After Stripe rejected my account for the third time, I decided to try something radical: accept crypto directly.
The Problem
I'm building a micro-SaaS — a suite of developer tools. The target price is $9.99 for lifetime access. With Stripe:
- 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction (~$0.59 on $9.99)
- Account freezes and rolling reserves
- Country restrictions (I'm outside the US)
- 2-day settlement delay
The Solution
Users send 9.99 USDC on Polygon directly to my wallet. They paste the transaction hash on my site. web3.py verifies the Transfer event on-chain. That's it.
Results after switching:
- Payment processing cost: $0.00
- Settlement time: ~3 seconds (next block)
- Chargeback risk: Zero
- Geographic restrictions: None
What I Learned
web3.py is incredibly simple. Reading Transfer events is 3 lines of code.
Polygon is perfect for micropayments. $0.01 gas means the $9.99 payment costs the user basically nothing extra.
The "users need crypto" objection is overblown. My audience is developers — most already have MetaMask or know what USDC is.
Direct wallet ownership changes the psychology. The money is in MY wallet seconds after payment. Not sitting in Stripe's account for days.
The Code Is Simple
No payment gateway integration. No PCI compliance. No webhook handlers. Just:
receipt = w3.eth.get_transaction_receipt(tx_hash)
# Parse Transfer events → verify recipient + amount → grant access
Should You Try This?
If your audience is technical and your price point is under $50, crypto payments are genuinely viable. The zero-fee structure is especially compelling for low-price-point products where Stripe's 2.9% + $0.30 eats a significant percentage.
Live: https://asus-bios-attitudes-hung.trycloudflare.com
Happy to answer questions about the implementation!
