Today represents an important milestone for Zaprite as a company in executing on our strategy to enable businesses to receive bitcoin payments and shift to a bitcoin standard. Earlier this morning, we released our Payment Links product which is designed to be the perfect complement to our existing Business Invoices in addition to a number of important enhancements to how our customers can connect wallets and receive bitcoin. We’ve also released our monthly and annual fixed fee subscription plans, which is how we plan to charge customers rather than taking a percentage of every transaction.

Vision for Zaprite and bitcoin payments

Zaprite enables bitcoin payments for businesses, but we are not a payment processor. Our goal is to reduce the friction in receiving bitcoin directly as a method of payment so more businesses will be empowered to do so. Users all over the world can sign up with just an email and be fully set up within minutes to receive bitcoin as payment, either directly to a non-custodial wallet or by linking a custodial account. 

As a business, we are specifically focused on enabling businesses (or individuals) issuing invoices in bitcoin and/or selling goods or services online through ecommerce stores and checkouts. We focus on these two types of transactions because both are popular early use cases of bitcoin payments, the payment experience is nearly identical from an interface perspective for each, and the product development overlap is also so great that we expect to enable far more businesses, with limited incremental investment, allowing us to significantly improve our operating leverage. 

Any Zaprite customer can now issue invoices directly to customers–typically for contract and professional services–or create payment links–typically if selling a good or service online. And importantly what further differentiates our platform, there are no “easy withdrawals” from Zaprite because we never touch customer funds. Zaprite users connect their own wallet–onchain and lightning, non-custodial and custodial, xpub and multisig. With today’s release, we’ve added and/or improved various ways our users can receive bitcoin. 

Zaprite users can upload an xpub, whether from a ColdCard, Trezor, Ledger or other hardware or software wallet, or continue to manually include a bitcoin address–and we also now support an integration with Unchained vaults for businesses using multisig–providing a range of non-custodial onchain payments. For lightning payments, users can connect an LND node or a Strike account, now with improved API connectivity as of today that allows direct bitcoin settlement for Strike users. 

Support for xpubs, multisig and Strike’s bitcoin settlement API materially augments our existing connections, and as we move forward, we will be integrating more and more connections–non-custodial and custodial–trusted by bitcoiners all over the world for both onchain and lightning payments. With the launch of Payment Links as a complement to Business Invoices combined with more connections, we expect to materially expand our reach and the broader addressable market for bitcoin payments more generally.  

A Closer Look at Zaprite Payment Links

Our newest feature, Payment Links, allows users to create individual products or services and generate unique URLs to embed or share. Payment Links can be customized with an image, description and tax amount. These URLs are linked up to our hosted, branded Checkouts, allowing users to fully customize the payment flow for their customers. 

We have also added the ability to request specific order information from your customers, such as a name, email or shipping address. If enabled, this information will be required on the Checkout screen before payment can be made, and will be saved with the Order in your Zaprite account. 

The Order Fulfillment feature will be useful for users who are selling items like tickets (name or email) or a physical product like a book (shipping address). Sellers have the ability to mark an item as requiring fulfillment. This will leave the Order in a ‘Paid’ state once purchased, and when fulfillment happens you can mark the Order as Complete.

Our embed button customizer allows users to configure a HTML button to embed on external websites. Using the Organization’s brand color, the copy and styling can be modified to suit specific use cases and designs. Developers can modify the HTML directly by adjusting the hex color or adding CSS ID’s or classes for further customization.

As part of the Payment Links feature, we have incorporated PDF Receipts into the payment flow. All buyers will have the option to download a PDF receipt once their payment has been confirmed. This allows your buyers to remain anonymous, yet still retain proof of payment for your good or service. 

A Simple Subscription Plan – Value for Value

We are passionate about helping our users get paid in bitcoin and receiving payments directly to their preferred wallets or custodial account, without Zaprite ever touching our customers’ funds. We offer a software service to enable payments, rather than processing payments, and we’ve structured our billing model accordingly.

Instead of charging a fixed percentage of transaction value, we have opted to introduce a SaaS model that is consistent with our value-for-value thesis, which closely aligns with the values of our user base. At launch, subscription plans can be paid for in bitcoin or dollars, either monthly or annually. There is currently a 20% discount for paying annually.

Currently, the price is $25 per month if paid monthly (annual equivalent of $300) or $240 if paid upfront for the year. Users who create a new account will receive free access for 30 days, and existing users who have participated in our free beta will have until November to opt-in to a subscription plan.

In the next few months, we plan to add a surcharge (premium) if our users pay in dollars to incentivize payment in bitcoin. When we launch this for Zaprite subscriptions, we’ll also be releasing the ability for our customers to similarly add premiums and discounts for different payment methods (bitcoin, lightning, or fiat). 

Zaprite users with paid accounts will receive email reminders when their subscription is coming due. Users will have the opportunity to simply pay for the next month or opt-in to an annual plan at any point. If a user ever does not renew or does not pay on time, the user will still be able to access their account on a view-only basis but the ability to create new invoices or payment links will be disabled–and existing templates will be deactivated but still viewable by Zaprite users. An account can also always be restored to full functionality by paying the current month.

We felt the subscription model and this approach to handling non-payment statuses struck the right balance and best aligns incentives with our customer base.

Excited for the Future

We’re excited to enable bitcoin payments for more businesses. 

If you’re an existing user, Payment Links are now live in your account and you also have access to the improved connection functionality as of today, which can be set up under Connections in your navigation bar. If you have any questions, you can email us at support@zaprite.com.

If you’re a prospective new user, you can create an account here or feel free to email us at dropfiat@zaprite.com with any questions.