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Show HN: Small Transfers – charge from 0.000001 USD per request for your SaaS

(smalltransfers.com)
194 points strnisa | 5 comments | 10 Sep 25 12:56 UTC | HN request time: 0.24s | source

Hi HN,

I built Small Transfers, a payments platform for SaaS / API makers who want to bill customers per request instead of pushing them into subscriptions or pre-buy packages.

*Why?*

  - Many customers hate subscriptions and/or want to use a service occasionally.
  - Traditional payment processors add a fixed fee to every charge, making charges below 1 USD impractical.
  - Stripe UBB tracks usage, but you still need to write your own auth, add spending limits, and each merchant charges cards separately (extra fees for customers).
*How it works?*

  - Each merchant has a Small Transfers account linked to their Stripe account via Stripe Connect, which is used to transfer payouts to merchants.
  - Each customer has a Small Transfers account where we verify them using Google Sign-In, 3-D Secure, and Stripe Radar to minimise the chances of a customer not paying their balance.
  - Customers allow your service to identify and charge them via platform's own OAuth. This also removes the need for your service to implement its own auth. (Simple services don't even need their own database.)
  - Merchants call a simple REST API to authorize and capture a charge with a minimum amount of 0.000001 USD. Note that you can authorize more than you capture, allowing you to authorize the max amount your request might use, and then capture your actual cost plus margin (great for many use cases, e.g., AI).
  - The platform takes care of charging customers and sending payouts to merchants.
  - Merchants pay a flat 3% fee. Customers pay payment processing fees when they pay for their balance.
There's a Next.js Starter project (https://github.com/smalltransfers/nextjs-starter) and a live demo (https://nextjs-starter.smalltransfers.com/).

I've been dog-fooding the platform with my own service (https://unattach.com/) and would love your feedback, specifically:

  - The general approach and whether there is anything I should do differently.
  - Any concerns and how I could mitigate them.
  - Any other feedback.
I'm also looking for more merchants to try out the platform, and can help you with the integration.

Thank you for your time! Happy to answer questions here.

1. ed ◴[10 Sep 25 18:21 UTC] No.45201716[source]▶
I mean this in the most constructive way possible: why do you think this idea hasn’t worked before, when it’s been fairly obvious and easy to build for a long time? And what’s your fix for that issue? You present the merchant side of things, but not the customer side which is more important to me, as a potential Small transfers adopter. What’s customer conversion like? Are micropayments actually better than typical payment amounts? Based on my experience I’d expect the conversion rate of a $0.01 and $1 fee to be pretty similar. The friction of inputting a credit card and trusting a service is way higher than the actual payment amount. I’d also have to introduce 2 more services to my customers: Small transfers powered by stripe, and customers would have to fund an account that realistically speaking can’t be used anywhere other than my site. Just offering some questions to think about!
replies(3): >>45202225 #>>45203363 #>>45241963 #
2. strnisa ◴[10 Sep 25 19:04 UTC] No.45202225[source]▶
I believe the idea has been attempted many times before, primarily by large companies that have tried to create their own currency. It seems deceptively simple, but it's quite tricky to get right, both from a legal and technical perspective. One of the main legal complications is the one mentioned in another comment: avoiding the status of an e-money institution.

With Small Transfers:

  - There is no wallet or funding for the account. Customers simply pay for what they owe, usually at the end of each month.
  - There is a lower psychological barrier, since there is no subscription or prepay commitment. Customers who dislike recurring payments are more willing to try something new that avoids this.
  - Merchants need to introduce customers to just one extra service, Small Transfers.
Some customers of Unattach (a service I built) are happily paying for the service via Small Transfers, and early feedback shows that they really appreciate this pricing model. It's worth noting that Unattach also supports the classic subscription model.

As more merchants adopt Small Transfers, customers will still only need one account, making micro-billing even more convenient.

3. drewp ◴[10 Sep 25 20:41 UTC] No.45203363[source]▶
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flattr figured out some parts of this. Notably, you picked your own total monthly donation, and then clicked a button on participating sites to allocate a fraction of your total to them. AFAICT it worked as advertised, but raised new issues with donation behavior. E.g. I obviously like curl every month, so should I click its button monthly? Twice monthly? If I am a developer of some other useful OSS software, should I click curl's button and the curl devs click my button? Does the money just slosh around between merchant-customers? Is that good?
replies(1): >>45204631 #
4. ed ◴[10 Sep 25 22:05 UTC] No.45204631[source]▶
See also: Kachingle (2007), Amazon Flexible Payment Service (2007), Dwolla (2008), Tipjoy (2008), Facebook Credits (2009), Google Checkout (2006), Flattr (2010), Changetip (2014)
5. bluesnowmonkey ◴[14 Sep 25 18:09 UTC] No.45241963[source]▶
Micropayments introduced too much friction for you, a human. You have to think about how much the thing is worth, and consider whether the merchant is trustworthy, and enter your details to perform the transaction. Maybe you’re unsatisfied and want a refund.

Say it costs 1.7 cents and delivers 3.2 cents of “value”, you need to be able to do all that work in less than 1.5 cents worth of your time. You can’t do that as a human. But an agent maybe could, to pay for content or MCP calls. I see a big role for micropayments in this genetic future.