How to Accept Payments Under 18: Stripe, PayPal, Gumroad and App Stores, Checked Against Their Own Terms

Yes, you can accept payments under 18 in the US, but on almost every platform a parent or legal guardian has to be on the account. Stripe accepts account holders from age 13 once a guardian becomes the account owner. Gumroad lets you sell from 13 and pays out after a guardian is added. PayPal, Square and Google Play require you to be 18, and Apple requires the age of majority.

Every age rule on this page was checked against the vendor’s own terms, help center or pricing page on September 25, 2026, and each one is linked so you can check it yourself. Rules change. Read the live page before you sign up.

We also counted how often this goes wrong. Across 11 Reddit searches returning 970+ unique posts, we confirmed 70 posts from young founders who hit an age, ID or KYC wall while trying to get paid. The most common mistake in those threads is not choosing the wrong processor. It is lying about age and losing the money when the ID request arrives. If you are still working out what to sell, start with how to start a business with no money and come back here when you have a first customer.

Can you accept payments under 18? The short answer

The rest of this guide covers each platform in detail, the exact information your guardian hands over, the tax basics, the contract problem, and what to sell first so the payment question is worth solving.

Read this first: not legal advice, and US only

This is a research guide, not legal or tax advice. It covers the United States. Payment rules for minors differ sharply by country: Stripe notes that in Brazil you must be 18 to create any account, and Gumroad says its guardian route currently works only for US sellers. State law also matters, especially for LLCs and contracts. Involve your parent or guardian from the first step, and ask a tax professional before you file.

Several young founders in our sample were outside the US (the UK, Egypt, the UAE, Finland, Singapore). Their posts are included in the counts because the wall looks the same everywhere, but the rules on this page are the US versions.

Why every processor asks for ID

Two reasons, and neither is personal. First, payment companies must know who they are paying. Gumroad explains that Stripe “is required to follow Know Your Customer obligations,” which is why it eventually asks for a date of birth, a government ID number and sometimes a photo ID. Lemon Squeezy runs “KYC & KYB checks” on every store before it goes live.

Second, contracts. According to Cornell’s Legal Information Institute, “in most states, contracts entered by minors are voidable.” A merchant agreement is a contract. A processor that signs one with a 15-year-old cannot rely on it, so it requires an adult who can. That adult is the part of the setup that makes your account legally solid, not an obstacle to route around.

“Every time I started something new, the problem wasn’t my lack of ability. It was always some KYC asking for ID.” – r/youngentrepreneur

What 70 young founders ran into

We ran 11 Reddit searches (“under 18 stripe,” “under 18 paypal,” “minor accept payments,” “teen accept payments online” and seven variants), deduplicated 970+ unique posts, filtered them by keyword, then read every candidate by hand. A post counted only if the author was under 18 (or was describing an account opened under 18) and hit an age, ID, KYC or bank-account wall while trying to get paid for selling something. Buyers, crypto, trading and gambling posts were excluded.

70 posts qualified, from 37 subreddits, dated 2013 to September 2026, carrying 980+ comments between them. 25 of the 70 (36%) were posted since January 2024, and 11 in 2026 alone. This is not an old problem that got fixed. (If you want to run this kind of search yourself, our guide to Reddit market research shows the method.)

PayPal dominates because it is the default for commissions, resale and freelance gigs, and because it has no guardian route: under 18, the account is simply not allowed. Stripe shows up less often and, when it does, the thread usually ends with “add your guardian” rather than “account closed.”

“Being under 18 in the US, I can’t have payment services such as paypal.” – r/Business_Ideas

“It seems like a lot of transaction platforms require you to be 18+ to set up an account.” – r/Entrepreneur

The four walls young founders hit

Reading all 70 posts, the problems sort into four walls. A post can hit more than one.

The pattern that repeats most: a teen opens an account, sells for weeks, then hits a verification request. The money is then stuck, not stolen, but stuck for a long time.

