If you live in the Philippines and want to sell ebooks, presets, templates, courses or other digital products, you cannot simply sign up for Stripe. Stripe’s official list of supported countries does not include the Philippines. The realistic setup for most Filipino creators is PayPal for buyers abroad, plus a local gateway such as PayMongo or Xendit (or Maya Checkout) so Filipino buyers can pay with GCash, Maya, QR Ph, online banking or local cards.
In short: use PayPal if most of your buyers are overseas, use a local gateway if most of them are in the Philippines, and use both if you sell to both. The rest of this guide covers what each option costs, according to the providers’ own pricing pages, and what to set up first.
Is Stripe available in the Philippines?
No, not for a business based in the Philippines. Stripe’s global availability page (stripe.com/global) lists the countries where you can open an account. In Asia that list currently includes Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and the UAE, with India and Indonesia marked as “Preview”. The Philippines is not on it.
You will find workarounds online that involve registering a company in another country, such as the US or Singapore, and opening Stripe there. That is a real business decision with its own legal, banking and tax costs. It is not a quick fix, and it is not something to do just to avoid setting up PayPal or a local gateway. If you go that route, get advice from an accountant first.
PayPal Philippines: how to receive payments and what it costs
PayPal works for sellers in the Philippines. You can receive payments into a Philippine PayPal account and withdraw to a local bank. A business account is the right choice if you sell regularly, because it is built for invoices, checkout buttons and commercial payments.
Here are the rates from PayPal Philippines’ official business fees page. Commercial transactions cost 3.40% plus a fixed fee when the buyer is domestic and 4.40% plus a fixed fee when the buyer is international. The fixed fee for payments received in Philippine pesos is ₱15.00. Withdrawing to a Philippine bank account costs ₱50.00 for amounts under ₱7,000.00 and nothing for larger withdrawals, as long as no currency conversion is involved. If PayPal converts currency for you, it charges 3.0% above the base exchange rate.
That conversion fee matters more than most people expect. A buyer in the US paying in dollars triggers the 4.40% international rate, and converting those dollars to pesos can add another 3.0%. Look at your PayPal currency settings before your first sale. Also note PayPal’s refund rule: you can refund for free, but the fees you paid on the original sale are not returned.
PayPal’s main strength is trust. Buyers in the US, Europe and Australia already have accounts, and many will pay faster with PayPal than by typing in a card number on an unfamiliar site.
GCash for online selling: direct or through a gateway
For Filipino buyers, GCash is often the payment method that decides whether a sale happens. You have two ways to accept it.
The first is GCash’s own merchant platform, GCash for Business. Its help center describes registration at business.gcash.com and a WebPay product for taking payments on a website, with settlement to your nominated bank account. GCash says you must activate a payment product before you can accept payments, and its entry-level wallet tier has eligibility rules, including a fully verified GCash account that has been active for a set period. Check the current requirements and rates in the GCash for Business help center before you apply.
The second, and more common for small online sellers, is a payment gateway. PayMongo and Xendit each accept GCash alongside Maya, cards, QR Ph and other methods through one account. Instead of signing a contract with each wallet, you get one dashboard, one settlement and one set of payment links or checkout pages.
Sending your personal GCash number and asking buyers to transfer manually does work for a handful of sales. But you then have to check every payment, send every file and keep the records yourself. It does not scale, and your records will be harder to reconcile at tax time.
PayMongo vs Xendit: what the official pages say
PayMongo is a Philippine payment gateway. Its pricing page lists these rates, all VAT-exclusive: QR Ph at 1.34%, GCash at 2.23%, Maya at 1.79%, GrabPay at 1.96%, ShopeePay at 1.70%, local Visa and Mastercard at 3.125% + ₱13.39, international cards at 4.02% + ₱13.39, and direct online banking (BDO, UnionBank, BPI, Landbank, Metrobank) at 0.71% or ₱13.39. Setup is free. PayMongo describes standard settlement as 2–7 days and charges ₱10 per payout through InstaPay or PesoNET. Its optional Storefront product costs ₱349 a month, but you do not need it to accept payments.
