Want to eventually sell plugins, but curious easiest / best ways to do this.
Any favorite sites / online e-commerce apps that make it easy to do custom layouts, embed demo videos, take credit card, send download via email, etc?
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We use Wordpress with Paddle for payments, elementor for page building, a service for licensing our plugins which I can’t name and MailChimp and Aws lambda for CRM automations. But I’m sure there are way easier solutions for starting out small.
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I’m using a Jekyll back end (static html generator) into S3/CloudFront with a Stripe payment link. The payment link handles licensing using a Heroku Python webhook and emails via HelpScout. It’s pretty easy to work with, everything can be deployed through continuous integration which has been a real time saver. There are some pretty decent themes and everything can be edited using markdown. So pretty easy for a solo programmer to maintain.
You can be the judge if the end result is actually any good at all: https://apu.software/
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If all you want is to sell your plug-ins and you don’t need your own website, itch.io is a great marketplace to do so!
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that was shockingly easy to setup, thanks for recommending it
can vouch for this, its absolutely insane how easy itch.io is to set up!
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Now I remember setting it up and later closing it because 100% of sales were coming direct from https://apu.software/ — it didn’t seem to get any traffic from itch itself so seemed pointless
Something to be aware of when selling plugins is that to do it legally, you’re obligated to pay VAT to the country where the customer is located. So simply using a Stripe payment link will not be enough unfortunately. Stripe does have some tools like Stripe Tax that can handle the tracking of sales per territory for you (at the cost of a % cut), but they won’t do the actual tax filing, nor company registration.
Luckily, if you’re not big enough to handle global VAT yourself, there are plenty of gateways that act as a Merchant of Record, where they take on the role as a reseller and handles all VAT for you. It’s been mentioned in the thread, but Fastspring, Paddle, GumRoad, and more will all handle this for you. Some of these also offer hosted storefronts, although in my experience, none are really “great”. Same goes for their download links, licensing integrations, etc. I’ve always ended up writing an insane amount of hacky integration code to make them shine the way my storefronts should.
I have quite some experience building plugin storefronts, so feel free to DM me for more insights!
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I wish you were right @tareqdayya , but any research you’ll do online will show that for business registered anywhere in the world, they will be eligible to pay VAT or sales tax to the country in which the customer is located, and therefore the sale took place. Be aware that digital products are considered very differently than physical products that go through border customs.
For example:
EU: https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/taxation/vat/vat-digital-services-moss-scheme/index_en.htm
Japan: Tax Reform : Ministry of Finance
UK: VAT rules for supplies of digital services to consumers - GOV.UK
I can go on all day with examples from other countries, many of which you also need to have a local agent. VAT globally is painful, so find someone to help you be a merchant of record if you can!
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You are incorrect. Since 2015 the EU mandates that you collect VAT from the customer and forward that collected VAT to one of their member states for all e-commerce sales.
Sure, you can simply say “they can’t do anything about it, since they can’t reach me” but that doesn’t make it less illegal, and if they can assume that you’re crossing certain thresholds with your VAT fraud, their motivation to get an international arrest warrant goes up.
Many countries have enacted similar laws in recent years. Japan, for example, wants 10% on all electronic sales to Japan. South Korea as well.
Navigating this is a nightmare as countries change their laws, adjust percentages, etc. once in a while. You’re better off using an established, trustworthy reseller like ShareIt, Cleverbridge, etc. to handle all that stuff for you.
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I refuse to argue with someone who basically says, “The laws don’t apply to me, I won’t get caught, so don’t worry about it.”
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If you sell to a person in Germany, you are obliged to collect 19% VAT and pay it to the German authorities.
If you don’t want to do that, you have to geo-block Germany from your store.
There is an exception, if you can prove that the business is B2B, i.e. the supplier has a legit business address and/or a VAT-ID, you can shift the oblication to the client (reverse charge), which usually means there is no VAT to be collected, because the same you would pay you can claim back.
This is the system how it works in all countries who have VAT, and most (including the USA) have treaties that they support that scheme, even if they don’t have VAT in their own country.
IANAL, but that is how I deal and what I was told by professional advise.
Which is what I would recommend, get professional advise.
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Ignoring the tax concerns and focusing more in the licensing concerns (you should just use paddle though), Easy Digital Downloads (an e-commerce plugin for Wordpress) has a software licensing extension that auto-generates alphanumeric keys on purchase of different products, and has a REST API that you can interface with for activating / deactivating / checking licenses. It works fine for us.
I understand where you are coming from with this statement, but i do want to try and re-emphasize the importance of this.