“I then get a message that it needs id confermation. As i am under 18, i was unable to give my id.” – r/stripe

“Stripe then sent me a message saying all my orders would be refunded, to all customers.” – r/stripe

“I have close to $1000 in the account that I can’t transfer or send.” – r/paypal

Every option at a glance

This table is the answer most people are looking for. Every cell comes from the vendor’s own page, linked in the platform sections below, fetched September 25, 2026. Fees are US list prices for the most basic plan.

Two routes let the teen stay visibly in the picture: Stripe and Gumroad. Everything else means your parent is the legal seller and you do the work. Both are legitimate. The next sections explain each.

Stripe: 13+ with a legal guardian as owner

Stripe’s age requirement page is direct: you must be at least 13 to create an account, and if you are under 18, “a legal guardian must assume the role of owner of your account before your account can accept charges and funds can be transferred to your bank account.”

The Stripe Services Agreement (General Terms last modified November 18, 2025) matches it. Only people 13 or older may open an account. If the user or the user’s Representative is under 18, the user must add an adult Representative, “which may be a parent or legal guardian,” both agree to the terms, and the Representative “agrees to be responsible and liable” for the account. Older summaries online say Stripe bans under-18 users outright. The current agreement does not.

After signup, Stripe says it will ask for the guardian’s first and last name, date of birth, the last four digits of their Social Security number, postal address, and a statement consenting to your agreement to the terms. It may request a copy of their ID if automatic verification fails. One small catch: Stripe’s own Dashboard mobile app requires you to be 18 to download it, so a teen manages the account on the web.

Fees on the Stripe pricing page are 2.9% + 30¢ per successful domestic card transaction, plus 0.5% for manually entered cards and 1.5% for international cards. For how Stripe fits into an actual product, see building a SaaS on Next.js, Supabase and Stripe. To see what kinds of businesses already run on Stripe, browse the Stripe Index, companies using Stripe and micro SaaS ideas from Stripe data.

“I contacted support and I found out that I have to put my legal guardian informations as a business representative.” – r/stripe

“Ideally I’d like to use Stripe, but it requires a legal guardian as the account owner.” – r/EntrepreneurRideAlong

Stripe Connect platforms (Express and Custom accounts)

Many tools you might sell through (tip jars, commission sites, CRMs with invoicing) create a Stripe Connect account for you. Stripe says Express and Custom Connect accounts “allow users as young as 13 to create accounts, provided they have a legal guardian,” and that a guardian form appears during onboarding for 13 to 17 year olds. It adds that this option “is only available in certain countries,” and the guardian agrees to the Connected Account Agreement.

In practice, some platforms handle this well and some do not show a guardian field at all. If you hit a dead end, contact the platform’s support before you enter anything false.

“I recently got this email from Stripe, which is very reasonable.” – r/stripe

“No indication of where to add my guardian’s info.” – r/stripe

Gumroad: the clearest teen route

Gumroad publishes the most explicit under-18 policy of any platform we checked. Its payout settings article has a “Sellers under 18” section: “You can sell on Gumroad from age 13.” To be paid out, a parent or other legal guardian must be added to the account “and take legal responsibility for it.”

The part teens care about: “You stay the owner of the account and of everything you sell.” Until the guardian details are in, “you can sell normally and your balance is safe.” It is held and paid out once the guardian is added. Gumroad says the route is currently available to sellers in the United States. Under 18 elsewhere, your balance is held until you turn 18. Gumroad’s Terms of Service (last updated September 14, 2026) also require account holders to be at least 13.

Fees on Gumroad’s fee page: 10% + $0.50 per sale on your own links, plus card processing at 2.9% + $0.30, or a flat 30% on sales made through Gumroad’s Discover marketplace. The standard payout minimum is $100. That is expensive next to Stripe, but it handles checkout, delivery and a storefront, which matters when you are selling digital products for the first time.

“Can I just accumulate money in my gumroad account and withdraw it when I turn 18?” – r/passive_income

Per Gumroad’s own help page, in the US the better answer is to add a guardian now and get paid on the next payout date.

