Want to take Bitcoin as a merchant? Here's an overview of the self-custody options available to you. A simple wallet may suffice for some merchants, but if you need product management, e-commerce integration, or a web interface, these are your three main options. All of these are fully self-custody.
BTCPay Server:
- 100% free software, fully sovereign
- Must run own full node, even pruned node will cost you $20/month in VPS hosting
- Extensive plugin ecosystem, most well-known software, integrates with every ecommerce platform
- Full lightning support
- Funds live on the server
https://btcpayserver.org/
BareBits
- Open source software, relies on block explorers for confirmation, runs on any shared web hosting
- Full lightning support, connect to your lightning wallet via CLINK, NWC, or LNURL
- Optional cashu mint support so you can receive payments with no native inbound liquidity
- Funds never live on the server unless Cashu mint is enabled, they stay safely in your off-server wallet
- Integrates with all BTCPay-compatible e-commerce platforms (WooCommerce, Magneto, etc)
- 1% fee on incoming transactions
https://github.com/BareBits/cashupayserver
Bitcart:
- 100% free software, runs Electrum in backend (thin client/SPV for payment verification)
- Very limited lightning support, no liquidity management
- Integrates with most common ecommerce platforms (Woocommerce but not magneto)
- Must run on VPS, approx $5-$10/month
https://bitcart.ai/
@justin_shocknet just wanted to ping you and let you know that BareBits supports CLINK noffers as a backend option for merchants.
Merchants can setup multiple noffers which are tried in sequence in case a particular nostr relay is offline. Our Electrum plugin enables creating multiple noffers from the same wallet to deal with flaky relays.
Hell yeah, looks good. Will get it added to the lists.
🚀🚀🚀
This is great, thanks for sharing. Merchants in the ~AGORA marketplace would love to know more about your services. But most importantly, what are the main differences when compared with the source has been forked from?
The upstream source uses a cashu mint only system, so it's custodial. Our fork supports cashu mints as an optional feature alongside other payment methods and only falls back to cashu (when enabled) if other lightning payment rails fail. Which makes it a great catch-all for when the destination wallet is offline or doesn't have sufficient inbound liquidity.
Our fork is way more functionality including: on-chain payments, Windows installer, CLINK + NWC + Strike API supports, security enhancements, store product list/menu, wordpress auto-install, submarine swaps, fallback payment methods, e-mail notifications,
Our fork comes with a 1% fee, the upstream is completely free.
Wow, ok, that's a lot more features that I would have expected.
So are you saying that to use it, a merchant should install teh software in a web server, plus (for example in our case) install a wordpress plugin?
Do we need any BareBits account to be able to pay the 1% fee? or is that andled in the backend?
We will be happy to test this out in our playground shop SWAG.btc.pub.
For merchants who aren't using woocommerce, the standalone BareBits software (either installed on a web server or using the Windows installer to install on desktop) also works for invoicing, taking payments, etc.
The Windows installer is more intended for point-of-sale environments since it can't be accessed outside of localhost. But that's fine for just taking and verifying payments on invoices.
For any other e-commerce software, they can just install the BTCPay Server plugin for that software and when prompted to enter their BTCPay Server installation URL, they put in their BareBits URL.
Any plan to have a standalone installer for macos and linux?
Maybe at some point in the future if we get demand for that. An Android version is also hopefully on the horizon.
How much of this software relai on BareBits infrastructure? Let's say tomorrow (hope no - but just in case) BareBits close down. What will be the consequences for all vendors using barebits software?
Good question, there will be no consequences whatsoever, this doesn't rely on any infrastructure hosted by the BareBits devs. The update checker would probably complain that it can't find updates. Fees would fail to redirect but in that case that means your customer payments would go directly to you.
The BareBits devs have no access to any funds or any customer information. And the BareBits software does not rely in any way on the BareBits infrastructure.
The actually more important external dependencies are mempool.space (used to verify an on-chain transaction has been paid) and currency conversion websites (multiple are used) if your primary currency isn't sats.
And of course your cashu mint(s) (if enabled) and submarine swap providers. All is designed to fallback as gracefully as possible to other methods. Cashu is only used in the first place if you have no other LN receiving methods. If that happens, your customers just get an on-chain invoice only, no LN.
What's the difference between
barebits_wordpress_plugin-v1.5.3.zipandbarebits_wordpress_plugin_wporg-v1.5.3.zip?wporg is the version uploaded to the official wordpress plugin repository, it's a slimmed down version that removes the auto-installer for licensing reasons. You want the main (non-wporg) version.
If you have a woocommerce installation you want to use BareBits with, you can either install barebits separately or just install the wordpress plugin and have it install BareBits alongside itself automatically. I would suggest the automatic method.
The benefit of a separate installation would be the ability to have multiple woocommerce stores connecting to the same BareBits installation if you wanted to do that for some reason.
Fees are automatically taken out of incoming payments. The "fee due" gradually accumulates. Once an incoming payment is less than the fee due (for example, say you owe 1000 sats in fees and the incoming payment is 500 sats), that entire payment will be redirected to pay for the fee. This is all shown transparently in the BareBits dashboard and invoice list so you can keep an eye on it. Basically, instead of your customer paying you for that checkout flow, they pay us. We do it in this way to keep the software fully self-custodial.
If you have a cashu mint enabled, fees can also be withdrawn from the cashu mint via lightning once they reach a certain threshold. The cashu mint (if enabled) is the only funds your installation of the BareBits software actually has access to, since all other incoming payments go directly to your off-server wallet via NWC, CLINK, LNURL, Strike API, or on-chain address. Funds in the cashu mint are also automatically swept to your off-server wallets as often as possible to reduce cashu-based risk.
That's really interesting.
Another question I have. Does this wordpress plugin enable another payment gateway in woocommerce or how else it integrate with it?
One reason you might want to have multiple woocommerce stores using the same BareBits installation is if you wanted to offer hosting that as a service to your clients. You might want to do this as a business integrator, consultant, etc.
You can charge a fee on top of our 1% fee to your clients, it's all configurable in the config file. Everything gets transparently redirected like the dev fee.
Note that doesn't require multiple stores, you can add your own fee to a single-store installation.
The BareBits wordpress plugin installs the BTCPay Server for WooCommerce plugin and just points it at the BareBits installation. BareBits is a fully BTCPay compatible API, so any plugin for any ecommerce software that talks to a BTCPay instance can talk to BareBits and won't know any difference.
This also means that for any given woocommerce store, you shouldn't have both BareBits and BTCPay as a payment method, pick one. The installer will warn you about this. We are working on a solution to this but for now that's the situation,
Any feedback you have when using the software, things you find confusing, etc please let us know, we very much value it!