Getting paid is a pain point for a lot of freelance bloggers. We mainly face these three questions: How, how often, and how much?
Now, how much you charge depends on a lot of factors including niche, experience and confidence. How often depends on whether you are getting paid monthly, weekly, per post and/or if you are charging a retainer for the privilege of receiving your kickass services. (Go, you! I’m so proud!)
And the how part is often solved through a mutual love for PayPal, the most popular online payment processor.
Ah, I love PayPal. Or I used to.
I used it religiously for getting paid, shopping online, and paying for stuff. How could I not? It’s easy to use, comes with a ready template for billing clients, and there’s no minimum amount at which you can withdraw the money to your linked bank account. Whether it is 5 bucks or 5000, you can withdraw it to your bank, and it is free to do so.
Then PayPal got lazy, didn’t comply with some of the business regulations in Turkey, and being an international writer became even more difficult. And Turkey isn’t the only country where PayPal doesn’t work in. This is a problem because editors are increasingly using PayPal as their preferred payment method. Fees are a lot less compared to checks, and some writers even figured out how to pay even less in transaction fees.
There are reputable marketplaces where you are matched with clients according to your experience and selected niches. ClearVoice is one of them. Guess the only way they pay their writers.
PayPal is also the default payment method for most merchants, so this negatively affects your affiliate income as well.
So what are alternative payment methods?
Outside PayPal: Check, wire transfer, gift cards and Payoneer
Check isn’t a viable option when you are working internationally: One editor didn’t trust PayPal, and check was more convenient for her than bank transfers. I decided to give it a go. After all, a lot of publications still send checks. She owed me $75. Guess how much I ended up with after banks on both sides got their share? 15. Unfortunately, I’m not kidding.
One editor couldn’t figure out a way to pay me outside of PayPal. His company had adjusted everything around it, and he probably didn’t care for the extra hassle. And I grew tired of the constant back and forth emailing. So we came to an interesting compromise: He paid me with a virtual Amazon gift card. While it is not a deal I will accept often, it worked just fine for that one time. Let’s face it: as a compulsive reader and writer, I shop on Amazon a lot.
Washington Post paid via bank transfer, making life much easier. This is not something they did to accommodate me, however. It’s their default, as far as I know.
Most of the other payment options didn’t include my country. For instance, Google Wallet is currently only available in the States and the UK, and you can’t transfer money between these two countries.
Others either didn’t have a well-established reputation, or their process seemed too complicated: One allowed me to withdraw money to a personal account, but not to a business account. They told me if it was okay that I was making this money for my business, but I couldn’t risk it.
Of all the seemingly endless but virtually useless-after-upon-close-inspection options, I came upon Payoneer. I dug into their website and billed two of my editors through it.
Getting Paid via Payoneer: Pros and Cons
It’s safe. They ask security questions more often before you can make a transaction.
It takes roughly the same time to access your funds. I had no problems withdrawing the money to my account. It only took 3-5 days, which is the same as PayPal.
You jump through more hoops, though you can argue this makes it safer.
They can randomly require you to fill out a form about your business, where you have to fill in the URL of your refund policy. As a freelancer, I don’t have a refund policy because I get the payment after the article has been accepted or published, so the client has already approved of it anyway.
Of course, I did inquire about it and learned that you just need to link to your website and/or hire me page (even though they also ask you to fill your website’s URL in the same form.)
They also informed me that you could randomly come across the form at any time. So don’t be surprised.
There’s a minimum limit for withdrawals. The bad news is, Payoneer has a minimum limit of $50 before you can make your withdrawal.
You don’t need to order their pre-paid Mastercard if you don’t want to. If you don’t need it, you can just use Payoneer online.
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Yes, I wouldn’t have searched for another option if PayPal was around. And supposedly, they are planning to come back to Turkey in March. Since the majority of the online world uses PayPal, I will be using it again. But Payoneer has the best substitute and complementary service so far.
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How about you? How do you get paid when you can’t use PayPal?
Loved this post! I am preparing to begin working as a freelance writer soon, and one of the things I am most worried about is how I am going to get paid by international clients (I’m based in Brazil, and there aren’t that many job opportunities here). That, and what kind of taxes I am supposed to pay. You just answered one of the questions. Thank you!
Thanks, Andressa! While a lot of pubs insist on paying via PayPal, there are many clients and publications that are open to alternatives. The key is to search for them. And good luck with your journey! 🙂
I didn’t know about any PayPal alternatives until you mentioned them—at least, not in detail! Thank you for the info! 🙂
Sure thing, Rachel. It never hurts to have an alternative! 🙂
Salluma offers alternative methods of payment other than paypal too. Freelancers who are registered and sell their services online can be paid through Stripe or 2Checkout.
I can identify so well with this issue as it’s my top frustrater and obstacle to moving my freelance writing business. I can get jobs because it seems very one pays using PayPal. In this day and age we have a monopoly that controls the purse strings of global workers who want to take on location independent jobs. I can’t seem to find an explanation from PayPal for it.