(i’m not a lawyer, no liability taken for anything that happens based off following this advice)
You dont live in the EU, you arent an EU Citizen and you Dont have a business in the EU. This is all completely ok for selling to EU customers, but it is important that you understand what the implications of ignoring laws from other countries could mean. You could be charged with tax evasion or similar charges due to your failure to pay the correct taxes in the regions you sell your software in.
To sell a product (physical or digital) in the EU, you will need to follow the rules for selling things in the EU regardless if you are an EU citizen / have an EU business. This applies the other way aswell for some countries. (see: Conquering the EU Market: Selling Software with Success)
An example of selling from the EU to other regions (personal experience):
I sell my audio plugins online where people from the USA, Asia and a lot of other regions. Even though I do not live there, I need to follow the appropriate laws in other countries when I sell my software. This is because I am technically selling something in a different country and International business laws will apply, as well as local ones. This mainly means managing tax for american consumers for me, which can be tedious if you dont know what you’re doing.
Solving the complicated tax problem
Thankfully I’ve found that using services like Stripe help me to automatically manage tax collection, the main issue that’s been mentioned. They have a tax management service built-in and it lets me focus on more important things like development. It also works out well since I can link it to my itch io page as well as a paypal account.
EDIT: link to stripe tax management → Stripe Tax | Tax Automation with a Single Integration
This is just a recommendation and I am by no means a financial advisor, but if I was in your shoes, I would start using an automated service for tax management when dealing with international transactions / sales. It removes a lot of the complexity from selling things and can help guarantee that you dont break international business laws.
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Here EU VAT is very clearly explained (just an example, I have nothing in common with the company behind): The Ultimate Guide to EU VAT for Digital Taxes
If you are in the UK (which is not in the EU) and you make supplies of digital services to consumers within the EU (which applies to selling plug-ins) then you must charge the VAT due in the customer’s country.
VAT accounting options for UK businesses supplying digital services to consumers in the EU
The place of supply will be where the consumer is located. You must either:
- register for the Non-Union VAT MOSS scheme in an EU member state
- register for VAT in each EU member state where you supply digital services to consumers
If you supply digital services and your customer does not give you a VAT registration number, you should:
- treat it as a business-to-consumer supply
- charge the VAT (or equivalent) due in the customer’s country
Here is lots of detail on the the UK government website:
If you are in the UK the rules provided by the UK government are very clear.
I would imagine there are similar rules for residents of other non-EU countries.
Do not rely upon tax information provided on this forum. Pay an accountant for advice.
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@tareqdayya , if you are selling software to customers in the EU without paying the VAT to the countries where your customers live, the risk of getting caught is now much higher in 2024.
According to
As of January 2024, the European Union (EU) will require payment processors like Stripe and PayPal to report cross-border data to EU VAT authorities, which they will use to pursue legal action against noncompliant buyers and — based on our projection — potentially even ban them from selling in EU countries down the line.
…
If you are a US-based software business making more than 25 sales per quarter in Europe, it will get logged by your payment processor in a database called the Central Electronic System of Payment Information (CESOP), which is accessible to the relevant local authorities.
…
In the European Union, there are no thresholds to cross before becoming liable for VAT; businesses must handle VAT from their very first transaction.
…
Plainly put: If you’re selling in EU countries and not handling EU VAT properly, you run the risk that payment processors like Stripe or PayPal will block your ability to sell in Europe — whether in specific countries or the entire EU.
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Yep. And “potentially even ban them from selling in EU countries down the line”. Not sure you should take that risk
I signed up to join and read through the agreement. Overall, I thought the agreement felt reasonable, being non-exclusive and having control over the discount pricing and whatnot.
The main point of hesitation I ran into was when researching how people perceive the company and site. There seems to be lots of frustration with the promotions being aggressive/annoying. Sounds like there’s a large existing user-base who really aren’t interested in anything but the core software so they have a negative connotation with the marketplace.
It’s also unclear how much traffic/sales being listed on the site will actually bring. The combination of those two makes it difficult to assess whether or not it’s overall “worth it” to be listed on the site since there’s a bit of risk of damage to brand and an unclear upside.
Hope that’s helpful, just my honest impression and I’m still giving it consideration!
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Hey @caustik thank you for taking the time to write your feedback and I’m glad to hear you are still considering joining. I am more than happy to jump on a call with you to answer some of your questions/concerns (since we are in talks already I will email you)
As for the existing user base question, MuseHub being part of Muse Group (Ultimate-Guitar, Audacity, MuseScore …) has a wide reach into the musician and music creator community, we are also continuously working on expanding our reach and traffic beyond existing users.
Most importantly and worth expanding on, the platform puts developers like you in control, as you mentioned, you can control your discounts and participations in any promo, flexible pricing options and localization to major markets, no code DRM & licensing solutions and much more
Cheers