PayPal: 18+, no guardian route

PayPal’s US user agreement (last updated September 14, 2026) says an individual must be a US resident “and at least 18 years old, or the age of majority in your state of residence” to open an account. Some states set the age of majority above 18, so check yours. There is no teen or guardian-linked seller account in the agreement.

That is why PayPal appears in 71% of our stuck-founder posts. Teens open accounts with a false birth date, use them for months, and get limited the moment PayPal asks for ID. The legal route is a business account opened and owned by your parent. PayPal Checkout costs 3.49% plus a fixed fee ($0.49 for US dollar transactions) on its business fees page.

“We’ve reviewed the documents you submitted and determined that you’re under 18 years old.” – PayPal notice quoted on r/tifu

“I’m struggling to sell beats due to services like Paypal restricting access to minors so I’ve been giving my beats away for free.” – r/makinghiphop

“I have 100% consent and permission from my parents before opening a PayPal account for business.” – r/paypal

That last poster’s account was permanently limited anyway. Parental permission does not change who the account holder is. The parent has to be the account holder.

Square: 18+

Square’s General Terms of Service (last updated September 14, 2026; new terms apply to sellers who signed up on or after September 10, 2026 and to everyone from October 10, 2026) require you to represent that “you are at least eighteen (18) years of age” and located in the United States.

Square suits in-person selling: markets, lawn care, tutoring, car washing. A parent can run it for a family business. Square’s fee page lists 2.6% + 15¢ for tap, dip or swipe and 3.3% + 30¢ online on the free plan. Local, in-person work is covered in boring business ideas and small business ideas.

Lemon Squeezy: no published teen route

We checked Lemon Squeezy’s terms and help docs and found no minimum age and no guardian process. What it does publish: every store must pass activation, including a questionnaire and identity verification with “a photo of your government-issued ID,” and approvals typically take 2 to 3 business days. Its SaaS agreement is formed by clicking “Create Account,” which the agreement treats as a signature.

Lemon Squeezy is also in transition. In a January 28, 2026 update, its co-founder said the team is building Stripe Managed Payments, Stripe’s merchant of record product. Until a teen route is documented, treat it as adult-owned. Its fee page shows a platform fee of $0.50 + 5% in its worked example, plus 1.5% for international or PayPal payments and 0.5% for subscriptions.

Apple App Store and Google Play

Apple. Apple’s enrollment page says you need an Apple Account with two-factor authentication and must “be the legal age of majority in your region.” A footnote on Apple’s program enrollment page adds: “If you’re under the age of majority in your region, your parent/guardian can enroll with their Apple Account and share their account with you.” For individuals, the personal legal name is listed as the seller, so your parent’s name appears on the App Store. The program costs 99 USD per membership year. Developers with up to 1 million USD in proceeds qualify for the App Store Small Business Program’s 15% commission.

Google Play. Play Console help states: “You must be at least 18 years of age to sign up for a Play Console account.” Registration is a one-time US$25, and Google may ask for a government ID and a credit card in the account holder’s legal name. For US users from June 30, 2026, Google’s service fee page lists 10% plus a 5% billing fee on auto-renewing subscriptions for the first $1M of annual earnings, with higher rates on other transactions. Read the table there before you price.

“I want my name to appear as the seller, but Apple usually requires legal adulthood to open an individual account.” – r/applebrasil

If your app is a web app, you can skip the stores entirely at first and take payments through a guardian-owned Stripe account. Our free App Store revenue calculator shows what the store cut does to your take-home, and profitable mobile app ideas shows which categories earn. For less crowded options, see low-competition mobile app ideas or try the free mobile app idea generator.

The parent-owned account route

For PayPal, Square, Apple and Google, the only legal setup is simple: your parent or guardian is the account holder, with their real name, their ID and their bank account or a joint one. You build, sell and serve customers. They are legally the seller.

This is legitimate as long as the parent knowingly opens the account, enters their own details and accepts the terms. What is not legitimate is using a parent’s details without their consent, or running an account in their name that they do not know exists.

