval process
- hidden fees
- delays
- withdrawal threshold
EveryPay
EveryPay was another player in the payments arena that was acquired, in this case by LHV. When I initially contacted them to check if they were a good solution for my business, they didn’t accept recurring payments. Nevertheless, they recently implemented them. So, while I will write about them here, I don’t know about their services firsthand.
One of its most alluring aspects was that their integration with LHV. If your company is in Estonia, and you have your business bank account there, it’s worth having a look.
One red sign for me is the fact that they don’t clearly specify their pricing on their website. They say “1,2% to 3,5%”, and ask you to request a quote. I don’t know about you, but that does not give me good vibes. Sometimes, something as simple as being able to accept payments from your customers can become a negotiation to convince someone to accept your business and give you good conditions. I don’t think that’s fair.
Edit: after talking to the EveryPay/LHV staff, I got informed that my application would not succeed because my business is in a “high risk” activity area. Given that the activity of my company is programming and consulting (technology & business) services, I don’t see how this can be considered a high-risk activity (I mean, I am not in the porn or gambling industry 😂). Something to be aware of.
So without having used their services personally, my pros:
- integration with LHV
- one of the most friendly payment solutions for e-Residents
- recurrent payments
And my cons:
- unclear, obscure pricing, probably subject to negotiation
- weird classification of what is a “high risk” activity business
Paddle
Recommended by some readers of the blog, I had a look at Paddle. It seems like a very nice solution, and quite developer friendly. However, you soon realize there are important limitations to Paddle that restricts its usefulness in real-case scenarios (read: business).
To begin with, it’s only valid if you sell digital products, not for digital services. That means that if the main activity of your business is consulting services, for example, you cannot use Paddle.
But as I am a developer after all, and I have some apps in the App Store, I decided to give it a try. One of the most painful aspects of selling or offering products in the Apple’s App Store is Apple’s “In-App Purchase” system. It’s hard to use, program and maintain, quite obsolete, and takes a 30% cut on every sale.
I spent some time trying to integrate Paddle with one of my apps, 0Password, an app to keep your passwords secure through multiple devices protected by your biometric information (touch ID or faceID). It’s ideal for digital nomads and people like me who travel without a notebook containing all your passwords.
However, I was unable to do it. I contacted Paddle’s support team and they kindly explained that it can’t be used for iOS or Android apps.
So where does that leave us? If you only can use it for digital downloads or products (not services), and you cannot use it on mobile apps, probably it’s only useful for online shops or selling e-Books from a website. However, there are better and easier alternatives for those scenarios.
So pros:
- easy sign-up process
- nice dashboard interface
- not a lot of paperwork
And cons:
- not valid for digital services (like consulting), only digital products
- not valid for mobile apps
- very limited scenarios where you can use it
Overall, I can’t really recommend Paddle. Except in very very limited scenarios, it’s not very useful for real e-Resident businesses.
Mollie
Also suggested by one of the commenters, I tried Mollie. It’s a French company offering a very competitive solution. In fact, it’s the payment solution I’m using right now for Your Company In Estonia.
To begin with, the verification process is fast and simple. Not a lot of paperwork. Just handing over some information and uploading some documents of your company (like the entry of the registry and the articles of association) and yourself (like a picture of your ID).
Some e-Residents have reported that their businesses have been rejected due to the fact that they are e-Residents, but honestly, I let them know I was an e-Resident from the very beginning and had no problems with them whatsoever.
They have a lot of useful payment methods, such as VISA and Mastercard card payment, or direct transfers. Their pricing is quite good too. For example, card payment for European customers/cards is just 0,25€ + 1,8%.
Apart from Stripe, Mollie is the payment gateway I’ve been using more, so I can tell describe their pros and cons in more detail.
Obvious pros are, as I mentioned, the uncomplicated verification process, and the fact that you can enable real payment methods right from the start, like debit card payments or SEPA direct debit.
Now about the cons. Their API is not as good as Stripe’s one. Not just because it’s not documented and easy to use, but also because it seems it has not been designed with real-life scenarios in mind.
