Payment Processor

Selling anything directly, a course, a preset pack, a paid community, needs something to handle the card. Stripe, PayPal and their equivalents authorise the transaction, run fraud checks and pay out on a schedule, taking a percentage plus a fixed fee each time. A processor is a separate thing from a merchant of record, and the difference matters before launch: a merchant of record such as Paddle or Lemon Squeezy sells the product in its own name and takes on sales tax and VAT compliance, while a plain processor leaves that liability sitting with you. Chargebacks and refunds are handled at this layer too.