“The Paypal account my Depop is linked to is my dad’s which is why I can sell despite being under 18.” – r/Depop

“I was under 18 at the time so we put my mom’s name on the account until I hit 18.” – r/paypal

Plan the handover. That second poster later struggled to move the account into their own name. When you turn 18, it is usually cleaner to open your own account and point new sales at it than to rename the old one.

What your guardian actually signs up for

Be honest with your parent about this, because it is their risk. Under Stripe’s agreement, the adult Representative “agrees to be responsible and liable” for your actions in the account. On Gumroad, the guardian takes “legal responsibility” and accepts the payment partner’s agreement personally: “it is their agreement, not yours.”

• Liability: refunds, chargebacks and negative balances land on the account the guardian is responsible for.
• Verification: they hand over their own identity details, and possibly an ID photo.
• Tax paperwork: the payer may issue tax forms tied to whoever is on the account, so agree up front whose name and tax ID is used.
• Prohibited products: if you sell something the processor restricts, the guardian’s account gets closed.

“I am under 18 so I had to have my dad fill out the stuff for being a guardian.” – r/stripe

That founder’s account was then closed because the business fell into a restricted category. Read Stripe’s prohibited and restricted business list before your guardian signs.

Step by step: set up a guardian Stripe account

1. Decide what you sell and confirm it is not a restricted business on Stripe’s list.
2. Create the account on the web with your real name and real date of birth. You must be 13 or older.
3. Wait for Stripe’s guardian request, or look for the guardian or Representative step in onboarding.
4. Have your guardian enter their own details: name, date of birth, last four of their SSN, postal address and the consent statement.
5. Upload their ID only if asked, directly into Stripe’s verification flow.
6. Connect a bank account your guardian can see, such as a joint teen checking account.
7. Run a test charge in test mode before your first real customer.
8. Set up a ledger (a spreadsheet is fine) for every payment, fee and refund.

If you are building a product rather than invoicing a client, pair this with launching a micro SaaS in a weekend and a starter kit with payments built in.

Step by step: selling on Gumroad at 13 to 17

1. Create your Gumroad account and add your first product. You can sell right away.
2. Open Payout settings and choose Individual (you operate under your own name).
3. Fill in the Legal guardian section with your guardian present: their name, email, date of birth, address and personal ID number.
4. Your guardian accepts the payment partner’s agreement themselves.
5. Payouts begin on your next payout date once your balance clears the $100 standard minimum.

Not sure what to put on Gumroad? Start with digital business ideas or run a niche through the free niche finder.

Where the money lands: bank accounts for teens

27% of the stuck founders in our sample had no bank account or card, which means money could arrive but not leave. Processors pay out to a bank account, and a minor usually cannot open one alone because a bank account is also a contract. The usual answer is a teen checking or savings account co-owned with a parent. Ask your bank what it offers, and make sure the payout account’s owner matches what the processor expects.

A joint account has a flip side you should know about now. One Reddit poster found that a parent listed on an account opened at 17 still had full access years later. Remove the parent when you turn 18 if the account is meant to become yours.

“I do not have stripe or paypal (under 18) since I have no bank account and 99% of these platforms require a bank account.” – r/EcommerceWebsite

Do you need an LLC or EIN?

Not to start. Most teen businesses operate as a sole proprietorship under the teen’s or parent’s name. The US Small Business Administration notes that for most small businesses, registering is as simple as registering your business name with state and local governments, and to “check with your state for rules.”

An EIN is free. The IRS EIN page warns “you never have to pay a fee for an EIN,” and its online tool requires a responsible party with an SSN or ITIN. It lists no minimum age, but an LLC or corporation must be formed with the Secretary of State before applying. Whether a minor can form or be a member of an LLC is a state question, and states differ. Check your Secretary of State’s site or ask a local attorney.

Why an LLC is not a workaround

A common Reddit suggestion is to form an LLC so “the business” owns the Stripe account. It does not solve the age problem. Stripe’s terms apply the guardian requirement if “User or User’s Representative is not 18 years of age or older.” Processors verify the human behind the business, so a teen-run LLC still needs an adult Representative. Gumroad similarly asks business accounts for a business representative’s personal identification.