One example is how recurrent payments and payment links work. Unlike other payment solutions, you can’t just send a payment link to your customers using Mollie’s API. The payment link will expire in 15 minutes.
Unless your customer is checking the inbox folder like a maniac and waiting for the link to pay you, that’s a terrible waste of time. You need to build a custom payment invitation system that will generate the payment link on demand when the user is about to click on it. That’s a lot of work and defeats the purpose of payment links.
Another example is adding debit cards to your customers. Most other payment gateways allow you to collect the debit card information from the user without making a payment. That’s super useful when the card has expired or the customer lost it and needs to add a new one.
In Mollie, you can only do that if you generate a new payment for the customer, so at least they will need to pay 0,01€ to add a debit card. It’s not that much, but from the point of view of the customer, you are charging them for allowing them to pay you with their debit card.
Another problem is that you need to rely on the API to do almost everything. They have a dashboard where you can send a payment link, but they will charge you an extra for things like payment reminders, that other providers (such as Stripe) offer for free.
You cannot use the dashboard to create customers or recurrent payments either. You need to do all of that through the API. That means that, unless you are a developer or have a good development team, you will only be able to access a very limited set of functions of what Mollie can offer.
The pros:
- easy onboarding, nice and simple user interface
- payment methods are enabled soon (a couple of days tops, including debit card payments)
- almost no paperwork to be verified
- decent API and documentation, though not as good as others
And the cons:
- an extra cost for basic functionality such as payment link reminders
- poorly designed API for real use case scenarios
- no recurring payments from the dashboard either, only through the API
- some e-Residents report that their companies have been rejected because they’ve been founded by e-Residents
The Winner?
Now that Stripe supports Estonian companies, go for it. It’s the best payment gateway out there. Without a doubt. If you don’t like Stripe, and are a proficient developer, try Mollie. Expect some hard work to get everything ready.
Most other payment gateways described in this article are way worse than these two.
I will update the article if/when needed.
Am I Missing Something?
If you have experience with other payment gateways or payment solutions for e-Residents, solopreneurs or micropreneurs, leave a comment below. Alternatively, you can contact me and tell me about your experience in more detail. I promise to update this post with your information. Thank you! 🙂
Conclusion
Your payment platform is one of the most important decisions you need to make for your business. In this article, I share with you my experience with different payment solutions for e-Residents and solopreneurs.
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Years ago, I quit my 9 to 5 job and became a freelancer first, then a solopreneur, and finally a digital nomad. Managing my company back in Spain was a nightmare until I discovered the e-Residency program and opened my company in Estonia. That changed my life.
After some years managing my business, I know the tricks of the trade. I can offer you advice on how to become location independent, found an European company you can manage online while traveling, and avoid unnecessary costs. If you are ready to take the leap, but have some doubts or don't know where to start, let's get in touch.
Hi Ignacio,
thank you for a good list of payment solutions. Stripe seems to be very nice.
I noticed that one potentially interesting service is missing from your list and that is Holvi. I haven’t used the service my self so I don’t know if its any good but they do also have a service for e-Residents.
They also seem to have a list of other useful services (apps) for entrepreneurs.
Maybe you will find time to review Holvi at some point?
Tere Kalle! Thanks for your comment.
Don’t confuse Holvi with a payment solution. Holvi is just a banking solution similar to Transferwise, Revolut business, or others. I actually believed that too after visiting their website, but it turns out they just give you a digital currency account to operate with your business.
Thus, they don’t provide you with a way of accepting payments or recurrent subscriptions from your customers. What you get is an IBAN/Swift combo, a debit card, and a dashboard with limited invoicing capabilities. Yes, they have this “online shop” service, but it’s again very limited, and not a payment solution for a real scenario (here, we are talking about micropreneurs and startups that need automatic payments for SaaS, webinars, software tools, courses, automated services, etc), something beyond an eCommerce.
Holvi is actually a great banking solution, but won’t solve your problem of accepting payments except in very limited scenarios where other solutions work best.
