BuffMoneyUsage-based billing infrastructure for AI / SaaS companies selling into China. Three tiers, transparent fees, free to start. No setup, no monthly minimums, no hidden FX markups. Upgrade when KYB-approved — or talk to sales at scale.
Break-even vs Starter at ~¥7,300 monthly CNY collection. Above that, Growth costs less per ¥.
BuffMoney's full stack ships from day one. The tier difference is fee % + product count + settlement timing.
The fine print, answered plainly.
Both, in a sense. Your customers pay you the prices you set in our dashboard (whatever they are — subscription, per-use, one-shot). When that payment lands in CNY, BuffMoney takes its service fee (3% on Starter, 2% on Growth, + Growth's $9.99/mo subscription) out of that flow, and settles the net to your bank. So strictly speaking you pay us out of what your customers paid you — but the fee shows up on your settlement, not on theirs.
Standard cap is $200 USD equivalent per transaction (≈¥1,450 at current FX). This matches typical SaaS subscription price points and protects both sides from accidental large charges. Scale-tier merchants can negotiate a higher per-transaction cap.
It's a percentage of the gross CNY amount the consumer pays you. On a ¥100 transaction at Starter (3%), BuffMoney retains ¥3 and you receive the ¥97 net. On Growth (2%), the same ¥100 nets you ¥98 — or if you choose 'consumer absorbs', the consumer is charged ¥102 and you receive the full ¥100.
No setup, no monthly minimums. FX conversion uses a locked snapshot at invoice time — the rate is included in your settlement amount, not charged separately. Channel passthrough fees (WeChat / Alipay) are absorbed by BuffMoney within the transaction fee — you don't see them as a separate line.
The monthly covers the ongoing infrastructure — webhook delivery SLA, Slack support, branded checkout, faster T+7 settlement — that don't scale with transaction volume. The 2% covers per-transaction processing. Break-even vs Starter (3%, no monthly) happens around ¥7,300/month CNY collection. Under that, stay on Starter.
Listed in USD ($9.99) for clarity, billed monthly in the CNY equivalent at the locked FX snapshot. We use the same snapshot that applies to your transaction settlement that month — no separate FX markup.
Yes. Starter → Growth happens automatically after KYB approval. Growth → Scale is a sales conversation. Downgrades take effect at the next settlement period.
BuffMoney bills usage events, not subscriptions. If your product is subscription-shaped (fixed monthly per customer), treat each renewal as one usage event with quantity 1 and price = the subscription amount.
T+N means the net amount settles N business days after the consumer pays. Starter settles T+14. Growth settles T+7. Scale is custom — daily or on-demand available.
Two different invoices, two different parties. BuffMoney is a New Zealand company, so we issue you an invoice for your BuffMoney subscription (e.g. Growth's $9.99/mo). The receipt or invoice your own end-consumers receive is issued by you — including a Chinese VAT fapiao, if your business needs to provide one. If you'd want BuffMoney to issue consumer-facing invoices on your behalf, that's on the roadmap — tell us and we'll build it if there's demand.
The standard cap is $200 USD-equivalent per transaction. For a larger amount you can either split it across multiple charges (e.g. several prepaid top-ups), or move to a Scale contract, where we set a custom per-transaction cap matched to your volume and risk profile. Talk to sales to raise it.
Start on Starter free. Upgrade to Growth after KYB. Talk to sales when you outgrow both.