An LLC can be worth it later for liability and taxes. It is not step one. Step one is getting your first customer. When the business is real, turning an idea into a startup covers the next structural decisions.

Taxes: the $400 rule

Age does not exempt you. The IRS self-employment tax page says you must pay self-employment tax and file Schedule SE (Form 1040) if your net earnings from self-employment were $400 or more, and adds: “The self-employment tax rules apply no matter how old you are.”

• Rate: 15.3% (12.4% Social Security plus 2.9% Medicare) on net earnings.
• Net, not gross: subtract processor fees and business costs before the $400 test. Sole proprietors generally use Schedule C.
• You need an SSN or ITIN to pay it.
• Quarterly estimates may apply as income grows. The IRS points to Publication 505.

Income tax is a separate question from self-employment tax, and dependents have their own filing rules. Sit down with a parent or a tax professional in January. Keeping a clean ledger from day one is the single most useful thing you can do, and our free break-even calculator helps you see what you actually net (the break-even guide explains the math).

“I’m not so sure if this is legal as im not taking into account any possible taxes.” – r/Advice

Form 1099-K and what platforms report

The IRS Form 1099-K page (reviewed June 28, 2026) sets the payment app and marketplace threshold at payments for goods or services that total over $20,000 in more than 200 transactions. Two catches: platforms “may send you a Form 1099-K with lower amounts,” and if customers pay you directly by card, you get a 1099-K from your card processor “no matter how many payments you got or how much they were for.”

The rule that matters more: “you must report all income” whether or not a form arrives. The form goes to whoever is on the account, which is another reason to agree with your guardian up front whose name and tax ID the income runs under.

“Will it affect my legal guardians taxes?” – r/stripe

Contracts a minor cannot rely on

Because contracts signed by minors are voidable in most states, you should assume any agreement you sign alone is weak, both for you and for the other side. That affects more than payment processors:

• Client agreements for design, web or editing work.
• Platform terms for marketplaces and freelance sites, many of which set 18 as the minimum (every platform’s rule is in our side hustle age requirements table).
• Supplier or dropshipping accounts that extend credit or hold inventory.
• Leases or equipment rentals for anything physical.

The fix is the same everywhere: an adult co-signs or signs for the business, and the paperwork says plainly what you deliver and when you get paid.

“I wish I didn’t have to involve my parents at all, they’re going to give me a hard time about it, but it seems any attempt in lying about your age on these things end in tears.” – r/ecommerce

Getting paid by clients safely

For service work, the payment problem is simpler than it looks. You need a written scope and a way to invoice from an account an adult owns.

• Write a one-page agreement: what you deliver, the price, the deadline, and how many revisions. Have a parent co-sign.
• Take a deposit (many freelancers ask for half up front) through a guardian-owned Stripe invoice or Square invoice.
• Local clients can pay by check made out to your parent, or into a joint account.
• Never share passwords or account logins with clients, and never accept overpayments you are asked to refund. That is a classic scam.

“If I design a website for them, would it be reasonable to ask for cash in terms of how I get paid?” – r/web_design

Cash is legal, but it still counts toward the $400 test and leaves no record. Put it in the ledger. For pricing your work, see how to price a small product and SaaS pricing strategies.

What not to do: lying about your age

We will not list workarounds that involve a false age, a borrowed identity or dodging verification. Beyond the ethics, our sample shows they fail on their own terms. 17 of 70 posts (24%) ended with an account limited, locked, closed or refunded, and the timing is always the worst possible: after the sales, when money is sitting in the account.

“Today, I got an email saying ‘You can no longer use PayPal.’” – r/tifu

“I can’t lie about my age on Paypal because it asks for a form of identification.” – r/makinghiphop

An old account can catch up with you after you turn 18. The r/tifu poster above opened a PayPal account at 14 or 15, only started selling after turning 18, and was still shut out when PayPal reviewed their ID. Another poster, now 25, quoted what they read in PayPal’s FAQ:

“accounts created when under 18 (even if you are older than 18 now) will be closed” – r/paypal

If you already have an account opened with a false birth date, stop using it for business and open a fresh, honest account once you are old enough.

