Selling without a website: payment links and QR codes

A lot of real business in Armenia happens without a website. An order comes in as an Instagram direct message. A repeat customer writes on Telegram. A workshop takes bookings by phone. A stall at a fair sells to whoever walks past.

The awkward part is always the same: the sale is agreed, and now you have to get paid. Cash means change and a trip to the bank. A bank transfer means dictating an account number and hoping the reference is typed correctly. Neither is fast, and neither gives the buyer the card or wallet payment they would have used on a website.

Payment links solve this. A payment link is a hosted payment page with its own URL and its own QR code. You share the URL or show the QR, the buyer pays with a card, Idram or Telcell, and the payment lands in your Paynet dashboard with the rest of your sales. There is no website involved and no code to write.

What a payment link actually is

When you create a link in your Paynet dashboard you give it a title, an optional description, and an amount. Paynet gives you back a public URL and a QR code you can download.

Anyone who opens that URL sees a payment page with your title, the amount, and the payment methods you allow. They pay on the licensed provider's page, exactly as they would on a real online store, and they come back to a confirmation. You see the payment appear in Transactions.

The same link can be used once or a thousand times, depending on how you configure it. That single property is what makes links useful for two very different jobs: a one off invoice, and a permanent way to pay you.

Fixed amount or buyer chosen

Every link is one of two kinds.

Fixed amount. You set the price, for example 15,000 AMD, and the buyer cannot change it. This is the right choice for an invoice, a specific order, a deposit, or a product you sell at one price. If the customer asked for two of something, create the link for the total.

Customer chooses. You set an optional minimum and maximum, and the buyer types the amount. This suits donations, top ups, open ended services, and tips. It is also handy when you agree different prices with different customers and do not want to make a new link every time.

Amounts are in Armenian dram. Whole dram is the norm, and two decimal places are accepted if you need them.

Limits that make links safe to share in public

A URL you post publicly is a URL you no longer control. Two settings exist so that this does not become a problem.

Expiry date. Set a date and the link stops accepting payments after it. Use it for a promotion, an event with a deadline, or an invoice that should not be payable next year.

Maximum uses. Set a number and the link stops after that many payments. A link with a maximum of one is effectively a single use invoice: once your customer has paid it, nobody else can, even if the message is forwarded.

You can also disable a link at any time, which stops it accepting payments immediately and tells anyone who opens it that it is no longer available. Disabling is reversible, so if you paused a link by mistake you can switch it back on. When a link is finished for good, archive it: it stops accepting payments and moves to the Archived tab, and you can restore it later if you need to.

Choosing which payment methods a link offers

Each link can offer everything you have turned on, or a subset. Leave every method selected and the buyer picks from all of them. Narrow it when you have a reason: a link you send to a customer who only uses Idram, or a card only link for a case where the wallet flow does not suit you.

The methods on offer come from the domain the link belongs to, and you do not need a website for that. Every Paynet account comes with its own hosted page, m plus your account number .pay.paynet.am (for example m123.pay.paynet.am). It is listed under Websites as the Paynet hosted page, it is verified from the start, and there is no DNS record or file to add. Your links land on it unless you have a verified website of your own, and they offer the providers you turn on for it. If you do have a website, you can pick it for a link instead.

The one thing Paynet asks before your first link is a confirmed email address. Open the confirmation email we sent when you signed up, or send a new one from the dashboard.

Where the QR code fits

Every link has a QR code you can download and use anywhere a printed or displayed image works.

• Printed and taped to the counter, so walk in customers pay by scanning.
• On a price card at a fair or market stall.
• In a PDF invoice, next to the total.
• On a delivery note, so the courier does not have to handle cash.
• Shown on your phone screen to the person standing in front of you.

The QR code encodes the link URL, so scanning it with any phone camera opens the payment page. There is no separate app for the buyer to install.

For a permanently displayed QR, use a link with no expiry and no usage limit, and let buyers choose the amount if what you sell varies.

Where the money goes

This is the question worth being precise about, because it is the one that decides whether you can trust the whole arrangement.

Paynet does not hold your money. You connect your own accounts: the ARCA card gateway your bank gave you, your own Idram merchant account, your own Telcell merchant account. When a buyer pays through a Paynet payment link, the payment is processed on your provider's contract, and your provider settles to your bank account on the schedule you agreed with them.

Paynet's role is the checkout, the link, the QR, the status tracking and the receipt. It is a gateway, not a wallet. There is no Paynet balance holding your sales revenue, and nothing to withdraw.

That also means your acquiring fees are the ones in your own bank and wallet contracts. Paynet's own charge is separate and flat: 20 AMD per successful live payment, with payments under 500 AMD free, failed payments free, test payments free and refunds free. Every new account starts with 200 free transactions. See the pricing page for the full detail.

Following a link after you send it

Each link carries its own counters, so you can see how many times its page was viewed and how many payments went through. That difference is useful information on its own: a link with many views and no payments usually means the price surprised people, or the method they wanted was not on the list.

Each link also has a payment log showing everything that happened on its payments, newest first. When a customer says the payment did not work, open the log before you ask them to try again.

Testing a link before you send one to a customer

Paynet has a sandbox, and a payment link is the fastest way into it, because there is no code involved at all.

Add the Sandbox provider from Providers in your dashboard, turn it on for your hosted page, create a link, and open the link yourself. On the test checkout the card number decides the outcome: 4111 1111 1111 1111 is approved, 4000 0000 0000 0002 is declined by the issuer, 4000 0000 0000 0069 fails for insufficient funds. Nothing is charged and no bank is contacted. Test payments appear under the Test tab, separate from real sales.

Do this before you switch a real provider on for the same page: once a live provider is on, the Sandbox disappears from that page's checkout, so a buyer can never pay with a test card. It takes two minutes and it tells you exactly what your customer will see.

Two practical setups

The invoice. Fixed amount, expiry a week out, maximum uses of one, title naming the order. Send the URL in the chat where you agreed the sale. When it is paid, the counter tells you without asking the customer.

The counter QR. Buyer chosen amount with a sensible minimum, no expiry, no usage limit, every method enabled. Download the QR, print it, put it where people pay. One link serves your whole shop.

What to do next

1. Confirm your email address. Your hosted page is already there, so there is no domain to add or verify.
2. Add the Sandbox provider, turn it on for your hosted page, create a test link and pay it yourself with the approved test card.
3. Connect your real ARCA, Idram or Telcell credentials, turn them on for your hosted page, and submit your business documents for verification. Live payments open once your business is verified, usually within one to two business days.
4. Create your first real link, download its QR code, and put it where your customers already are.
5. If you later build a website or a shop, the same account and the same providers carry over: see plugins for the ready made store integrations, or the API reference if you are writing the code yourself. Payment links can also be created from the API.

Idram, Telcell, ARCA, Instagram and Telegram belong to their respective owners. Paynet is an independent payment gateway.