Indeed, I plan on reviewing Holvi, alongside other solutions, really soon, so stay tuned 🙂
Thanks again!
Holvi is ok as a banking solution but here are the issues.
a) They give you a Finland IBAN.
b) If you apply to braintree, you will have Brain Damage as they dont accept Finnish IBAN with an Estonian company. I kept putting this IBAN and the form rejects it.
c) Holvi allows you to create a basic store, which works great if you have some used clothes to sell 🙂
d) The store design is ugly as hell. There is no way to change templates, or modify basic CSS and fonts.
e) The store front has “Powered by Holvi” written and you cannot remove it.
I sell digital products and thought of listing stuff. I created a test product. It has limits on fields, you can create. Since, I could not match the design to my website. Its a waste of time.
There is no recurring payments option. The only good thing I liked was that they charge 2.7% flat.
(Please Note: For future digital nomads. Don’t rely on what I mentioned. Chances are things have changed since I wrote this reply in 7/22/2018)
Cheers
Hello Uncle Davy, thanks for your message.
I mostly agree with your arguments, except perhaps the first one (interested in knowing what’s wrong with a Finnish bank account IBAN? It’s basically the same as any other European IBAN).
Regarding “b”: if you apply to Braintree, you WILL have brain damage during the account verification process, Holvi does not make it worse, I went through it with both Holvi and LHV, so I can confidently say 🙂
Regarding the rest, please take into account that Holvi is a banking solution, not a payment solution. The store is a nice addition, but shouldn’t be your judgement factor here. Trust me when I say that there are way worst solutions for e-Residents (Transferwise requires you utility bills, for example).
Ok, thanks for the clarification 🙂
So Stripe it is!
After trying multiple options, I went ahead with Mollie as they had a decent and well-supported plugin for WooCommerce.
Thanks Harish! I didn’t know about them. Do you know for sure that they accept Estonian (e-Resident) based companies? I will open an account and investigate a little more, thanks!
Thanks for sharing your exprience. Here is mine, maybe it could help some other people here. Sorry it is a mix between french and english. I will apply for Mollie soon as it seems the best in my case, I may let you know how was the experience if I get accepted. I have also an Estonian company.
Mollie (Pays-Bas)
Cartes bancaires françaises: 1.8% + 0.25€
Visa/Mastercard: 1.8% (2.8% si hors UE ou carte commerciale) + 0.25€
Virements SEPA: 0.25€
Bancontact: 1.5% + 0.25€
Banques belges: 0.9% + 0.25€
Rétro-facturation: 19€ HTVA
Site en français
Paiements récurrents
Beaucoup de moyens de payement spécial Belgique (Bancontact, ING, Belfius)
Code php, NodeJS, Ruby,… sur GitHub avec beaucoup d’étoiles (populaire)
Code dédié à Laravel et Symfony (Laravel bcp plus populaire, le code Symfony vient de la communauté)
Plugin dispo pour de nombreuses plateforme (populaire)
1736 likes, 3.3 rate (5stars or 1 stars because of freedom of speech), actif, assez d’engagement
Braintree (US)
1.9% + 0.30€
Chargeback: 30€
Appartient à Paypal
Utilisé par Uber, AirBnB, Pintrest, Dropbox
Regional payment available
Possibilité d’ajouter l’option “3D Secure” pour réduire les fraudes et donc le chargeback mais il faut les contacter pour etre informé du prix…
Recurring bill
Credit card storage
Support for mobile
Grosse présence sur Githbug (grosse popularité)
Gestion de promotions
9K likes, actif, engagement correct
Paymentwall (US, Worldwide)
1.9% (2.9% non-european cards) + 0.30€
Chargeback: 25$
Spécialisé dans la vente digitale (produit et services)
API for monetize digital products or services with recurring billing
Méthode de payement local disponible (France et Belgique)
Take care of global tax requirement (ex EU VAT calculation)
Help to select the best payments methods and price points for each country you serve
