Platforms change pricing and features — verify on the provider’s official pages.
PayPal invoicing is a billing step after a commission is usually negotiated in DMs or email, so a creator still chases payment and may face a Goods & Services dispute after delivery. Brillay uses a page-hosted order, upfront payment at checkout, and an order thread instead. Custom Work lets you offer clearly scoped commissions and services: you set the price, the scope and the delivery time, and followers submit a brief and pay before you start.
Short answer: Use PayPal invoicing if you already manage briefs, reminders, delivery, and disputes elsewhere. Use Brillay Custom Work if you would rather publish the price, scope and delivery window once and have each commission arrive as a brief the follower has already paid for.
Nothing about the page costs you anything while you find out whether commission buyers will actually check out (pricing). No monthly fee, you only pay a small platform fee when you get paid. 8% platform fee when a follower pays for work, 5% platform fee on tips and goals. Card processing is separate.
Should I use PayPal invoices for commissions?
Use PayPal invoicing when you want a familiar bill, a downloadable record, and a payment method many buyers already know. It is a practical tool for a creator who is comfortable managing the whole commission flow elsewhere: intake in DMs, scope in email, reminders by hand, delivery in another thread, and dispute evidence gathered from scattered messages.
PayPal's own help page says, "PayPal Invoicing has no set up or monthly fees," and says the seller is charged a fee when a customer pays online (PayPal Invoicing cost). That makes it easy to start, but it does not make the invoice an order form. The buyer can agree to the idea in a message and still delay payment, ask for a change before paying, or vanish after you have spent time clarifying the brief.
Followers pay before you do the work and you deliver on your own time (how it works), so there is no loose DM agreement left to talk into an invoice after the fact.
What changes before the commission starts?
The biggest pre-work change is where the buyer's commitment happens. With a PayPal invoice, the creator normally discusses the commission first, creates the invoice, sends it, and waits for the buyer to pay. Until that payment happens, the seller has a promise, not a paid order record tied to the final brief.
With Brillay Custom Work, the setup states the title, description, what the follower gets, what you need from them, what is not included, the price, the delivery time, optional slots, and optional custom follower fields. The follower describes the request and pays upfront before the creator decides whether to deliver. What reaches your queue is therefore a defined job with a price and a deadline already attached, not a conversation to be priced later.
That distinction matters for commission artists, editors, reviewers, and custom-audio or custom-video sellers because the manual handoff from casual interest to paid order is easy to lose in a message thread. That is an operational observation, not a market statistic — but the handoff is the part of the job PayPal leaves entirely to you. On Brillay the handoff is the page: the follower reads the scope, sends the brief and pays as a guest, so a commission never depends on you remembering to invoice someone who has already lost interest.
How do fees compare on commissions?
PayPal invoicing is usually cheaper on pure processing cost, while Brillay charges more because it includes the page-hosted paid-request workflow. The honest comparison is not "which button has the lowest fee?" but "which flow prevents unpaid commission starts, scattered briefs, and invoice chasing?"
PayPal's U.S. business-fee table lists the standard domestic invoicing rate as 3.49% plus a fixed fee when an invoice is paid through PayPal Checkout, Pay with Venmo, or PayPal Guest Checkout, and the PayPal commercial-transaction fixed fee table lists $0.49 for USD payments (PayPal merchant fees). PayPal invoice costs can vary by country, payment type, currency, and merchant setup, so a creator should read the fee table for the account and funding path they actually use.
Stripe publishes 2.9% + 30¢ as typical United States online-card pricing for domestic cards, with additional costs for some international cards, currency conversion, manual entry, and other methods (Stripe pricing). On a $100 illustrative U.S. domestic online payment, PayPal's 3.49% + $0.49 standard domestic invoicing path leaves $96.02 before refunds, disputes, taxes, and any other account-specific costs, while Brillay's 8% fee on a Custom Work order plus Stripe's 2.9% + $0.30 leaves $88.80 on the same assumptions.
| Buyer pays | PayPal invoice example | Brillay Custom Work example | Formula used |
|---|---|---|---|
| $25 | $23.64 | $21.98 | PayPal: price − 3.49% − $0.49; Brillay: price − 8% − 2.9% − $0.30 (tips and goals: 5%) |
| $50 | $47.77 | $44.25 | Same U.S. domestic online-payment assumptions |
| $100 | $96.02 | $88.80 | Same U.S. domestic online-payment assumptions |
These examples are illustrative, not financial advice or guaranteed settlement amounts. In the Brillay column, the platform fee and Stripe processing are both calculated against the buyer's payment amount; the table excludes refunds, disputes, taxes, payout timing, currency conversion, and account-specific costs.
What happens if the buyer disputes delivery?
A PayPal invoice paid as Goods & Services can still be disputed after delivery. PayPal's Purchase Protection terms say an Item Not Received dispute must be opened within 180 days of the payment date, and Significantly Not as Described disputes are also handled under the Purchase Protection process (PayPal Purchase Protection Program).
