6 Customers, 6 Ways They Pay Me (What Each One Really Costs)

I've got six customers paying me right now, and every single one pays me on a different rail. Not just different amounts, different systems entirely. Once you're juggling more than one income stream, nobody warns you that getting paid turns into its own job.

Quick disclosure up front: this video includes a paid partnership with Xero (details below). Everything else is just how I actually run my payments day to day.

In this video I walk through the six ways money actually lands in my account, what each one costs me, which ones I'd avoid if I had the choice, and how I keep it all straight without losing my mind at tax time.

0:00 Six customers, six different ways I get paid
1:15 Rail 1: Stripe, my default and favorite
1:52 Rail 2: PayPal
2:39 Rail 3: Bank wire
3:21 Rail 4: Crypto, stablecoins only
4:26 Rail 5: ACH
4:52 Rail 6: Agency portal and escrow
5:20 Xero (sponsored): getting every rail into one place
6:52 What I'd actually tell you if you're just starting

A word on Xero, the sponsor of this segment. My whole problem was six rails, all landing in different places, none of them talking to each other. Xero pulls Stripe, PayPal, and my bank account into one list of invoices and reconciles the payments against them automatically, so I can see what's settled and what's still outstanding without a spreadsheet. They also have an AI assistant built in called JAX, and I can just ask it how much revenue came in this month and get a real number pulled from every account.

Special Xero offer: Get 90% off for 6 months using this link. Terms & Conditions apply.*

https://referrals.xero.com/JamesPelton_XeroCollabThree

(Quick note, not sponsored: I mention Spritz in the video for moving crypto off ramps into my bank. That's just a tool I use myself, no deal with them.)

What I'd actually tell you, if you're about to land your first customer:
- Get half the payment upfront, half on delivery. I've been ghosted on digital work before, this protects you.
- Money isn't paid until it lands in your account and any holds are cleared. "It's processing" or "I sent the wire" doesn't count yet.
- Pick the rail when you can. Default to a Stripe invoice and let the customer push back if they need something else.

Whatever rails you end up collecting on, get them all into one place so you actually know how your business is doing.

Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jamespelton18

👥 Join the 6 Million Dollar Apps community: https://www.skool.com/6-million-dollar-app-2514/about
🛠️ Want my team to build your app? https://passive-apps.com

🙏 Faith + Money: "In all toil there is profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty." — Proverbs 14:23 (ESV)

This video includes a paid partnership with Xero. All opinions are my own. Some links in this description may be affiliate links.