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Paid newsletter services without using Stripe?

It looks like all of the paid newsletter services I can find all use Stripe as their only payment gateway. I'm based in Thailand and Stripe isn't available here, so unfortunately I'm not able to use any of the services.

  • Substack
  • Revue
  • Ghost 3.0 (Supports paid member lists)
  • Qazy

I'm surprised none of them integrate with something as commonplace as PayPal, clearly a big opportunity for the main players in this space.

Others I checked:

  • Tinyletter depreciated their paid mailing lists
  • Mailchimp, surprisingly doesn't have this feature
  • Convertkit doesn't seem to have this feature

Does anyone know of any other solutions?

  1. 2

    I had this exact problem a while back and there is no solution for this. One way to go is to use omise.co or paypal for payments with zapier and mailchimp. Send me a message if you need more info.

    1. 1

      Hey John, I'd be interested to know that workflow, can you share the details?

      1. 1

        Message me on twitter @fulldiv and let me know more info about your project, I'd be happy to help.

    2. 1

      I would be interested in this integration since I use all these services. Message you by twitter?

      1. 1

        you can masage me on twitter @fulldiv

  2. 1

    Is your legal entity registered in Thailand? Could you setup a Stripe account in your home/other country?

    Where in Thailand are you based? I live in Chiang Mai (most of the time) 🙂

    1. 1

      Hey Kyle, not registered as a business in Thailand. I'm originally from the UK but I no longer have a UK bank account or postal address, or any of the other documents Stripe requires to open an account.

      I have thought about creating a Stripe Atlas? https://stripe.com/atlas It's sort of pricey to start, but may be worth it in long run depending on if this business idea is a success.

      I found podia.com which looks perfect, and they accept payouts into a PayPal account, EXCEPT, their recurring payments feature for paid newsletter specifically only works with Stripe, which is weird and very annoying!

      I'm based in Bangkok at the moment - good to see another Thailand-based entrepreneur on these forums :)

      1. 1

        What about getting a virtual UK address and setting up a bank account with someone like Starling, Tide or Monzo? It would be a lot cheaper than using Atlas.

        I switched to Starling Business a few months ago – was painless to set up and can manage the whole thing remotely from your phone (virtual address should forward the card).

        It might be worth jumping through a few extra hoops for Stripe, from experience PayPal can be difficult at times when dealing with digital items, have had a few account locks over the years and a few customers have experienced the same thing. It's almost impossible to get in touch with them too. Could be a factor in why some of the services you've looked at don't support PayPal.

        I was due to fly back via Bangkok a few weeks ago, but my flight got cancelled, I'll give you a shout when I'm back :-)

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