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TOP TIP: Using your Stripe account as a Tip Jar!
My subscriber Francesca Bossert asked me how I set up my Tip Jar. This is useful for anybody who wants to expand their options for getting payments on Substack (or anywhere): people see the “Buy Me a Coffee” link in your posts, click once for your checkout, fill in their card details, and they’re done – money in the bank.
It’s an alternative to a service like Ko-Fi, and simply uses the existing Stripe account you use for Substack’s paid-subscriptions, which is already linked to your bank account. So you don’t need to register for any new services.
(ALL of this assumes you have already turned on paid-subscriptions.)
For example, you can see my Buy Me a Coffee link near the end of any Post at undergrowth.me. (Hey… you could even click it 😉.)
My take is that as you already have a Stripe account, then use it. You can add additional products to your Stripe account, and Substack will not have any connection to these extra products (so they won’t take any percentage). As long as you DO NOT edit the subscription products that Substack has co-created (so they continue to get their commission), you can add as many extra products as you like (even to sell non-Substack stuff, like consultancy services, writing services, whatever…). Remember, this is YOUR Stripe account; you simply have it connected to Substack to manage subscriptions.
So, step-by-step:
Go to the Product Catalogue in your Stripe account (that is to say, on dashboard.stripe.com).
Click “Create a Product”
Give it a name – I called mine “Undergrowth Tips” to match with my Substack publication name
Make the description relevant, as it appears in the checkout page. So mine is “One-off payment to Undergrowth writer Ian Winter. Thank you for being a Patron Of The Arts!”
Pick the “One-Off” payments option, and then click the “More pricing options” link
Pick the “Customer chooses price” option
Click the “Suggest a preset amount” option and put your default amount in there (I put £4 – use your own currency to suit)
Optionally set limits – mine are £3 minimum and £500 maximum (if you just want to set a single that’s-it price with no choice, just use Flat Rate at the top)
Click Next and then Add Product to finalise
When you view your new product in the dashboard, there is a three-dot menu within the “Customer Chooses” price panel, and clicking it shows a drop-menu, from which you can pick “View Payment Link”
Result! This page shows the link you can use anywhere, including in your Substack posts. So you can attach the URL to a custom button within your posts. Or on more adaptable websites, you can use the Stripe button. (Specifically in the Post Editor, pick the Button option in the editing-tools at the top of the post, and insert a “Custom” button, using your choice of text such as “Buy me a Coffee”, and then use your customer Stripe URL as the destination.)
Practical upshot – anybody clicking the link goes straight to your Stripe checkout page, can pick the default price or select their own, and tip you. You will then receive the entire tip, except for Stripe’s usual levy (which is just about 2%).
Optional extra step: in dashboard.stripe.com/se… there is a section called Public Details. Click Edit to make sure your “statement descriptor” is meaningful. This is what shows up on your buyers’ credit card statements, so it’s useful to be clear. But bear in mind this will also be used for Substack subscriptions, so make it general such as Your Name Substack.
