This is long overdue, but here, finally, is a breakdown of how cashless payments works on busk.co!

First, watch the above video. It’s a tutorial about how street performers can get cashless payments on busk.co, using Apple Pay, Android Pay, cards and PayPal.

WHY WOULD YOU USE BUSK.CO?

  1. It’s free and easy to sign up.
  2. You’ll only pay an average 0.2% in fees)
  3. With just one URL (your profile URL) you can get:
    1. Apple Pay
    2. Android Pay
    3. PayPal
    4. Card Payments
    5. AliPay (coming soon)
  4. The site auto-generates signs for you in your Tools section.
  5. You don’t need to know any code!

In fact, this is the only place where you can set up all of the above with no fees, no code and perfect for use in the street!

HOW TO SET UP

To accept card or PayPal payments in the street or on the web, you need to add your own bank and/or PayPal details on your profile. First, create a free profile, then go to busk.co/settings to add your details. You’ll want to upload a few nice photos (and a video helps), plus a bio. This information will build confidence in the people who visit your profile.

SECURITY

PayPal handles the PayPal donations (of course), and we use a secure payments platform called “Stripe” to handle the card/android/apple payments. Stripe uses the highest level of security for payments, meaning even if we got hacked, your bank/personal details would still be safe with Stripe. Read more about cashless payments and security on busk.co here.

WHAT TO TELL YOUR AUDIENCE

First, you need to send people to your profile on busk.co. If you’re busking, you’ll display a sign or tell your audience your URL. Mine is busk.co/nick, so that’s where I’d send people.

As for what to say, no one line is going to work for every performer, for every type of show. Some of you will be able to display a sign, others will be able to pause to speak to your audience. But, it’s good to remember – if they’re pointing a phone at you to take a photo, they are holding in their hands the tool they would use to give you a tip!

To read some suggestions from other performers who get cashless tips, read this post with quotes!

HOW IT WORKS

People will go to your profile (in my case, they’ll go to busk.co/nick) either via the web or on their phones. Then…

Android Pay

For people using Android phones or computers with the Chrome browser, it’s pretty simple. Maybe 20 seconds total.

Step 1: Click “Tip Me”
Step 2: Choose the tip amount
Step 3: Choose the currency
Step 4: Click “Donate”
Step 5: Click “Tip”

Apple Pay

For people using an iPhone with the Safari browser, it’s even simpler! Maybe 15 seconds total.

Step 1: Click “Tip Me”
Step 2: Choose the tip amount
Step 3: Click “Donate with Apple Pay”
Step 4: Pay with “Touch ID” (the fingerprint thing)

Web Pay

You can ALSO use Apple Pay and Android Pay on the web. And you can make card payments and PayPal payments on phones. But for the purposes of this blog post, I’m only going to show you how to make card/PayPal payments on the web. Maybe this will take a minute.

Step 1: Click “Tip Me”
Step 2: EITHER put in card details and click “Tip”
Step 3: OR click the PayPal toggle button at the top and click “Tip”

Thanks, and good luck out there!