I do not know how the company communicates so poorly about a griping point that is so loud among Internationals. I can’t say I blame them totally either. The lack of a diversity approach among writing markets facilitates the monopoly. I guess they have their reasons.
I live in Jamaica and PayPal has no affiliation with any of the banks here. I think I heard they weren’t happy to pay some transaction fees or the other. I haven’t verified that. So, to get paid for work done in the US market, I’d have to have a US account it appears.
The problem I have with Payoneer is that I rarely see them mentioned as a payment option in the writer market. I would be most useful if the company curated a list of reported pay markets that accepts the card. That would have added a super useful touch to your article as well. Maybe you can do a follow-up piece that does that.
Nevertheless, I’m happy you brought attention to the issue. I meant something new too. I didn’t know you could bypass the Payoneer card and do the transaction online. I’m also interested in knowing whether the Payoneer options is something you propose to your buyers and how receptive they are to Payoneer as it relates to your writing business.
Thank you for writing about the issue. I myself intend to agitate for banks in my country to give some attention to the issue.
Oops. . . Correction. . . I can’t get jobs because it seems that everyone pays using PayPal.
Karen, I totally understand. There are several markets I want to write for, but they won’t budge from PayPal. Luckily, most editors who are also writers seem to understand your dilemma, and are happy to help you out. And if I see a publication I want to write for but their guidelines say “we pay via PayPal”, I email the editor just in case. I really hate the word monopoly, and not having options drives me crazy. Best of luck with your future transactions. 🙂
Salluma.com uses stripe you can make card payments rather than use PayPal
I use PayPal for all of my online transactions, but it occurred to me recently that I should probably have an alternative method in place, just in case.
I’ll definitely look into Payoneer.
Having a plan B never hurts, Kerry. But I’m still glad you can use PayPal. It makes life easier.
I use PayPal and Payoneer. Being based in Germany, these two seem to work well, with Payoneer fees way lower than PayPal’s. However, I recently took a closer look at Transferwise and set up an account, just in case. I tried once to convince a large US customer to use it, but they were too deep in their own policies and procedures, that being flexible in how they performed payments was not an option.
For instance, a US-based payer would be able to avoid wire transfer and use another payment option (ACH Bank Debit), with which they don’t pay additional fees. Also, there is no intermediary bank with Transferwise. All the payer has to do would be to sign up, which only takes 1-2 minutes. The calculator (on the main page) will show the amount saved depending on the transferred amount.
Hi Anca,
Thanks for commenting. Having alternatives is great. I still look forward to PayPal’s return, though. Its absence has affected my affiliate income as well.
What I use is 2checkout. They allow you to send out invoices to clients with the exact amount and your client can pay the invoice using Card or PayPal. You can withdraw your money into Payoneer or transfer it to your local account with charges of course.
I will check them out, Aisha! Thanks for the suggestion.
Salluma.com uses stripe you can make card payments rather than use PayPal
Had terrible experience with Payoneer. It promised to be cheaper than PayPal, but it finally appeared not. It took 2 months just for getting the first payment. Other payments never happened as Payoneer do not recognized the payer as corporate account (same payer that sended the first payment successfully).
Support knows nothing, just made me running circles, problem was not resolved, I lost 2 months and money.
Hey Sagar,
Sorry to hear you had such a bad experience. My experience has so far been positive, and I got what I was owed pretty quickly. Maybe this was when they were newer and had infrastructure issues? Not an excuse of course, but it could explain some of the problems you had.
PayPal has many fans (I was one), but one editor said she had a horrible experience and refused to use it to pay me.
Did you write about your experience online? Most companies will do a lot to deal with a negative review, especially if the review gains transaction.
I’m a long-time user of Payoneer and I love it! They have definitely improved since I first started using them a few years back and so far, I’ve had success. At one point, I also used Skrill but they turned out to be the biggest scammers I’ve ever come across! Luckily, I only had a few bucks left on that account and cancelled it almost immediately.
I live in a country where PayPal came only recently and just for shopping purposes – so we can’t receive payments. I’m sure there are many other options out there, but until I find some, Payoneer is my way to go!
Thank you for the useful info Pinar!
So glad you found it useful. I only wish it becomes more popular but stays working in as many countries. 🙂
I’ve never heard of Payoneer so I’m glad I ran across this blog post, Pinar! I just got my first client and they refuse to use PayPal. I’m still getting paid but it’s still odd that they didn’t have PayPal. I understand now why I shouldn’t depend on PayPal or Stripe as much. Thank you for this valuable insight!
Hi Lizzie,
While I hope that PayPal comes back, even if only to get paid from only-PayPal editors and earn more through affiliate marketing, I am happy Payoneer exists. It solved a lot of my problems. Glad my post was helpful!
Hi, I live in Bolivia and use Payoneer to cash from Amazon Kindle, now I want to go a step further and open a Dropshippong Business with Shopify or Aliexpress, the tech skills are not a problem, but I had to stop when reading about the payment methods, of course we dont have Paypal in our country, any advice would be apreciated. Thanks
In our country Paypal not available. We are waiting for Paypal for long years. Thanks a lot for your adavice regarding Card instead of Paypal.