That policy is designed to protect buyers, not to be a creator intake system. For custom work, the risk is usually evidence quality: did the invoice state exactly what was included, did the DM thread show approval, did delivery happen in a place the payment processor can understand, and were requested changes outside the original scope? This is operational context, not legal or financial advice.
"If an order doesn’t arrive or match the seller’s description, we’ll reimburse you for the full purchase price plus original shipping costs."
— PayPal, Purchase Protection page
A creator still needs a clear offer, a clear delivery record, and realistic expectations for online payments.
Where does the brief and delivery live?
The brief and delivery matter because disputes, misunderstandings, and scope creep usually happen around details, not around the payment button. A PayPal invoice can include line items and notes, but the actual creative negotiation often lives in DMs or email before the invoice exists.
Brillay keeps the order in a private page-hosted thread. For Custom Work, followers can attach files to the request, and the creator delivers text plus files and/or a link. For Personalized Videos, the follower sends written instructions, and the creator delivers one video. In the current product, each Custom Work order includes one delivery, and it arrives in that same private thread. If a follower wants something different, they place a new paid order. These are material workflow mechanics and prominent product details, so a creator should define what is and is not included before sending followers to checkout.
On Brillay, small, defined deliverables can include a mini edit, profile critique, art add-on, voice line, reference-based sketch, thumbnail review, custom file, or recorded shoutout. If the commission is a simple written answer rather than a deliverable, Paid Questions are a lighter format: one private question and one written reply. For adjacent advice formats, paid Q&A versus coaching calls explains when a paid answer is better than selling time.
Which workflow fits custom commission sellers?
Brillay gives commission sellers of any size their own page for paid requests, with no follower minimum and nothing to apply for. You set the price, scope and delivery time before anyone pays, and followers see a clear paid menu instead of receiving an awkward money request in a DM.
PayPal invoicing fits sellers who want maximum flexibility and already have a clean operating system elsewhere. If your commission process uses a spreadsheet, signed quotes, a separate helpdesk, or a long email approval chain, PayPal may be enough because the invoice is only the payment step.
On Brillay, the request and the payment happen on the page, as a guest. Brillay gives followers already asking "how much for this?" a menu of small paid offers instead of a custom quote every time. Creators comparing broader service formats can also read best platforms to sell coaching packages, especially if their commission work overlaps with feedback, reviews, or expert advice.
| Commission payment issue | PayPal invoice | Brillay Custom Work |
|---|---|---|
| Buyer commitment point | Seller sends invoice, then waits for payment | Follower reads the published scope, sends the brief and pays upfront |
| Request record | Often split across DMs, email, and invoice notes | Request details live in the page-hosted order page |
| Fee trigger | Seller fee applies when the invoice payment is processed | Brillay fee applies only when a follower pays |
| Declined request | Seller handles cancellation or refund workflow | Followers pay upfront; you can decline a request. |
| Delivery model | Seller chooses a separate delivery channel | One-time delivery in the private order page |
What tradeoffs should commission creators expect?
PayPal's tradeoff is that it is broad and familiar, but the creator owns the process around it.
Brillay's tradeoff is that it is narrower, and creator payouts are currently available in 41 countries. It is built for paid questions and requests from followers, not every kind of business billing. The price and the delivery window are published before anyone orders, so the schedule is part of the offer rather than something you enforce afterwards with reminders.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City reports that the average U.S. card-not-present fraud rate for debit cards increased from 26.1 basis points in 2019 to 41.6 basis points in 2023 (Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City payments research).
The Federal Trade Commission says a credit card issuer must acknowledge a billing-dispute complaint within 30 days and generally resolve it within 90 days (FTC credit card disputes). A creator cannot make disputes impossible, but they can avoid the avoidable part: doing unpaid pre-work and starting commissions before the buyer has completed a checkout step.
Frequently asked questions
Is Brillay cheaper than PayPal invoicing?
Not necessarily. PayPal's cost depends on the invoice payment type, country, currency, fixed fee, and dispute outcomes, while Brillay takes its platform fee, the rate worked through in the fee table above, only when a follower pays for work, and Stripe's card processing is a separate charge on top of it. Brillay is usually a workflow choice first and a fee comparison second.
Does Brillay prevent PayPal-style disputes entirely?
No. Keep scopes clear and deliver inside the order page.
Can I still discuss commissions in DMs?
Yes. You can answer quick questions in DMs, then send the follower to your Brillay link to place the paid request.
What if I need revisions on commissions?
Each Custom Work order has one delivery, which is why what is and is not included belongs on the listing before anyone pays. After you deliver, the follower can open a Customer support conversation on that same order, and the correction and refund policies you publish — which they read before paying — set what happens next.
What happens if I decline a request?
You can decline it. A brief that lands outside the scope you published is not work you agreed to, so declining is a normal part of running your own queue rather than an argument in a DM thread.
Ready to try Brillay for commissions?
If interested followers keep turning into unpaid invoice follow-ups, move the brief and checkout to your bio link; they can pay by card as guests, with no follower account needed. Create your free Brillay page