
Ask HN: Billing and licensing platform for a Chrome extension? - seanwilson
I&#x27;m working on a Chrome extension (https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.checkbot.io&#x2F;) that I want to charge for. Can anyone recommend a billing and licensing platform for this? Things I&#x27;m looking for:<p>- I want to avoid having to implement or maintain my own server for handling payment details or license verifications as this seems like a lot of work to do right (is it?).<p>- I want the flexibility for payments to be subscription based or one-time purchases plus be able to change the prices of these.<p>- The ability to give out discount codes and affiliation schemes would be a bonus.<p>- I don&#x27;t want to have to deal with complicated taxes or accountancy. I&#x27;m based in the UK.<p>The Chrome Web Store comes with its own payment system but then I cannot easily expand the product to work outside of Chrome later. Also, you can&#x27;t seem to change the price of subscriptions or offer discount codes.<p>Gumroad looks promising. Would anyone recommend this? They deal with EU taxes for you. When you make a sale, Gumroad give you a license number, the user can enter this into the extension and then a simple REST API call via JavaScript is all that&#x27;s needed to verify the license is valid so this approach does not require your own server.<p>I&#x27;m aware of other services like Paddle, Chargebee, Stripe and SendOwl but it isn&#x27;t clear to me how I would implement license checking and if I can avoid having to maintain a server. Or maybe the server implementation could be done in a simple way?
======
caffeinatedwes
I haven't used it before, but it sounds like Gumroad is your best choice. Is
there any reason you're hesitant to try it?

If you decide to do a server implementation, you might be able to make the
billing implementation simpler by using Cheddar's API. You'll be able to issue
discount codes, change prices, etc.
[https://gtchdr.com/2BvCx45](https://gtchdr.com/2BvCx45)

