Share Question — Clarity

the startups.com platform about startups.comCheck out the new Startups.com - A Comprehensive Startup University

Categories

Browse Search

Loading...

How can I test payment models for an app without having a company to get an account with payment processors such as Stripe?

I have decided to postpone the launch of my company until I know I have something worthy of making such an investment. I want to make sure people will be willing to pay and that I have some numbers to analyze before bootstrapping it any longer. Thanks for helping!

Payment Systems

Payment Card Processing

Scott Vedder answered

If you're asking about processing point-of-sale payments, have you considered using the smart phone tools available from Square, PayPal or QuickBooks? You don't need to have a formal business entity structure to use these. A sole proprietorship is a viable business model to conduct some sales and test payments.

Rod Katzfey answered

Depending on the size of your test you could always establish a "TEST" account with a gateway/payments provider that understands this is a primary step for your proof of concept.

Phillip Parker answered

If I understand your question correctly, you could test with Stripe or PayPal without any extensive development, cost, or commitment. Otherwise, you could just use a secured form to test conversion.

P. Faisal Islam answered

To be honest, if your product targets the high value use case, people will pay whatever you charge. http://avc.com/2015/07/bootstrap-your-network-with-a-high-value-niche-use-case/

The other thing you could do is look at competitors and see what they charge, and how are they missing out.