Rung 5 of 12
Getting Paid
The distance between "person with a website" and "business" is one working payment link. Not a shopping cart, not a "payments strategy" — a link you can text to a customer that puts money in your bank account two days later.
What you don't need
You don't need a merchant account, a meeting at a bank, an LLC first (in most cases), a point-of-sale system, or anyone's "commerce plan." That entire layer of ceremony was real twenty years ago and is now sales theater. Stripe and Square exist precisely so that a person with a bank account can take cards this afternoon.
What the fee actually means
Card processing costs 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction, and it's worth doing the arithmetic once so the number stops being abstract:
| You charge | Fee | You keep |
|---|---|---|
| $20 | $0.88 | $19.12 |
| $50 | $1.75 | $48.25 |
| $200 | $6.10 | $193.90 |
About 3%. That's the honest cost of "we take cards." Compare: platforms that take 20% of revenue forever as the price of using their builder. The difference between a processing fee and a landlord is the entire reason this rung insists the Stripe account is yours.
The setup, demystified
Stripe signup asks real questions — legal name, address, bank account, what you sell — because it's moving actual money and the law requires knowing who you are. Answer plainly; "sole proprietor" is a fine answer and most members are one. Fifteen minutes, and the scary-sounding parts are just forms.
The payment link
Inside Stripe: create a payment link — name the thing, set the price, get a URL. That URL is a complete checkout: card form, receipt, deposit to your bank. Text it, email it, put it behind the button on your one-page site. Test mode lets you rehearse the whole flow with a fake card before anything is real.
With the copilot — membership, $9.99/mo
The copilot walks the Stripe signup with you question by question (including the "what do I put here" moments the forms don't explain), then builds your first payment link, runs a test-mode dry run with you, and wires the link to the button on your site.
The milestone — checkable, not a vibe
A live payment link, in a Stripe (or Square) account in your own name, that has moved at least one real test transaction end-to-end — and you can state what the fee on a $50 sale is without looking it up.
Everything on this page is free to use on your own. The membership is the copilot doing it with you — a coach that remembers your business and your progress — plus a milestone review before you climb. $9.99 a month, cancel anytime — and we expect you to.