Intégration pour de nombreuses plateformes e-commerce
Présence correct sur github
Mobile phone compatible
Possibilité de générer des factures: https://www.paymentwall.com/en/payment-solutions/e-invoicing
Page wikipedia
Their dashboard is ugly ! non intuitive
approval process is long and complicate, probably need help of lawyer or accountant
Hidden fees up to 10%
Delay to receive payment in my business account: 2months
6k likes, actif, réactions correctes
2checkout (US)
2.4% + 30cents
1.5% fee from customers outside of Estonia
Chargeback: 25$
87 currencies
15 languages (FR)
Recurring billing with lot of customisation
Hosted solution ou installation de l’API
Nombre incroyable de plateformes ecommerce supportées (plugin)
Présence sur Github correct mais sans plus
17k likes, actif, très peu d’engagement (like probablement payés)
Paylane (Poland)
2.8% + 0.25USD
Chargeback : 27USD
Integration: API or Secure form (but not french)
160+ currencies
30+ payment methods
Recurring payments
Card data storage (speed up)
Generate an invoice for every transaction
Plugin dispo pour de nombreuses plateformes (mais pas populaire du tout)
1665 likes, actif, peu d’engagement
MakeCommerce (Estonia)
2.5% + 0.30€
Montly fee: 10€
Accept Visa, MasterCard or Maestro
Possibilité de générer un lien de payement à envoyer à son client par messenger, whatsapp,…
Plugin officiel pour plateforme payant (monthly fee 10-15€)
Peu populaire sur github
2 likes, pas actif
Adyen (Pays-Bas)
Minimum invoice of €100 per month
Mode de paiement local possible
Présence correcte sur Github
Provides rich detail on your transaction date, allowing you to spot patterns and better understand buyer behavior
Partenaire privilégie de eBay
Partenaire: Uber, Netflix, Spotify, easyJet,… (a lot famous)
Page Wikipedia
5K likes, actif, bon engagement
Paddle (UK/US)
5% + 0.50$
Chargeback: 20$
Paddle is built to serve digital products, such as software, web apps, and digital downloads. If your company offers humans services, such as consultation, support, or design services. Paddle is not a good fit for your needs.
Pas d’info sur l’intégration, sur l’API, pas de présence sur github
Site confus proposant 3 formules mais difficile d’en connaitre les différences…
All of the built-in marketing tools to grow your sales (coupons & bundles)
Automatically collect and remit all local taxes on your behalf worldwide
8k likes, pas très actif, engagement correct
Payoneer (US)
Pas vraiment un payment gateway, obligé de faire une requete de payement individuellement à chaque client.
Possible to create invoice
Présence très discrète sur Github (code pas officiel, peu de popularité)
Page wikipedia
EveryPay
Application refusée (high risk)
Hello there Benoit!
First of all, thank you so very much for such a comprehensive list. With your permission, I can update the post reflecting this information, are you ok with that? 🙂
Yes, sure
great article! have you tried paddle? or payoneer? whats your thoughts on that? im also e-resident, got fcked with all this… just gave up!!! im not a fan anymore! whats your honest thoughts on that? thnkx!!
Hello there inthetiger, thanks for your comment!
To be honest, I have heard a lot about Payoneer but haven’t tried it myself. Also, no experience in Paddle. Anyway, I’ll have a look at them.
Sorry to hear about your experience. Does that mean that you closed your company in Estonia or are not using it anymore due to the problems setting up a payment solution? That’s a clear indication that there’s still a big need here indeed.
My personal opinion is that you can always find something to operate with, even if it’s ugly or have high fees. However, depending of the business can make your payments a nightmare. Incidentally, some online services I use (i.e: hosting) started up by sending me every month an invoice I had to pay alongside billing information to pay it. Not ideal, I agree 100%, but we need to try and overcome this kind of difficulties I guess. Thanks again for commenting.
