Welcome to the All About ArchiPal!

These sections cover the most common questions you may have about ArchiPal and selling your offerings.

Click one of the links below to jump to the relevant section:

Getting started

• What is ArchiPal?
• How can I use ArchiPal to make money?
• What can and can’t I sell?

Setting up your account

• Your ArchiPal seller profile
• The Settings menu

Getting Paid

• How ArchiPal handles taxes
• Getting paid
• PayPal Connect

Security

Build a following

• Discover
• Creating Posts
• Automated email workflows

Adding your products

Links to:

• Adding a product
• Versions (for a digital product)
• Variants (for a physical product)
• Memberships
• Pre-Orders
• Preparing your video for streaming
  • Other selling options
  • Pay what you want pricing
  • Memberships and recurring billing
  • Pre-orders
  • Discount codes
  • Product Versions and Variants
  • Editing, styling and customizing your product
  • Testing your product
• ArchiPal on your website
  • Sharing on your website with the Overlay and Embed
• Affiliates
  • Affiliates Dashboard
• Data and reporting
  • Get live notifications on your phone
  • Analytics Dashboards
• Customer support
  • What ArchiPal does
  • Refunds
  • Chargebacks
• Get Started!… Or, learn more!
  • Links to:
    • The ArchiPal blog
    • ArchiPal Creator Challenges and Guides
    • ArchiPal University
    • ArchiPal on Youtube
    • The ArchiPal Community
    • Our account with demo products

Getting started

What is ArchiPal?

ArchiPal is an online platform that allows you to sell your products directly to your customers, without the hassles, high fees, and low conversion rates of a marketplace model. ArchiPal provides you with a platform that you can share all over the internet or on your website, as well as insights into who your customers are, how they’re finding you, and how to keep them coming back for more.

In a nutshell:

If you have a digital or physical product that you want to sell directly on your website, or to your following on social media, ArchiPal is your home base for:

• Creating and selling products
• Interacting with your customers
• Gaining insight into how you are making sales
• Building a following

How can I use ArchiPal to make money?

Making money as a digital creator on ArchiPal is as follows:

1. Create an account and set up your payout information.
2. Create a product and upload all relevant files.
3. Publish your product and share the link with the world via social media, your website, a newsletter, telephone poles, bathroom walls, etc.
4. Your followers/fans/family/friends/enemies go to that link, enter their payment information, and receive their download link in their email.
5. We verify your account and your sales, and then turn on your payouts.
6. Every Friday, we pay you the net amount of your sales (your sales minus our fee).

If you sell physical products, we will process payments on your behalf, but you will be in charge of shipping the products to your customers.

What can and can’t I sell?

You can sell just about anything on ArchiPal, as long as your customers are receiving a tangible good in exchange for their money. The most common items sold on ArchiPal are e-books, films, music, software, and tutorials. You can also sell memberships, pre-orders, and one-time purchase products, both digital and physical. We’ve set up a page of example products for you to see things from a customer’s perspective!

Before you get up and running, please make sure that the products you intend to sell on ArchiPal are, in fact, allowed to be sold on ArchiPal. You may want to brush up on the following:

• Terms of Service
• Prohibited Items, and the more detailed article, What Can’t I Sell on ArchiPal?
• Adult products on ArchiPal

Setting up your account

Before you can start selling on ArchiPal, you need to create a ArchiPal account at the ArchiPal login screen.

You’ll then receive a confirmation email from ArchiPal. Make sure to confirm your account. If you haven’t received this email, please check your spam box, or set up an email filter to accept all emails from the ArchiPal.io domain.

Your ArchiPal creator profile

To start, visit ArchiPal.io/profile to set up your creator profile on ArchiPal. All you need to get started selling your product is a username (which you can change any time you like, as long as it isn’t already taken by another user).

Click Connections to link to your Facebook and/or Twitter profiles. You can also pull in information from these accounts to style your profile page.

To edit your bio or name, simply click on the text (it’ll turn yellow as you hover over it with your cursor), and then start typing. Be sure to click Save changes once you’re done.

