

Ask HN: How do you charge teenagers on internet? - pmtarantino

I am working on a service where clients are in a age range of 15 - 25. Most of them doesn't have credit card.<p>What are your ideas to charge them? I thought in paying with the credit in their cell phones, which teens usually have. But I should talking with phone companies to be able to do that.<p>Have you got any idea?<p>By the way, this would be a good hole to fill in the internet, so use it as a startup idea if you want to
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citruspi
You don't HAVE to talk to telecom providers - you can use Pay-by-SMS services
like Zaypay (<http://www.zaypay.com>).

If you plan on offering the application via the iTunes App Store or Google
Play, then you can have them sign in and purchase "credits" via in-app
purchases. This way, they can use iTunes gift cards. Plus, which teenager
doesn't have iTunes credit?

Edit: In the case of Pay-by-SMS, the parents would find out either way when
they see the bill. So, they might as well just use their (the parents') credit
cards instead of allowing the teenager to charge it to the monthly phone bill.
In this case (and other cases where the parent(s) are aware of and approve the
service), you might just want to include credit card payments (via Stripe).

I despise Paypal, but you can always try that.

And because you pay them a commission for each sale, you're not losing money
if you offer these options and they aren't used.

Edit 2: Zaypay IS AVAILABLE in Argentina (<http://www.zaypay.com/outpayment>).

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pmtarantino
Thanks, something like Zaypay was what I was looking for :)

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girasquid
It sounds like you'll have a tough time getting your customers to pay you - if
you're after money, is the idea still worth pursuing if you're going to have
to 1) convince them it's worth paying for, and then 2) find a way for them to
pay you? It seems like a lot of hassle.

That being said - people who don't have credit cards a lot of the time have
parents/guardians who do. You could try that?

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pmtarantino
We are doing research yet, but we got 1 resolved we think (I mean, people will
want to pay for it). Number 2 is what our trouble. This is not in US, but
Argentina, where people are not used to give their credit card details online,
and they won't definitely do it for they childrens.

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girasquid
It sounds like you've picked an idea that will be very, very tough to make a
sustainable business out of.

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jkaykin
Use cellphones. Usually when there is a natural disaster or other
catastrophes, the red cross has a way to text in a word to number and then
they charge it to the phone bill at the end of the month. I do believe though
that this method is only good for donations and not businesses but hey, maybe
you can prove me wrong?

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orangethirty
Teenagers will find a way to buy stuff if the want it bad enough. Find a way
to make the product really attractive and they will find a way to buy it. What
type of product is it? By the way, if there is one segment who will find a way
to pay for something its teenagers.

