Sell your content for 20p. Keep 95%.
The micropayment tool for writers, podcasters, and creators — sell single articles, prompts, or exclusive posts from £0.20–£5 via Apple Pay or card. No subscription. No signup. Built on x402, the open HTTP payment protocol from Coinbase.
The first paywall AI agents can actually pay
Stripe, Patreon, and Substack paywalls require a human to fill in a form. Pico speaks HTTP 402 Payment Required — the open standard backed by Coinbase, Cloudflare, AWS, and Stripe. That means AI research agents, RSS readers, and machine-to-machine clients can pay for your content automatically. As agentic browsing becomes the default, x402 paywalls earn revenue that subscription walls turn away.
0% Pico fee for the first 3 months
We're onboarding our first 10 publishers personally. You get the standard 95% revenue share plus the platform fee waived for 3 months, plus a 30-minute integration call where we set up the embed for you on your WordPress / Ghost / Substack / Beehiiv / Webflow site.
- 0% Pico platform fee for 90 days (normally 5% under £10)
- Free 30-min Zoom integration call
- Custom embed code with your colours / branding
- Direct WhatsApp/email support for the first week
- Featured as a launch partner when we go public
Why Pico beats subscriptions for the £0.20–£5 tier
How it works — 3 lines of HTML
Drop the embed into any article. It shows a preview, blurs the rest, and reveals the full content when the reader pays. Remembers unlocks per device so readers never pay twice.
<!-- Place where you want the paywall -->
<div class="pico-paywall"
data-link-id="YOUR_PICO_LINK_ID"
data-price="0.50"
data-title="The full article"
data-preview-selector="#article-body"
data-preview-words="100">
</div>
<!-- Place once near </body> -->
<script src="https://pico.link/embed.js" async></script>How much revenue is your free tier worth?
💰 What are you leaving on the table?
~3.5 min/article assumption99% of your readers will never subscribe. Pico turns those visits into per-article revenue. Plug your numbers in to see the gap.
| Model | Paying readers / reads | Monthly net |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription only (today)@ 1% conversion | 500 subscribers | £2,500 |
| Pico micropayments — Cautious@ 5% of article reads paid | 4,286 reads | £814 |
| Pico micropayments — Realistic@ 15% of article reads paid | 12,857 reads | £2,443 |
| Pico micropayments — Optimistic@ 25% of article reads paid | 21,429 reads | £4,071 |
Conversion benchmarks: 1% subscription (UK news industry average), 5–25% micropayment (Blendle 2018 + Substack tip experiments). Article length assumed at ~3.5 minutes per piece. Real conversion varies by topic, audience trust, and how prominent the paywall placement is.
How much do you keep per unlock?
📊 What would you actually keep?
Plug in your numbers| Provider | Net per unlock | Net / month |
|---|---|---|
| Stripe (UK card) | £0.78 | £785.00 |
| PayPal | £0.67 | £671.00 |
| Gumroad (10% + Stripe) | £0.69 | £685.00 |
| Patreon (8% + payment fee) | £0.58 | £581.00 |
| Pico (x402 + tiered)· Tiered 5% < $10, 4% < $50, 3.8% < $100, 2.8% above | £0.95 | £949.00 |
What a £1 article actually pays you
| Platform | Reader pays | You keep |
|---|---|---|
| Stripe (UK card) | £1.00 | £0.79 |
| PayPal | £1.00 | £0.67 |
| Gumroad (10% + Stripe) | £1.00 | £0.61 |
| Patreon | £1.00 | £0.59 |
| Pico | £1.00 | £0.95 |
Stripe physically rejects most charges under £2. Pico has no minimum — you can sell single posts at £0.20 if you want.
Questions publishers actually ask
Do my readers need a crypto wallet or an account?
No. Readers tap Pay, do FaceID/passkey, and pay with Apple Pay or card. We use Coinbase Smart Wallet under the hood — readers never see seed phrases or the word ‘crypto’.
What happens if Pico goes bust?
Your earnings are on-chain in a wallet only you control. Even if we disappear, your USDC and your reader base exist independently. You're never locked in.
How fast do I get paid?
Instantly. USDC settles to your wallet in 3 seconds. To convert USDC → GBP into your bank, the manual flow takes ~30 minutes via Coinbase. We're launching one-click bank cashout via Transak (0.99% fee, ~1 hour) once our production approval comes through.
What about chargebacks?
None. Blockchain payments are final. You'll never pay a £15 dispute fee again.
Does it work on WordPress / Ghost / Substack?
Yes — anywhere you can paste HTML. WordPress is one custom HTML block. Ghost is one code injection. Substack is more limited (their editor blocks scripts) but works in custom domain Ghost-style sites and their email-only newsletter sponsorships.
Is this legal in the UK?
Yes. Pico is a non-custodial software platform. The regulated bits — fiat onramp, KYC, sanctions — are handled by Transak (FCA #928910). You're selling digital content, we're a payment integration, your readers pay a regulated processor. Standard fintech architecture.
What about VAT?
Same as Stripe — you're responsible for VAT on your sales if you're VAT-registered. We don't change your tax obligations; we're a payment rail.
Be a founding publisher
We're hand-onboarding our first 10 publishers. Tell us about your newsletter / publication and we'll get you live this week with zero fee for the first 3 months.
Email us to get startedOr sign up directly → create a creator account