Xendit operates across Southeast Asia, including the Philippines. Its site says you can sign up and integrate for free and that fees apply only to successful transactions. Xendit lists its Philippine rates for cards, e-wallets such as GCash and Maya, and other methods on its pricing page and in a Philippines pricing calculator. Its own pages have shown different figures at different times, so we are not quoting a number here. Use the calculator with your real order size.
How to choose: if nearly all your buyers are Filipino and pay with GCash, QR Ph or Maya, compare the e-wallet and QR rates first, since those will be most of your volume. If you also sell elsewhere in Southeast Asia, Xendit’s regional coverage may matter more. Both require business verification, so prepare your ID and, where asked, your BIR registration documents before you apply.
Maya also sells its own merchant product, Maya Checkout. It offers a Maya-hosted checkout page and payment links, and accepts cards, QR Ph and the Maya wallet. Maya publishes its rates on its business pages, and they are worth comparing as well.
How to sell digital products in the Philippines, step by step
1. Decide who your buyers are. Overseas buyers mean PayPal. Local buyers mean a gateway with GCash and QR Ph. Many creators need both.
2. Price in the right currency. Show pesos to local buyers and dollars to international buyers. This avoids surprise conversions, and with PayPal it can avoid the 3.0% conversion fee if you keep the balance in the currency you were paid in.
3. Open and verify your accounts early. PayPal, PayMongo, Xendit and Maya all ask for identity checks before you can withdraw money. Approval can take days, so do this before your launch post, not after it.
4. Automate delivery. A digital product sale should send the file or access link the moment payment clears. Manual delivery is where refund requests and chargebacks start.
5. Keep clean records. Export your monthly statements from each provider. You will need them for tax filings, and they also show which payment method is earning you the most after fees.
Registering with the BIR (general notes only)
This is not tax advice, but you should know the basics. The BIR says self-employed individuals, including online sellers and freelancers, can register online through its Online Registration and Update System (ORUS) on or before they start the business. Its guidance says online sellers should post an electronic copy of their Certificate of Registration (COR) on their website or their profile page on an e-commerce platform.
The BIR also says it stopped collecting the ₱500 annual registration fee from January 22, 2024. Your tax type, the forms you file and whether you need to issue invoices all depend on your income and setup. A licensed accountant can tell you exactly what applies to you.
Common mistakes Filipino sellers make
Ignoring conversion costs. On PayPal, an international sale at 4.40% plus a ₱15.00 fixed fee, followed by a 3.0% currency conversion, takes noticeably more than the headline rate suggests. Do the math on a real order before you set prices.
Making small withdrawals. PayPal charges ₱50.00 for bank withdrawals under ₱7,000.00. Waiting until your balance passes that amount saves the fee.
Offering only one payment method. A buyer in Cebu may want to pay with GCash, and a buyer in California may want PayPal. Offering only one loses you the other.
Relying on screenshots as proof of payment. Fake transfer screenshots are a known scam. Use a gateway or PayPal checkout that confirms the payment before the product is delivered.
Where OneSol fits
OneSol gives you a link-in-bio page, a storefront for digital products and forms, and you connect your own payment account so money goes straight to you. OneSol takes no cut of your sales. The free plan covers the basics, and Pro is $9/month. To be honest about the Philippines: OneSol’s checkout supports Stripe, PayPal, Razorpay and Square, and for a Philippine-based seller PayPal is the one that works. GCash, Maya, PayMongo and Xendit are not built into OneSol’s checkout, so if most of your buyers want to pay with GCash, set up a local gateway for those sales alongside it.
The bottom line
Stripe is not an option for Philippine businesses today, but that does not stop you from selling digital products. PayPal covers international buyers at the rates published on its Philippines fees page. PayMongo, Xendit and Maya cover GCash, Maya, QR Ph and local cards. Register with the BIR, automate delivery, and check every fee on the official pricing page on the day you sign up, because rates change.