We’ve always prided ourselves on a strong relationship with the global creative community—and it’s deeply gratifying to be the file-sharing platform of choice for so many of you who earn a living from your creative talent. That connection keeps us up to date with inspiring stories, but it also means we get to hear about the frustrations that you experience on a daily basis. Earning money is top of the pile: pricing projects, changing day rates, sending over invoices, watching the due date come and go. Emotions can run high, as this new article lays bare.
But most difficult of all is chasing late or missed payments long after the work has been completed—shockingly, something that 87% of content creators experience. Unwilling to accept this as standard industry practice, we challenged ourselves to make earning money for your work as effortless and simple as sharing a file.
We know that WeTransfer is already intrinsic to the way you interact with clients, customers, and fans every single day. We set out to enhance that experience by designing the most seamless way of adding a price tag to the final project or a piece of content—in order to give back time and energy that could be spent on your talent and building a successful business.
Today, after almost a year of focus groups, testing, and feedback from hundreds of people in our early access program, we’re officially unveiling payments as part of the WeTransfer experience for everyone, globally. With that, we aim to help anyone in a creative career or a side hustle to make money without the hassle of leaving your workflow or bearing the costs of endless subscriptions.
Those on a paid plan can access it with absolutely no added costs from WeTransfer, beyond standard payment processing fees from Stripe. What’s more, we’re making it available to all our free account holders without additional platform charges for a limited time only—if that’s you, and you’d like to give it a go, just click here.
So how does it work?
Connect to payment integration —connect to Stripe Business, our first partner for payment integrations, from your Account > Workspace > Integrations
Upload your files —upload your work to WeTransfer as usual
Choose your price —request payment for file transfers, with over 100+ currencies supported, based on the preferences you set during your onboarding with Stripe
Share the link directly —copy the transfer link and share it with clients via email, WhatsApp, or Slack. Post the link to your social media, Linktree, or website to reach wider audiences
Clients pay to download —before anyone can download your files, they’ll need to pay, so you’re guaranteed to get paid before delivery
Now I use WeTransfer to not only share files, but also to streamline the payment process. It gives me so much peace of mind to know I’ll be paid on time, every time!
We hope that you enjoy using payments as much as our teams enjoyed building it. Whether you’re a freelancer, photographer, videographer, designer, or an aspiring content creator relying on a professional brand and timely payments to sustain yourself, we know it can be tough out there. For many photographers, last year brought their hardest financial challenges yet, as explored recently in the first of our in-depth industry guides to help creatives at this time of anxiety.
It doesn’t matter if you work with clients on major projects, or have carved out a profitable niche producing eBooks, tutorials, or bespoke how-to guides—your time is valuable and shouldn’t be spent asking payments for work you’ve already completed. It’s as simple as that.
But we’re not just about big announcements. We also believe in making incremental changes that benefit you, little and often. Keep your eyes peeled over the coming weeks, as we’re rolling out more ways to show up and promote your brand directly on your custom WeTransfer page. Soon you’ll be able to add social links and unite all of your important channels in one place.
This is an exciting chapter for us, and we’d love to hear your feedback as you put these new updates to good use. Look out for more news as we continue expanding our platform to build a one-stop destination for your creative endeavors, and help millions of people globally to make a lasting impact through creativity.