PayNow

PayNow Overview For Merchants

PayNow is a merchant of record platform that helps software and digital goods businesses accept payments globally while handling tax compliance, risk, and operational overhead. Merchants can launch a hosted webstore or integrate via a headless API. PayNow supports 75+ payment methods, subscription billing, and localized checkout options. This overview explains how PayNow works, available features, key fees, and fit considerations for merchants evaluating PayNow.

What PayNow Is Best Suited For

• SaaS and software licensing with one-time or recurring charges

• Game servers and digital content where items are delivered instantly in-app or via connected services

• Teams that prefer a merchant of record to manage global sales tax, VAT, and GST collection and remittance

Core Model: Merchant Of Record

PayNow acts as the seller of record for your transactions. As MoR, PayNow is responsible for processing the payment, applying the correct local taxes, and meeting regulatory obligations in supported markets. Your business authorizes PayNow to sell your digital products on your behalf, while you retain control over pricing, packaging, and delivery to your users.

What this means in practice

• Sales tax, VAT, and GST are automatically calculated, collected, and remitted by PayNow

• Regulatory and regional payment requirements are handled by PayNow

• You sell to customers worldwide through PayNow’s checkout while focusing on your product

Pricing And Platform Fees

PayNow provides tiered plans that combine a monthly platform fee with a percentage-based platform fee per transaction. Payment method processing fees are separate and applied before platform fees.

• Free: 0 USD per month, up to 2,000 USD monthly sales, +3.5% platform fee

• Pro: 19.99 USD per month, up to 5,000 USD monthly sales, +3.0% platform fee

• Business: 49.99 USD per month, unlimited monthly sales, +2.5% platform fee

• Enterprise: custom terms

Included benefits scale by tier. Examples: Full chargeback protection is listed on all plans. Pro adds custom domain and more detailed analytics. Business adds regional pricing and custom checkout branding.

Payment Methods And Coverage

PayNow lists more than 75 payment options spanning cards, wallets, and local methods. A few representative examples and listed fees:

• Cards and wallets including Apple Pay and Google Pay

  • From 2.9% + 0.30 USD in the United States, United Kingdom, and European Union

  • 3.9% + 0.30 USD in other regions

• PayPal: 3.49% + 0.49 USD

• Crypto: 1.5%

• Steam skins: 1.5%

• Buy Now Pay Later: Klarna 5.99% + 0.45 USD in supported markets

• Regional methods: examples include Mobile Money in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda at 2% + 0.10 USD, plus APAC options such as Alipay, LINE Pay, Kakao Pay, Naver Pay, OVO, DOKU, PayMaya, and PayNow Singapore with listed per-method pricing

You can browse the full catalog by region and method, each with published rates and supported countries. Method availability varies by customer location.

Checkout And User Experience

PayNow provides a hosted checkout optimized for global acceptance. Merchants can:

• Instantly enable local methods per country without managing separate gateways

• Offer localized currencies and routing to improve approval rates

• Use custom checkout branding on higher tiers

• Support subscription self-service for buyers through a dedicated subscription portal where customers can view and cancel active subscriptions

Tax Compliance As Standard

As your MoR, PayNow automatically calculates the correct indirect taxes at checkout and states that it collects and remits sales tax, VAT, and GST to the appropriate authorities. This removes the need to register and file in many jurisdictions for covered transactions, which is a central reason teams adopt a merchant of record.

Developer Options And APIs

PayNow offers a headless approach alongside hosted storefronts:

• Management API for store operations such as products, orders, customers, coupons, regional pricing, subscriptions, and gift cards

• Storefront API for headless carts and checkout in your own UI

• Webhooks for real-time notifications of events

• Authentication using API keys for store operations and customer tokens for end-user actions

The API documentation notes that the platform is still in beta and subject to change. Base endpoints, authentication flows, models, and rate details are documented for integration planning.

Subscriptions And Recurring Billing

Subscription management is supported across the hosted and headless flows:

• Create checkout sessions for recurring items

• Manage subscriptions via API to list, retrieve, and update

• Provide customers with a self-service portal to view or cancel subscriptions

Cancellation stops future charges and typically continues access until the end of the current billing period. Refunds, when applicable, are initiated by the merchant and processed through PayNow’s payment operations.

Payouts And Settlement Flow

Payout onboarding is powered through Tipalti. From the merchant dashboard, you complete a Tipalti form with business details, tax information, and preferred payout method. Listed payout options include bank transfer, crypto, and PayPal. After approval, you can request withdrawals and track payout status within the dashboard.

Risk, Disputes, And Chargebacks

PayNow advertises full chargeback protection on every plan. Practically, this means eligible disputes are handled by PayNow under its risk policies rather than passing chargeback costs to the merchant. The platform also highlights intelligent payment routing and regional processing designed to improve authorization rates and reduce friction.

Reporting And Operations

Operational features include:

• Reporting and analytics in the dashboard

• Marketing tools such as coupons, sales campaigns, affiliate links, and abandoned checkout follow-ups

• Storefront controls including templates, custom domains, nav links, and branding

• Team access and roles to manage permissions

• Game server and Discord integrations for digital item delivery in gaming use cases

Implementation Paths

You can launch with minimal engineering using the hosted webstore, then:

• Add a custom domain and branding

• Enable additional local methods as you expand

• Move to a headless model by integrating the Storefront API and subscribing to webhooks

• Use the Management API to automate catalog updates, subscription management, regional pricing, and fulfillment workflows.