Get paid in digital dollars with one link

Most small businesses do not need a full online shop. They need a simple way to say: pay me here. A payment link does exactly that. It is a web address. You send it by text, email or a social media message, or show it as a code on your counter, and your customer opens it and pays. This post explains how that works with Access0x1, using digital dollars, and what you can expect from it.

What is a digital dollar?

The coin we use for payment links is called USDC. It is a digital dollar: it is meant to always be worth one US dollar, and it moves over the internet in seconds instead of days. Your customer sends it, and it lands with you. There is no card machine and no waiting for a bank to settle up at the end of the week.

A digital dollar is not a bank balance, and it is not a promise from us. It is a coin issued by a company called Circle, and its value follows the dollar. You can hold it, send it, or move it to a bank account through an exchange or a bank that supports it. We cover the money side more in Is my money safe?.

How a payment link works

• You tell us about your business, and we set up a payment page and a place to receive your money. You can write to us on Telegram or send an email.
• You get a link. It can be for a set amount, such as a deposit, or for whatever amount the customer needs to pay.
• You share the link. Your customer opens it on their phone or computer, checks the amount and approves the payment from their own wallet.
• The money is split in one step. Your share goes to you and our small fee goes to us. We never hold your money, even for a moment.

Because the payment settles in seconds, you know it has arrived before the customer has put their phone away. Each payment is also written to a public record that anyone can look up, so you and your customer can both check it. See the public record for real examples.

What does it cost?

For everyday payments the fee is 1% of the payment, with a $0.30 minimum on each one. There is no monthly fee and no setup fee. If you take bookings, memberships, invoices or gift cards, those come with extra services and the fee is 2%. There is also a small network cost for sending a payment, which is separate from our fee.

What does that look like? On a $100 payment you keep $99. On a $10 payment the minimum applies, so the fee is $0.30 and you keep $9.70. If you want to compare this with card payments, we worked through the numbers in card fees versus digital-dollar fees.

Who it suits

Payment links work well when you are not in a fixed place, or when your customers are far away:

• Someone who cuts hair, trains clients or tutors, and wants a deposit before the appointment.
• A small shop that sells to customers in other cities or countries, where card payments are slow or costly.
• A freelancer who sends one link at the end of a job instead of chasing an invoice.
• A market stall or neighborhood shop that wants to take a payment without a card reader.

What your customer needs

Your customer needs a digital wallet with some USDC in it, and a small amount to cover the network cost. This is the honest limit of the idea today: not everyone has a wallet yet. If your customers already pay you by card, keep taking cards too. A payment link is an extra way to be paid, and it suits the customers who already prefer it. We are also working on letting customers pay with other coins they hold, which we explain in pay with any token you hold.

Getting your money into a bank

Many owners keep some of what they earn in digital dollars and move the rest to a bank account when they need it. How you do that depends on where you live and which service you use, and those services set their own fees. Ask what they charge before you choose one. We do not hold your money, so we cannot move it for you, and we would rather say that plainly than leave you to find out later.

A few good habits

• Put the amount and what it is for in the message you send with the link, so the customer is never surprised.
• Keep your receipts. Every payment has a public record you can point to if there is ever a question.
• Decide your refund rules before you send the link. When you approve a refund, the customer collects it themselves.
• Check our status page if a payment ever looks slow.

Ready to try it? Write to us on Telegram or email hello@access0x1.com, tell us what you sell, and a real person will help you set up your first link. You can also read how we keep payments safe on our security page.