You don’t need a shop, a plugin or a rebuild. A payment link pasted into a post will take money today.
To take payments online from a blog, create a payment link with a checkout provider, paste it into the post where you describe the thing you’re selling, and let the provider handle the card details. Setup takes an afternoon. You’ll pay roughly 2% to 3% plus a fixed fee per sale, and you keep the rest.
That’s the whole mechanism. But the harder question is which route suits what you’re actually selling, and where the money quietly leaks out on the way.
Work out what you’re selling first
Start with what you’re actually selling, because it decides everything that follows. A one-off file, like printables, presets, a recipe collection or a photography guide, is the simplest case, delivered by download link the moment payment clears.
Physical things, prints and cards and small batches of whatever you make, drag postage, packaging and a returns policy along with them. Selling your time, whether that’s consulting calls, workshop places or a paid critique, is really selling a slot in your diary rather than a product.
Sponsored work, however, isn’t a product at all, that’s an invoice that belongs on completely different rails. And anything charged monthly, a paid letter or ongoing access to something you maintain, needs a provider that handles recurring payments, failed cards and cancellations, which quietly rules out several of the simpler options. A lot of blogs start with a download and drift towards the monthly thing, so it’s worth knowing where you might end up before you commit to a setup.
The four routes, and who each one suits
| Route | What it takes to set up | Suits |
|---|---|---|
| Payment link | Minutes. Create a link, paste it in a post | One-off items, testing whether anyone wants the thing at all |
| Embedded checkout | An hour, some copy and paste into your theme | Regular selling where you want people to stay on your site |
| Hosted storefront | An afternoon. Someone else’s page carries your listings | Several items at once, no interest in maintaining anything |
| Full shop | A weekend, then ongoing upkeep | Physical stock, variants, postage rules, a real catalogue |
A great many bloggers install a full shop for one £4 printable and then maintain it forever. Start at the top of that table and move down only when the thing you’re selling forces you to.
What does it cost?
Card processing on a small sale is priced in two parts: a percentage and a flat fee per transaction. The percentage is the bit everyone quotes. The flat fee is the bit that matters when your prices are low.
Sell a £30 print and a 30p fixed fee is a rounding error. Sell a £3 printable and the same 30p is 10% of the sale before the percentage even applies. Bundle low-priced items, or price them high enough to carry the fee.
Providers publish their schedules, and they change, so read the current page rather than a blog post. As an example of how one is laid out, a payment platform for businesses Whop, charges 2.7% plus $0.30 per transaction on domestic cards, adds 1.5% for international cards, and another 1% where a currency conversion is needed. Its fees are published in US dollars. Different platforms price differently, and a couple of them take a cut of the sale rather than a card fee, which works out very differently at low prices.
Whatever you pick, find the dispute fee before you need it. That’s the number people discover at the worst moment.
Selling to people outside the UK
Physical goods and downloads are treated differently, and the difference catches people out.
When you sell a file to a consumer in the EU, VAT is generally due in the country where the buyer lives, from the first sale, with no threshold to shelter behind. Some platforms handle that for you by acting as the supplier of record. Others hand you the problem. It’s worth ten minutes on the government guidance before you list anything downloadable, and worth asking any provider you’re considering whether they collect and remit that tax or leave it with you.
Physical items are simpler for small sellers, though postage abroad rarely is.
Setting it up without breaking anything
- Pick one item. The one people already email you about.
- Create the payment link, set the price, add a short description and turn on whichever payment methods your readers actually use.
- Write the post properly. Nobody buys from a paragraph and a button.
- Test it with your own card, then refund yourself. Check the receipt email reads like a real business.
- Add the link to two or three older posts that already get traffic.
- Watch what happens for a month before changing anything.
Step five does more than step two. Existing posts have readers; new ones need finding.
When the money starts arriving
Irregular income is easy to absorb without noticing, which is exactly how a good month turns into nothing in particular. Set a percentage aside for tax the day each payment clears, and keep the rest visible rather than letting it merge into everyday spending. It’s the same trap as a pay rise, and the same fix as the one in beat lifestyle inflation.
Register as self-employed with HMRC once you go past the £1,000 trading allowance in a tax year. Keep every receipt that relates to the work.
