PayPal and Stripe Skip Your Country. Payhip Pays You Through 13 Processors, at the Moment of Purchase

Why this pays

The file is not the hard part. The hard part is that the two processors every tutorial assumes, PayPal and Stripe, do not receive money where you live, so the store you were about to build has no way to pay you. Pick the store by the payout route first and the same file sells from Lagos, Jakarta, Mumbai or Istanbul as easily as from London.

The third row is the play. Payhip does not pay you; your own connected processor does, instantly, so the only country question left is whether one of its 13 processors covers you. For most of Africa, South and Southeast Asia and Turkey, one does.

The play, in three lines

1. Look your country up on the two 119-country bank lists. There: open that store and upload this afternoon.
2. Not there, but PayPal receives where you live: take the USD route on Gumroad or Lemon Squeezy.
3. Neither: open Payhip, connect Paystack, Flutterwave, Xendit, Razorpay or Iyzico under Payment Details, then upload the file, set the price, make it Visible. The first sale lands in your own account before the buyer's download finishes.

The path above walks every click. What follows is the reasoning behind each step and the numbers you quote from.

Where the money comes from

• Buyers on your own link. A stranger anywhere in the world with a card. Payhip's processors take cards from buyers in over 180 countries in Razorpay's case; Paystack, Flutterwave and Xendit take local cards and bank methods your buyers already use.
• Not the platform. Gumroad, Lemon Squeezy, Sellfy and Shopify hold the buyer's money and pass it on by their rules. Payhip never holds it at all.
• Nobody in 18 countries, on Lemon Squeezy. It cannot accept payments from customers in Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, North Korea, the Russian Federation, Syria, Yemen and nine more. Know that before you promise a buyer there.

The pain you are selling the cure for

The buyer wants the file now, paid for with the card in their pocket, and a download link that works. The pain is entirely yours: a store that lets you build the whole page, take the sale, and then shows a balance you cannot withdraw, because the payout country dropdown does not have your country in it. Done in the right order, payout route before product page, the whole thing takes an afternoon. Done in the other order, it ends with money on a screen.

Step one: the bank lists

• Gumroad pays direct bank deposit in 119 countries, each in a named local currency; 29 of them carry a higher local minimum than its standard $100, for example 600 THB in Thailand and 40,000 KRW in Korea.
• Lemon Squeezy pays bank transfers in its own list of 119 countries, converted at the mid-market rate. One footnote: since May 2024 Stripe accepts new accounts from India by invitation only, so an Indian seller without an approved Stripe account is paid through PayPal instead.
• Shopify Payments covers 40 countries and regions; anywhere else the store must use a third-party provider and pays 2% on those payments on top of the plan.
• The chart above puts the three lists side by side.

Step two: the PayPal fallback

• Gumroad, where bank deposits are not available: PayPal, in USD, usually within 1 to 3 business days, 2% processing fee. Nothing else: no Payoneer, Wise, check, money order or wire.
• Lemon Squeezy: PayPal in 200+ countries and regions, always in USD, to a verified Personal or Business account.
• The catch is PayPal's, not theirs. PayPal does not let accounts registered in some countries receive money, and Gumroad names the result for Zambia, Syria, Russia and Iraq, where it has no bank route either and therefore currently no way to pay a creator.

Step three: bring your own processor

• Payhip's 13 processors: PayPal, Stripe, Mollie, Square, Mercado Pago, Flutterwave, Paystack, Xendit, Midtrans, PayU, Razorpay, Iyzico and PayTabs. In most cases a seller connects PayPal plus one other for cards.
• Paystack: Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa. Flutterwave: Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda, Rwanda, Zambia, Tanzania and Cameroon. Xendit: Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. Razorpay: sellers in India. Iyzico: sellers in Turkey.
• Sellfy takes only a PayPal or Stripe account that can receive payments in your country; where neither can, it lets you offer only free products. A door for the first two groups, not this one.