If your money is already stuck

• Tell the truth to support. Stripe’s process is built for guardians: adding one is usually the fix.
• Do not open a second account to get around a limitation. Posters who tried were frozen again.
• Bring your parent in now, not after the next email.
• Stop taking new payments into the limited account.
• Keep every record of orders and deliveries in case customers dispute.

“Stripe needs me to add a legal guardian before I get my payout.” – r/stripe

What real founders use: processor share across 8,600+ startups

If you are choosing where to set up the guardian account, look at where actual revenue flows. Across 8,600+ revenue-verified startups in BigIdeasDB’s TrustMRR data (September 2026), revenue comes from connected payment providers, not founder claims.

Stripe carries the majority of indie revenue in this sample, so a guardian-owned Stripe account puts you on the same rails as most working founders. The app store figure (RevenueCat) is a reminder that store apps earn, but they are also the route where a teen cannot be the seller at all. These are correlations in a self-selected sample. For wider benchmarks, see the TrustMRR revenue benchmarks, the state of indie SaaS revenue, solo developer revenue examples and how side projects reach $1K MRR. The revenue intelligence overview explains how the data is collected.

What to sell first

The payment question only matters once someone wants to pay you. The cheapest order to try things in, for a founder under 18:

Our guide to starting with no money goes deeper on the first rung, and how to make money at 15 covers which services work at 14 and 15 and why the job hour caps favor them. For the full list of options, see service business ideas, one-person business ideas, online business ideas and low-cost business ideas. Still in school? Business ideas for college students maps ideas to real demand, with an under-18 note on each.

Why services come first

A service sidesteps almost every wall in this guide. There is no app store, no product to host, and your first client can be a neighbor, a relative’s business or a local shop. You learn what people pay for before you build anything. If you are 13, our guide to making money at 13 lists the local services that are open under 14.

“Legally you can work as a freelancer, but you can’t have paypal, can’t pay ads, etc” – r/youngentrepreneur

The first half of that is the opening. Websites for local businesses, video editing, social media scheduling, tutoring, photo cleanup and simple automations all fit. Check demand before you commit with how to validate a side hustle idea, avoid the crowded ones in oversaturated side hustles, and see which skills buyers are paying for in the state of freelance demand. More options that fit around school: part-time business ideas, unique side hustles, side hustles for developers and how to make money with AI.

“You are super unlikely to be making bank on anything that does not at least require an adult somewhere.” – r/youngentrepreneur

Digital products and templates second

Once you know what a group of people struggles with, package the fix: a template, a guide, a preset pack, a spreadsheet. Gumroad’s guardian route makes this the cleanest product path for a US teen. Ideas and price points are in best digital product ideas and newsletter business ideas. Before you make one, sketch the buyer with the free user persona generator.

“I really wanna know if there is any apps that would allow an minor to make an account to sell commissions” – r/artcommissions

The answer, per Gumroad’s help center, is yes for US sellers with a guardian added.

Apps and SaaS last

Apps are the slowest route to your first dollar for a minor: a developer program your parent must own, review queues, a store cut and a payment integration. They can still work. Young founders on Reddit report real traction:

“I’m 17, so I can’t open an AdSense account, and I also can’t really use my parents’ bank accounts for payouts.” – r/webdev

“Stripe integration is planned, but I’m under 18 so I’ll likely run payments through a parent account or start in test mode.” – r/microsaas

The second approach is the right one: build in test mode, then switch on a guardian-owned account when the first customer is ready. For what to build, see simple SaaS ideas for solo developers, Chrome extension ideas and how to monetize a Chrome extension. If you build with AI tools, how to make money vibe coding covers what actually sells. When you are ready to launch, read where to launch your startup and how to get your first 100 users, and use the free MRR calculator to track it. Not a coder? How to build a SaaS without code is the place to start. For the full teen playbook (stack, hosting terms, costs and which categories pay), read can a teenager start a SaaS.