Hi Ignacio 🙂
Just wanted to give you a quick update. We now recommend Paddle to our new customers at LeapIN, which is a great option because they also take care of the VAT MOSS. See – https://www.leapin.eu/faq/payment-gateways–marketplaces#what-is-paddle-and-how-does-it-work and our customer John mentions this here: https://blog.leapin.eu/why-i-used-leapin-and-e-residency-to-launch-my-startup-cryptee-an-encrypted-home-for-your-private-2cd078843ba0
Hello there Gustav, thank you so very much for your comment, and for the valuable information 🙂
As you probably know, Braintree is far from perfect for us, e-residents, so happy to know alternatives.
I had a look at Paddle, partially because you are the second person who recommends it, and partially because a recommendation from you is definitely a must to check 😉. It definitely looks fantastic for software products, and can be a perfect payment gateway for people offering them. Unfortunately, it does not work for services, which is a big problem for software developers, technical consultants, and freelancers (web designers, web developers, mobile app developers, etc). Still a great solution for quite A LOT of people, but no bullet-proof payment solution available yet 😓.
Sure feel free to use all you want, no copyright 😉
Thanks! 🙂
Nacho,
Thank you for your detailed article. I really found much interesting information. I’ve done my research and actually shortlisted Braintree, Paymentwall and Everypay. However, some people mentioned in the comments Mollie. I checked and I loved it, because it offers great variety of payment solutions and prices are attractive. Have you had a chance to check it out? What is your opinion about it?
Hi Vadim, thanks for your comment! Not yet, but I am about to, and I will write my impressions on it.
Thanks for the article, Nacho.
One quick question though. Is it mandatory to create a estonian business bank account to receive Mollie’s Payouts? or will merely having a personal bank account in any other european country (i.e. Spain) make do?
Regards,
Alejandro
Thanks for your comment Alejandro. No, you can have Mollie payments even with a company in any other country, or bank account in any other country.
Nacho really great article. I’d like to ask the same thing.
Afaik, there are 3 alternative banking solutions; Transferwise, Holvi, and Payoneer to have an IBAN for my Estonian company so that I can transfer the revenues from Mollie to my company.
I will accept (recurring) credit card payments, alongside the bitcoin option, convert the revenues to EUR and send to my IBAN account. From Mollie to Holvi. Then I will send the invoices (or invoice reports) to LeapIN for accounting. Any problems with this? By problem I mean both technically and accounting/law wise.
I asked Holvi and Mollie separately but they don’t take the responsibility to answer this question.
Thanks,
Ewroan
Very important question, actually! Dear Ewroan, has it been successful for you to use Mollie x Holvi? As I see, they have the warning: “Warning: Mollie can only settle on business bank accounts that are registered to the company’s trade name.”
As I see, neither TransferWise nor Holvi assigns the unique IBAN, doesn’t it?
Is there any consideration? Dear nacho, I would do appreciate your feedback.
Hi there Ewroan, Jareekgogo,
First of all, Ewroan, you are asking about banking solutions, not payment solutions. This is an important disctintion. If you want to accept bitcoin payments, none of them are good alternatives either. I would suggest other banks that may work for you in a consulting session, because there’s a process involved in getting your e-Residence company accepted that needs to be discussed.
Jareekgogo, there’s no problem in using Holvi with Mollie, and I am doing that actually for one of my companies, so no problem at all. Even if Holvi gives you a finnish IBAN, it’s still tied to your company’s trade name, so no problem whatsoever.
Hope it helped! 🙂
That is the question, by the way!
Dear Ewroan,
Dear Nacho,
As I see, Mollie has the warning: “Mollie can only settle on business bank accounts that are registered to the company’s trade name.” It seems to me that Holvi, Revolut, TransferWise don’t open the unique IBAN account but rather use the same one assigned to their company. Hasn’t it been the problem for you to integrate Molvi using Holvi?
I would kindly appreciate your feedback.
Jareekgogo, as I mentioned, you should not have problems using Mollie with Holvi (for sure), or Transferwise (perhaps), and probably you’ll have problems using it with Revolut Business.
Hi Nacho,
What are your thoughts on Leupay and Paysera? Are they decent alternatives to the ones mentioned above?