Step four: connecting it

• In the Payhip dashboard: Account, top right, then Settings, then the Payment Details tab. The gateways available in your region are listed; See All Payment Options shows the full 13.
• PayPal and Stripe connect through on-screen prompts, Link PayPal Account or Accept Payments With Stripe.
• Paystack connects with two keys: click Connect, log in to Paystack, open its API Keys page, paste the Public Key and Secret Key into Payhip, then paste Payhip's webhook URL into Paystack's Webhook URL field. The Payhip account currency must match the Paystack currency.
• Paystack payments reach your account instantly after each transaction. Paystack's own fee, 1.5% + NGN 100 locally and 3.9% + NGN 100 internationally, is Paystack's, not Payhip's.

Step five: the file, the price, the page

• Payhip: Products, Add new product, Digital Product. Upload with the Upload product file button, each file up to 5GB; an EXE, ISO, DMG, VBS, SCR or JAR only inside a ZIP.
• Title, price, cover image, an embedded audio or video link if you have one, a description that says what the buyer gets. A plus after the price sets pay-what-you-want: 0+ allows any amount including free, 5+ sets a $5 floor.
• Keep the product Invisible while the page is being refined, Unlisted for a direct-link launch, Visible for the store. Advanced options hold variations, an ebook flag for reduced EU VAT, a preview file, a sales limit and licence keys.
• Gumroad's page is the same shape: New product, a type, a price from free to USD 5,000 with the same plus, a description, files and pages on the Content tab, publish. Neither charges anything to open the store.

What each door keeps

• Gumroad: 10% + $0.50 per transaction through your own profile or links.
• Lemon Squeezy: 5% + 50c, plus 1.5% for international cards, 1.5% for PayPal and 0.5% for subscriptions; no monthly fee.
• Payhip Free Forever: 5% on every transaction, and the processor's own fee on top.
• Sellfy: $29 a month after a 14-day trial, or $22 a month yearly, for up to $10k of sales a year, plus the processor's typical 2.9% + 30c.
• Shopify Basic: 19 US$ a month paid yearly or $25 paid monthly, plus 2% on third-party payments.
• The $20 file page works one sale through every cut.

The hold, the floor, and the weekday

• Payhip and Sellfy: no payout cycle. The money is in your processor at purchase.
• Gumroad: a minimum balance of $100 USD, or the higher local minimum; sales through the previous Friday paid after a 7-day hold, weekly, monthly or quarterly, daily for US users only. The weekday depends on the bank's country: Tuesday for most, Wednesday for euro and 16 other countries, Thursday for US banks, Friday for PayPal. Bank transfers take 2 to 7 business days.
• Lemon Squeezy: $50, below which the payout stays Pending and rolls over weekly. Payouts are created on the 1st and 15th, net sales are held 13 days and released on the 14th and 28th, then 1 to 5 days to the bank. A sale on the 4th is paid on the 28th.
• Set the launch date knowing which of those clocks you are on.

The clause about changing country

One Gumroad line deserves its own step. Unpaid amounts sit on a connected account specific to one country and cannot move to a new country's account, so changing your payout country forfeits them; the confirmation dialog names the amount and asks you to type I understand. If you are moving, withdraw to zero first.

What ends it

• Gumroad may halt sales and suspend or terminate an account at any time, in its sole discretion, without cause or notice.
• Shopify may reject an application or cancel an existing account for any reason, at its sole discretion.
• Payhip may permanently delete an account for banned content without notice.
• The quiet advantage of bringing your own processor: the money already left before any of those clauses could hold it.

What to do today

1. Look your country up on the two 119-country lists.
2. There: open that store and upload the file this afternoon. Not there, PayPal receives: take the USD route.
3. Neither: open Payhip, connect Paystack, Flutterwave, Xendit, Razorpay or Iyzico under Payment Details, upload the file, set the price, make it Visible.