The site doesn't make it clear whether the 1% transaction fee, $0.01 mininum, is per transaction, or per some time period. If 100 people each pay me $0.01 at the same time (same day?), does Cachets take $0.01 (1% of the total of all transactions, $0.01 minimum for the whole period) or $1.00 (1% per transaction, $0.01 minimum per transaction)? If the latter, I'm not all that impressed.

The guy behind it certainly sounds interesting, though!

Interesting if it can work out.

The sparse site isn't too inspiring.

Also, I wonder if they can support subscription models.

And how they deal with disputes.

Even if they took half of all my 2 cent transactions in fees, it would be worthwhile.

I don't get it. Why would you direct access from a Paypal account to another outfit that does the same thing? And is the $5 maximum a typo? What am I missing here?

Dave, I think PayPal's fee structure is much harder on small transactions; so if you're selling a cookie recipe for $0.25 a copy, Cashets lets you keep more of the money you get.

There's no advantage to the buyer, except that the cheap things they want to buy can only be bought with Cashets.

Edited by author 10-28-2002 02:49 PM
So they're doing basically the same thing but competing on price? I still don't understand why you can't fill the account from a credit card or bank account, tho.

Is there a $5 minimum with credit cards? Is that the gap Cashlets is trying to fill?

Their singularly uniformative Web site does not inspire confidence at this point.

So how is cashets pronounced? Is it like the French word cachet, meaning a mark of prestige or value? Or is like the English cash-its?

jleader in /m1 you propose a scenario where lots of people
pay you one cent. This is not possible. Minimum payment is
two cents. The fees look a lot less than a credit card would
charge.

Sorry, Eli. Make it 50 people, $0.02 each. Does Cashet get $0.01 or $0.50?

I guess I'm trying to find out just how "micro" this system is. Some previous micro-payment schemes (which pretty much never went anywhere) tried to get transaction costs down to the point where they could handle sub-penny transactions.

Dave, credit card clearinghouses typically charge something like 1.5-3% plus $0.20-0.35 per transaction, plus various monthly fees. Search for "merchant account" if you want to see what the fees look like. The percentage is called the "discount rate", because that's the discount you're not supposed to offer to cash customers! The rates are different for different kinds of business, based on some perception of how likely they are to get scammed; the rates are highest for online businesses, slightly better for mail/phone order, and best for traditional face to face retail, where you can slide the card through a reader.

I think that it is pretty obviously 0.50c - the idea being that you are paying for the load on the server (ie per transaction).

I want to know if the $1 email questions include the 'question transaction' emails that one might have to send.

I also hope that there are preferences to auto-transfer your cash out when it hits a certain amount.

All in all - sounds pretty good. I think that they have been smart in charging for support - that is the real overhead in a system like this. I guess that they are hoping that the amounts will be so minimal that noone will care too much in each transaction.

The big problem with a system like this is getting people to start using it. There's not much point in funding an account until there is something you can buy with it.

Paypal did two things to get going. First, they gave away money initially. If you signed up for an account you got a free five or ten bucks. And second, they hooked into the eBay explosion and became the main way for eBay auctions to be paid off. Auctions are typically for a few bucks up to perhaps a couple hundred dollars and that is a good size for a Paypal transaction.

How is this system going to mirror Paypal's takeoff? Are they going to give money away? And what is the "killer app" analogous to eBay auctions that is going to make a lot of people want to use this?

Edited by author 10-28-2002 11:22 PM
Did Cory even try Cashets before pimping it on bOING bOING? The $2 that my "account" was seeded with can't be transfered out or transfered to my "seller" account, the donation button-maker never e-mailed me the code for a button, and the link to the "seller consultant" is broken. If Cashets is an actual micropayment system, based on the current state of its interface, it's got a real credibility problem.