Thanks,
Alejandro
Dear Alejandro, Paysera and LeuPay are not payment solutions, but banking solutions, so it’s better to comment on them on the post about bank alternatives :). Anyway, when I contacted Paysera, they were not very open-minded about e-Residents either. LeuPay has lots of hidden fees for every possible thing you can imagine (from doing transfers to accepting payments) So my suggestion: try other alternatives such as Transferwise, Revolut Business, Holvi or similar.
hello.thank you for the informations,but as conclusion what is the best solution for e-commerce store dropship sell products world wide with maximum currencies ?
Hey Nacho,
Great article. Thanks for the time putting it together. Wish I had read it before trying to figure this sh*t out myself….maybe I could have kept some of my hair!
I’m going to try Braintree, but just wondering if you have used it to pipe payments to Transferwise, or if you just use it with your LVH estonian bank a/c. I haven’t got one of those yet and I’m trying to decide if it’s worth the trip to EE, particularly given I absolutely have to have a good recurring payments solution.
Cheers,
Neil
Thanks Neil! I used it to send money to LHV. While I haven’t tried it with Transferwise, in theory nothing prevents you from piping it to it. I would ask the Transferwise staff, but I think there should not be any problem.
Hi Neil and Nacho,
I tried Braintree with TransferWise and had problems as the IBAN I got is from Germany, while the company is in Estonia, therefore they won’t let me finish my registration.
Anyone had more luck ?
Well, I had Braintree and didn’t have any problems, but I had a LHV account. Perhaps you may want to try with better solutions such as Mollie? Stripe is on beta right now for Estonia, so let’s hope it will be available soon!
Hey Nacho,
Great article. Have you considered Cardinity? I have read some good comments and I am considering it? Any ideas
Hi Nikos. Never heard of them, so thanks for letting me know about them. I will have a look at their website! 😉
Hi there! Thanks a lot for such a complete article. I recently heard of https://payproglobal.com, currently checking it out also!
Hi Oriol, you are welcome!. Please, share your findings and experience with them here in the comments to help other e-Residents 🙂
Hi, This is the best blog for e residents for sure.What is the best payment solutions,banking solution for ecommerce,online stores for e residents from third world countries?By the way how e residents will provide local business number,utility bills etc for transferwise or others if they are not Estonian resident.I didn’t find any service providers can solve this issue.What are the requirements for transferwise borderless and revoult business account?Sorry for too many questions…Thanks cheers!!!
Hey Salem, thanks for your comment! Well, it’s a little bit tricky. I would say currently there’s no clear winner. You should try some of them (Mollie, Braintree, Paddle). If you don’t have an office in Estonia, only a virtual office, you won’t be able to provide utility bills. In that case, you should specify your “effective place of business” (that’s where you live currently) and give them some utility bills or rental contract.
Hi, thank you for this valuable article. But I don’t see about Bluesnap?
Hi Adam,
I didn’t know them. Had a look at their website, but was greeted by a message saying “We see that you are in a country we do not currently service. We encourage you to visit our site regularly as we expand our reach.” (not a good sign). Also, a quick look at their pricing section showed me they charge 3.90% + 0,30, which is quite high to be honest. Perhaps you want to share your experience using their services with us, or maybe you are part of the staff and want to comment something on their services, especially for e-Residents?
Thanks for the article. Can’t wait for Stripe to go live in Estonia. Definitely would be a winner.
I tried Ayden recently due to some recommendation elsewhere, but got declined with this reason:
“It appears that you do not meet our internal and external business location requirements, as you are registered in Estonia but conduct business operations abroad.”
So if you don’t do business directly in Estonia, it seems, you’re out, which I assume applies to most eresidents :/
Hi Ralf. Thanks for sharing that. I hope Stripe will be available in Estonia soon too. Meanwhile, I am using Mollie for my companies. Not ideal, but kind of works.
Braintree said to me, ” Please keep in mind, you must physically be operating in the country you applied with.”, also their FAQ says you have to be domiciled in the country you have business registration. So I guess we can remove Braintree from a list of options available to e-residents.