How to pitch your parents

Over half of the posts in our sample (53%) mention a parent, often as the hurdle. One poster said their parents “never supported it and never wanted to use their cred.” Treat the conversation like a pitch:

1. Show a real customer, or a message from someone who asked to buy.
2. Show the platform’s own rule (link the Stripe or Gumroad page above) so they see it is the official route.
3. Name the risk and your plan: expected volume, refund policy, and that nothing restricted is being sold.
4. Offer visibility: they can see the dashboard and the ledger whenever they want.
5. Agree on taxes and the handover at 18 before the first sale.

A one-page plan helps. Use the free business model generator and the free startup cost calculator to put numbers on it, and the free SWOT generator to show you have thought about the risks.

“If I proposed the idea to my parents they would be supportive so theres somemore background info.” – r/Business_Ideas

The under-18 payments checklist

• Real name and real date of birth on every account.
• Processor chosen: Stripe (13+ with guardian owner) or Gumroad (13+ with guardian, US), or a parent-owned PayPal or Square account.
• Guardian has read the terms and entered their own details.
• Product checked against the processor’s restricted list.
• Bank account the guardian can see, ideally joint.
• Written agreement for every client, co-signed by a parent.
• Ledger of income, fees and refunds from day one.
• Tax plan for the $400 self-employment threshold.
• Handover plan for your 18th birthday.

Methodology

Vendor rules. On September 25, 2026 we fetched each vendor’s terms, help center and pricing pages directly (with a proxy where a page timed out) and quoted the age language verbatim. Where a page shows a last-updated date, we cite it. Stripe’s support page carries no visible date, so we cite the fetch date and cross-check it against the dated Services Agreement.

Reddit sample. We ran 11 searches through two Reddit tools, deduplicated by post ID (970+ unique posts), applied a keyword filter for a minor signal plus a payment or verification signal, then read each candidate. Posts qualified only if a minor (or an account opened as a minor) hit an age, ID, KYC or bank wall while trying to get paid for selling. Two cross-posts by the same authors were counted once. Crypto, trading and gambling posts were excluded.

Our own corpus. We also checked BigIdeasDB’s Reddit pain-point table (2,300+ processed rows) and app store reviews (136,000+ reviews, 450+ with an age mention). Neither held posts about minors getting paid for a business, because those corpora capture complaints about software people already use. That is why the young-founder figures come from a live Reddit sweep.

Processor share. Read-only SQL over 8,600+ revenue-verified startups in TrustMRR, grouped by connected payment provider.

Data sources and limits

What we could not verify

• State LLC rules for minors. We did not survey 50 Secretary of State sites. Check yours.
• Lemon Squeezy’s age policy. Nothing published either way. Contact support before relying on it.
• Marketplace rules (Depop, Etsy, eBay, Fiverr, Upwork) appear only in user quotes. We did not verify them from vendor docs, so we make no claims about them.
• Bank products for teens vary by bank. We describe the common pattern, not a specific product.
• Income tax for dependents is out of scope. Only the self-employment tax threshold is stated here.

If a vendor changes its terms, this page will be wrong until we update it. The linked pages are the source of truth.

Where BigIdeasDB fits

We are a research tool, not a payment processor. Where we help a young founder is the step before payments: finding a problem people already complain about, so your first customer shows up faster. If you are researching what to sell, here is the order we would use the tools in:

Good starting points: the free business idea generator (walkthrough in how to use the idea generator), the free business idea evaluator, the target audience generator and the value proposition generator. For method, read how to find problems worth solving, the idea validation checklist and how to find your first customers. For the bigger picture, see how to decide what business to start, what to do with no ideas, how to validate a startup idea and what it costs to start a business.

Frequently asked questions

BigIdeasDB Research. (2026). How to Accept Payments Under 18: Stripe, PayPal, Gumroad and App Stores, Checked Against Their Own Terms. BigIdeasDB. Retrieved from https://bigideasdb.com/how-to-accept-payments-under-18