You can also choose a profile picture: a headshot or an easy-to-read logo would work well.

Your Full Name is what will show up on your customers’ credit card statements, so make sure it’s recognizable and connected to your product. That means your Full Name does not have to be your actual Full Name — it just needs to be part of your brand (so don’t use something like “asfdasfd,” which would cause alarm when seen on a credit card statement).

Effective bios are less than 200 characters, but still give a clear picture of what you do.

The Settings menu

Your Settings menu is where you enter information about your account. This will allow you to:

1. Get paid
2. Set your account’s language and default currency
3. Change your password
4. Enter or remove your payment information for future purchases on ArchiPal

Getting Paid

HOW ARCHIPAL HANDLES TAXES

Depending on what you’re selling and where, you may be subject to taxes. ArchiPal does not add sales tax on top of your product price for you. We leave it up to you to either build tax into your product price or add it as a variant.
Note: ArchiPal takes a fee on every paid sale that flows through our system. We do not take fees on free sales.

If you live in the United Kingdom and are concerned about sales tax, see our Guide to United Kingdom Sales Tax for more information on enabling tax calculations in your settings.

We automatically charge EU VAT to your EU-based customers and remit it automatically to the VATMOSS, so you’re all set on that front. You don’t have to remit VAT, report it, or think about it.

Getting paid

We pay sellers every other Friday for all sales up until the previous Friday. Your balance page will show you the full breakdown of your sales, refunds/chargebacks, fees, and next payout date. If you want a full breakdown of the balance page, read this in depth article.

PayPal Connect

We have the option to be paid out directly for every individual sale through our integration with PayPal Connect. You can opt in for this by adding your PayPal email under Payments.

Security

ArchiPal cares about your privacy and security of your content. That’s why the only personal information your customers see is:

• Your Full Name (this will appear on their bank statement)
• Your Support Email
• Your ArchiPal Username
• Any links you have set up to your Facebook or Twitter accounts

For more links about security, go here.

Build a following

If you don’t have a product ready, or even if you do, it’s important to build and keep in touch with your followers. A following provides you with a ready-to-go customer base and can help you to promote your products via word-of-mouth, boosting both your sales and your online presence.

The most successful creators on ArchiPal, no matter what kinds of products they sell, all have one thing in common: a following that they are constantly interacting with, soliciting feedback from, and sending offers to.

ArchiPal can help you build your following with the Following feature, which combines useful analytics and a customizable landing page so you can start sharing your work with the world.

Discover

Discover recommends your products to prospective customers that browse ArchiPal at discover.ArchiPal.io.

Products purchased via Discover will be subject to an additional 2% fee. This applies even if the customer has purchased from you before. If they buy a product from you through the ArchiPal Discover search, or through a receipt link, or through any kind of referral aspect of the Discover feature, their purchase will be taxed the Discover fees.

Creating posts

You can create immediate or scheduled posts from your Posts tab. Send emails or make posts visible to customers, your followers, customers of specific products, customers who purchased in between set dates, and more.

Add a title and personalized message to your post. You can also add a “call to action” button, as well as upload as many files as you like. You can choose to post immediately, or schedule it to be published at a later time. You can edit or cancel your post at any time before it’s sent out.

If a customer unsubscribes from your updates, you can verify this in your Customers tab. You can also re-subscribe them (according to their wishes) by clicking or un-clicking the box marked Receives posts in the Customer drawer.

Automated email workflows

Workflows allow you to create an automated series of messages that will be sent after the time of purchase (or after someone follows you) according to a specified schedule.

For example, if you were creating an online course and you wanted to send out learning materials to customers once a week for six weeks, you would create a single workflow for that class, and your customers would begin receiving those emails as soon as their purchase completed.

Adding your products

Adding your first product only takes a few minutes. You can add digital products, physical products, memberships, and pre-orders. 

First, enter a title, price, currency (by clicking the £ sign). Then when you click Next: Customize, click Content to upload your file(s). You can upload files from your hard drive or from Dropbox.