Oh, they also provided me a workaround to their ‘bank must be in same country as a company’ form, say you should just provide some estonian IBAN, then change it to real of your application is approved. But, since they have this domiciliation rule, that’s useless.
Dear Andrew,
That’s quite strange. I was a Braintree customer for a long time and definitely, as an e-Resident and digital nomad, my business and I were operating in different places. Can you point me to the exact place where they say so in their FAQ?
I guess what they mean is that if your bank account (IBAN) is from Estonia (EE…), then it’s ok if you don’t live in the same country where your business is? Otherwise, that would make absolutely no sense for an online payment gateway provider.
Best regards!
Hi Ignacio,
Great article, been looking to incorporate mollie in my website, but I am currently with Leapin and they only allow Paypal and PAddle and both have “killer” fees. What do you recommend as a tool or process to make my taxes if I move away from Leapin?
Thank you, Jorge
Dear Jorge,
I had no idea about that limitation of LeapIn. I would suggest you to have a look at Your Company In Estonia (https://yourcompanyinestonia.com): no limitation on payment gateways.
Hope it helps!
Ignacio
Hi Ignacio! Stripe is no longer on beta for Estonia, have you tried it?
If you check stripe.com/global, a invite is not required.
Regards, Jose
Hey Jose, that was fast! I updated the article, thanks!
Hello Ignacio! Thanks so much for your valuable information. I was just about to open my stripe account and I noticed Estonia is within the eligible countries. Was this also normal when you tried to link your account or is this a recently added supported country?
Thank you!
Roger
Congratulations, because Stripe support for Estonian companies is quite recent. I indeed updated this article. I wish they would have been available back when I opened my company.
Hi, Ignacio!
Thank you for the detailed article. I was wondering what e-residents should do to overcome the issue with the home address during registration in Stripe (they require home address to be in the supported countries, while mine is not supported). Such requirement poses more difficulties for e-residents. Thanks!
Hi Pavlo. You need to specify your company has been opened through e-Residency, and use as effective address of your business your place of residence. Your company is in Estonia, but your residence (and effective business residence) may be somewhere else though.
While Stripe is now available in Estonia it is clearly not intended for eRrsidency since they still require you (not the company) to reside in supported country and to confirm this using national ID.
Thank you for the detailed post.
I want mollie for my e-commerce site.
residence address Turkey
mollie payment Can I use my company to Estonia?
my company has no tax number
Hi Nocho,
Thank you for the detailed post.
mollie estonia I have applied for my company but “Transferwise and Holvi” IBAN did not accept the information.
Hola Ignacio, I’ve read several times your post about how you managed to break away from the Spanish freelancer taxation system (https://micropreneur.life/payment-solutions-for-e-residents-and-solopreneurs/) and could not identify more. I am experiencing the same issues more or less in Greece were it is almost impossible -if not punishable- to want to become an entrepreneur.
Your blog is fantastic and you radiate great energy through your posts.
In the coming weeks I am hoping to be able to apply for an OU registration and e residency through your company.
Hi Yiorgios, thanks for your message. Thank you very much especially for your kind words. I hope Estonia can help you reach that location independence and financial independence you strive for!
Hey nacho, thanks for this. I found the article very useful. I have only one question regarding taxes in Estonia. For example, I’m doing business as an E-resident and I have a website where I offer subscription-based features that cost $30 per month. Also, I accept payments globally via Stripe. I plan to connect Stripe to some EU bank or Payoneer or Transferwise. I’m based in Ukraine and have here opened Solopreneurs, also I have some tech businesses in Ukraine and pay taxes here. I plan to transfer profit from subscriptions from EU bank or Payoneer or Transferwise to my Ukrainian bank. My main question, should I pay taxes in Estonia if I’m using a subscription-based model? Thanks! Your feedback is highly important since I can’t find any information over the web.
Hi Dan! I think it would be better to discuss your specific case in a consultancy session.