Do you use buymeacoffee.com? Would you be interested in a free alternative?

Question

Hi,
I am thinking about buymeacoffee.com alternative which will be 100% free to use and no advertisements either.

My idea is to monetise it as the other users would: accept support/donations from the users.

Basically, buymeacoffee is turned and heavily influenced by enterprise/corporate thus slowed down feature development.

I plan to add unique features that no other competitors are offering and the features development will be driven by the community itself by supporting and voting for what they want.

Do you think:
- it could work? 
- support it?

Any critics and feedback is welcome. I am thinking about this project since a year. Now that I am on sabbatical, it seems a good time to build it.

Leif Latiff · Accepted Answer

you mean this?

Ben Katz · Answer

LemonSqueezy accepts all popular payment instruments including PayPal. Non-issue to just use LS if you really want PayPal support, and they also let you offer "pay what you want" products.

Are you targeting live streamers? If so, base your product around that specifically. But I also don't think that's much of a problem worth solving - showing a notification with arbitrary text in streaming tools is super easy, I know because I stream on Twitch (okay, I don't use OBS, but Twitch's own streaming app lets you do that in like 2 clicks). Or just include the payment link in the chat.

Still not seeing any value in this solution compared to existing tools

Asad Rizvi · Answer

True, 
I am thinking about a platform that allows you to choose what you wish to do. It will be upto you to enable certain features to it. 
At core, it will be BMAC alternative with different payment methods from all around the world. Perhaps mobile wallets in some countries?

Leif Latiff · Answer

I'm using BuyMeACoffee and happy with it. Also tried Ko-Fi.com, but went back to BMAC. The big question is, what are you trying to solve that these services can't?

PS You're also competing with Patreon and Gumroad, and actually a few other more.

vlad Palacio · Answer

If you call it "buy me a stake" you get my attention :)

Dmitrii Pashutskii · Answer

When I see some product, and I don't see how it makes money, I am very reluctant to use it. 
Those products either make money in shady ways or will die, so I never chose them.

So, how do you plan to make money on it?

Asad Rizvi · Answer

Good question. 

I plan to initiate a page for myself where I will be accepting money to run the platform from the community. 

Since there wont be any bureaucracy, supporters can drive the direction of the platform.

Ofcourse its not possible to run for free for a long term unless I get support hence this question to validate.

Asad Rizvi · Answer

But you cannot use that tool outside twitch, right?
If you have to sell some merchandise as a singer or provide consultancy, etc.

Mostly a content creator tool I have in mind.

Leif Latiff · Answer

I want to add on to the topic of being a "BMAC alternative". BMAC was meant to be a quick place for people to donate or reward good deeds or something, which is normally a one-off thing. 

If you are starting a real business that sells digital products or subscriptions, most people would choose payment platforms like Stripe, LemonSqueezy, or easy-to-use stores like Gumroad. 

I know BMAC did say something about expanding their features, and all that, but the way I look at them, they are just a one-off "thank you for your help" thing.

Asad Rizvi · Answer

Any above restricts your sponsors to support in restrictive manners.
For example, if you use stripe checkout page, you are unable to accept paypal.

If you are live streaming and would like to show notification in OBS (streaming app), its not possible easily.

Accepting multiple payment methods specially mobile wallet payments in Europe and Africa is a huge market compared to USA where plastic money is common.

Asad Rizvi · Answer

I was thinking more about waffles :)

But cool feature to change the name by yourself. Even custom domain.

Ben Katz · Answer

Ok got it. You will still have hosting costs and whatever else. You need some way of reliably paying those bills, so a donation system that is by definition unreliable seems odd. 

For such a simple use case of accepting gratitude I'd just use other products in the space depending on what the gratitude is for (BMAC, LemonSqueezy's hosted checkout, Stripe's hosted checkout, GitHub Sponsors, etc.). I don't think this is a particularly interesting product unless you have some key differentiating feature.

Asad Rizvi · Answer

I am not planning to become a payment processor.
I am merely becoming a platform to integrate your own payment processor.

Imagine shopify with your own bank/stripe/paypal/etc. with only one feature: accept gratitude online.

Ben Katz · Answer

Being a free payment processor doesn't make any sense. You will have to pay credit card processing fees, hosting costs, and other things - how do you plan to cover all of that without charging the customer anything? I know you mentioned you want to make it a donation based platform, but consider a likely scenario where nobody decides to donate anything.

Asad Rizvi · Answer

Regarding competition, I also intend to compete with linktr.ee as well :)

Since its a bio page, you will be able to have https://leifjerami.something/l
for example for your own links page.

Asad Rizvi · Answer

Thank you for your feedback. Few of the things that I would like to solve:

- Ability to add multiple payment methods. You don't necessary have stripe or found a cheaper card processor in your country that processes payment faster and cheaper. You perhaps like to accept paypal, credit cards, ethereum all at once?

- The development is too slow at buymeacoffee. If you look at the feedback board they have, they move at the speed of snail and doesn't necessary go what the user demands.

- Added features. Have the ability to integrate other systems with ease. Calendly for example. You should be able to allow your visitor to reserve a time slot and pay for it (optionally) to avoid no-show for consultancy.

- Ability to sell your merchandise with global tax regulation. a content creator such as a singer might be interested to sell his merchandise to raise funding such as t-shirts, etc.

- Custom domain names. Currently, nobody else is offering that but its a big thing if you does not want to get hit by SEO actually. I would like to point my domain such as https://asadrizvi.mycompany.com but its not possible with BMAC or Ko-fi.

- BMAC charges you 5% commission which is separate than what stripe charge you. I would like to offer freedom to use platform for free and if you like it, donate what you think the platform deserve.

Let me know about the feedback. It made me excited to explain what I had in my diary, lol

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Do you use buymeacoffee.com? Would you be interested in a free alternative?

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