How payments work
Digital wallets
To send (and receive) payments, you must have an account with a compatible digital wallet, discussed more in the next section. Not all digital wallets support sending payments with Web Monetization.
A digital wallet is the entity that supplies you with the financial account you’ll use to make payments. Funding your account typically requires you to link a card or bank account to your wallet or make a deposit into your wallet account.
Since wallet providers are a type of financial entity, they are regulated within the countries they operate. One type of regulation, known as KYC (Know Your Customer), requires such entities to collect personal information and verify your identity before allowing you to open an account.
Web Monetization-compatible digital wallets
You must have an account with a compatible digital wallet to send payments. For a wallet to be compatible with Web Monetization, the provider must implement the Open Payments standard.
Be sure to select a wallet that’s available in your region and supports your preferred currency.
Your wallet provider will assign your account a unique identifier called either a payment pointer or a wallet address. This identifier is kind of like an email address. It is publicly shareable and you will need it when linking your Web Monetization extension to your wallet.
The format of the identifier depends on whether your wallet provider assigned you a payment pointer or a wallet address.
| Identifier name | Example format |
|---|---|
| Payment pointer | $wallet.example.com/alice |
| Wallet address | https://wallet.example.com/alice |
Web Monetization extension
The Web Monetization extension allows you to send payments. It links to your digital wallet account so that it can initiate payments from your wallet on your behalf.
When you set up the extension, you set your budget. Your budget is the max amount that the extension has access to. You can also set the amount that the extension will send per hour. The default is $0.60.
As you browse, the extension checks each page for Web Monetization. When found, the extension grabs the information it needs from the page’s code to set up a payment based on your settings.
You can also choose to send a web monetized page a one-time payment. The amount will be deducted from your budget.
Payments
Your Web Monetization extension acts like a messaging service. It requests information from the recipient’s wallet provider, then passes the information, along with your payment instructions, to your wallet provider. It’s now up to your wallet provider to deduct the payment from your account and send it to the recipient.
Micropayments
If you’re already somewhat familiar with Web Monetization, you may have heard about how it supports micropayments.
In general, a micropayment is a very small payment. Each wallet provider is responsible for a few things:
- Deciding whether to support sending and/or receiving micropayments
- Defining what a micropayment is in the context of their business
Let’s say your wallet provider allows you to send micropayments and defines a micropayment as any payment under $0.05 USD. This means that you could send a single payment of, for example, one US cent. Web Monetization is designed to facilitate payments of even a fraction of a cent; however, you can only send that amount if your wallet provider allows it.