SAAS PAYMENTS
How to Accept Payments for an AI App Without a Company
Anyway Team
· 7 min read ·
To accept payments for an AI app without a company, apply to a Merchant of Record as an individual, publish a hosted payment link, attach a server-side purchase reference, verify the paid-order webhook, grant access once, and add a supported payout account. Anyway combines those steps with transaction-tax handling for approved AI products.
The eight-step setup
Choose what the customer buys.
Publish a reviewable product website.
Apply to Anyway as an Individual.
Create the product and price.
Add the payment link to the app.
Verify signed payment events.
Fulfill the order idempotently.
Add a payout account and reconcile revenue.
What you need before accepting payments
Prepare the product before checkout. Anyway's current onboarding documentation asks for an HTTPS website or product URL, public pricing, a support email, product information, and the required applicant details through its secure Business dashboard.
Your website should make four things easy to verify:
What the AI app does
What the customer receives
How much and how often the customer pays
How the customer obtains support or requests a refund
Describe the actual product. If the app sells access to an image model, the merchant application, pricing page, and checkout should all describe that same service.
Step 1: Choose a paid unit
Pick one commercial unit for the first version.
Subscription access
Charge a daily, monthly, or yearly amount for a plan with stated features and limits. A monthly Pro plan might include 300 generations and a maximum image size.
One-time credits
Sell a fixed credit pack before the customer consumes model or GPU resources. The paid order adds credits in your application; your own ledger subtracts them as the user runs the tool.
One-time product
Sell a prompt pack, plugin, model file, dataset, or desktop application. Release the file or license after a verified paid order.
Start with the model that is easiest to explain. AI costs can vary by usage, but a confusing five-axis price table creates checkout questions before it creates revenue.
Step 2: Publish the product website
Put the product on an HTTPS domain with a working pricing page. State whether credits expire, whether a subscription renews automatically, and what happens when the user reaches a limit.
Include terms and a refund policy that match the delivery. An instantly delivered download needs different wording from an ongoing subscription. Do not copy another company's policy without checking the consumer rules that apply to the legal seller and buyer.
Use the AI SaaS Merchant of Record guide to map seller, tax, and payout responsibility before launch.
Step 3: Apply to Anyway as an Individual
Open Anyway Business and choose the Individual account type. Complete the guided applicant, product, and support sections directly in the secure dashboard.
For founders in China, Anyway also documents Alipay and mainland China bank accounts as supported payout routes.
Anyway's Individual path lets eligible founders apply with their own product and applicant details instead of setting up an overseas company first.
Step 4: Create the AI product
In Business, enter the product name, description, price, and currency. Create either a one-time or supported recurring Card/USD payment link.
Publishing returns an official customer-facing URL:
Use the paymentLinkUrl returned by Anyway. Do not reconstruct the path from another internal ID.
Step 5: Attach the payment to your user
Create a pending purchase on your server before redirecting the buyer. Give it an opaque ID such as PUR_456, then add that ID and the internal user ID to the link:
Anyway preserves these query parameters in merchantMetadata. Keep them limited to opaque internal references such as purchase, user, and acquisition-source IDs.
The server record remains the authority for product and price. Metadata only helps correlate the checkout with that record.
See the complete payment links for SaaS guide for link creation, merchant references, and verified fulfillment.
Step 6: Verify the signed webhook
Create a public HTTPS endpoint under Business profile → Developers → Webhooks. Cache Anyway's published Ed25519 public key and verify the webhook-signature against this exact byte sequence:
Verify before parsing JSON. Anyway's current Node.js and Python examples use a five-minute timestamp window, giving the application a precise recency check alongside the signature.
The event to fulfill is order.paid. A browser success page is useful for navigation, but it is not the server's proof of payment.
Use the SaaS payment webhook guide for the full Ed25519 verification and idempotency flow.
Step 7: Fulfill exactly once
Use webhook-id as the delivery idempotency key. Anyway provides a stable ID across delivery attempts, so the application can process each business action exactly once and preserve the newest state.
Before adding credits or unlocking the plan, compare:
statusproduct.idamountCentscurrencymerchantReference
For a credit pack, record the order ID beside the ledger transaction. For a subscription, store the Anyway subscriptionId and update access from subscription lifecycle events.
Return a 2xx quickly after durable enqueueing. Move model provisioning, email delivery, and analytics into a queue. This works cleanly with Anyway's documented delivery and retry behavior.
Step 8: Add the payout account
After verification is approved, add a supported payout account in Finance. The current routes include Alipay, mainland China bank, US ACH, UK bank, and Hong Kong bank accounts.
The minimum payout request is $50. Finance clearly labels the available balance that is ready for a new payout request.
Finance ties eligible posted Card/USD sales to the order ID and records gross amount, Anyway fee, and net seller amount. Reconcile from those posted values instead of estimating the fee in code.
Test before sending real traffic
Run these cases in a test or controlled launch:
First successful payment
Idempotent handling of a repeated
order.paiddeliverySignature and timestamp verification
Product, amount, and currency matching
One-time credit fulfillment
Subscription renewal recording
Period-end lifecycle updates
Order-to-Finance reconciliation
A strong test proves that one confirmed order creates one accurate entitlement and one traceable finance record.
How Anyway handles the sale
Anyway is the Merchant of Record for covered Business transactions. Its published page says it calculates, collects, and files applicable sales tax, VAT, and GST, issues the invoice, and records net revenue for payout.
Anyway's published transaction price is 3.9% + $0.50, with no monthly or setup fee. The plan includes the MoR service, tax and compliance, billing, and subscriptions.
For a Chinese founder, read how Chinese developers can accept global payments for the verification and local-payout route.
Frequently asked questions
Can I accept AI app payments as an individual?
Yes. Anyway has a documented Individual onboarding flow for eligible founders with a ready product.
Can I charge a recurring subscription?
Anyway documents daily, monthly, and yearly recurring Card/USD subscriptions. Store the subscription status and period end in your app so access follows the paid lifecycle.
Can I sell prepaid AI credits?
Yes. Create a one-time product that represents a fixed credit amount. Your application owns the credit ledger, usage measurement, and limits after the order is paid.
Do I need to build a checkout page?
No. Anyway returns a hosted paymentLinkUrl for each published product link. Add it to the website and use metadata plus webhooks for app integration.
Can Anyway pay out to China?
Anyway's current official documentation lists Alipay and mainland China bank payout accounts. The Finance page also supports US, UK, and Hong Kong bank routes.
Take the first real payment
The shortest path is one paid unit, one product page, one hosted link, and one idempotent fulfillment handler.
Anyway supplies the Merchant of Record sale, hosted checkout, order records, transaction-tax handling, subscriptions, and supported payout routes. Create your Anyway account and connect the first approved AI product.