The largest single file you can upload to ArchiPal is 100 MB. A product can contain multiple files that make up more than 16 GB. A single product can contain as many files as you like, and there is no limit to how many files you can upload to a ArchiPal product.

After you’ve created your first product, you’ll also be able to choose from your existing files when adding new products.

For all the info you’ll ever need on creating products on ArchiPal, please refer to these more in-depth Help Center articles:

• Adding a product
• Versions(for a digital product)
• Variants(for a physical product)
• Memberships
• Pre-Orders
• Preparing your video for streaming

Other selling options

Creating Bundles: If you’re selling Products A, B, and C, and want to create a bundle of all three for your customers, simply create a new product and add all the relevant files from A, B, and C. You can do this quickly by creating a product with existing files.

Video Rentals: If you upload a video file, you’ll be prompted to create a Rental that expires 30 days after purchase, or 72 hours after first being viewed.

PDF Stamping: If you are selling PDF files, PDF stamping stamps your customer’s email address on the file to serve as a disincentive against sharing.

Pay what you want pricing

If you’d like your customers to name their own price, enter a “+” sign after the price of your product to set a minimum price. If you set your price to £0+, your customers can get the product for free by entering “0” at checkout.

Memberships and recurring billing

With Memberships, you can deliver updates or installments to your customers at regular (or sporadic!) intervals and charge them monthly, quarterly, every 6 months, or annually. You can also create Memberships that end after a set amount of time (e.g. after six months).

You can also create different Tiers for your Membership, for example to offer different levels of Membership access.

Unlike normal ArchiPal products, you don’t need any files to create a Membership product.

When your customers buy a Membership product from you, you can choose whether or not they will receive the latest update you’ve sent out. You can also send them automated updates through the Workflows tab.

Please be aware that you cannot offer “temporary” discounts on Membership products. If you give someone a discount code on your Membership, they will pay that discounted amount forever.

Pre-orders

Putting the final coats of paint (digital or otherwise) on your nearly-finished masterpiece? Not to worry! You can still gauge interest and make sales.

Pre-orders require a release date and price. You can add discount codes and adjust the price later.

Before the release date, upload the files. ArchiPal will not charge your customers and deliver them their respective files until the release date. You can also adjust the date as often as you like, as well as manually release your pre-order.

Discount codes

Once a product is added, you can create discount codes by going to the Checkouts tab on the product’s edit page.

You can create discount codes for any use case, or create and share free products using discount codes.

Product Versions and Variants

On digital products, versions are used to allow customers to choose different versions of your product and receive different files in return. For example, if your e-book comes in three different file types, your customer can choose to receive a PDF, MOBI, or an EPUB at checkout, rather than receiving all files at once.

Variants are used on physical goods to account for individual changes to a product such as its shipping costs, or to differentiate between, for example, the various color options of a clothing product.

Versions can also be used to:

• Offer your customer the choice between an individual or team license
• Offer your customers the option of receiving a phone call from you

The equivalent of Versions and Variants for Memberships are Tiers.

Editing, styling, and customizing your product

Highlight the text in your product description and a style menu will appear. You can choose to make your text bold, italic, or underlined. Add hyperlinks, change the font, font size, or bullet points. Don’t forget to click Save changes!

Your products can have up to eight cover images. These can be images (png, jpeg, gif), videos, or audio files, as well as embeds from Soundcloud, Vimeo, or Youtube.

Here are some more resources for learning how to style your products:

• Styling your product
• Customizing your product
• Everything you need to know about cover images
• Customizing your receipt

You can preview your product before publishing by hovering over your preview image and clicking the black and white diagonal arrow that appears (make sure to allow pop up windows in your browser).

Testing your product

To see (almost) exactly what your customers will experience when they buy from you, simply go to your Preview page. You can access this from your product’s Edit page, by clicking the diagonal arrow on the product’s cover image.

Click the Buy button, fill out the necessary forms (except the credit card field – we don’t let you accidentally charge yourself) and click Pay.

You will receive both a “test” Sales notification, as well as a “test” email receipt, at the email address you entered in the payment form.

Read more about test purchases

ArchiPal on your website

Publishing your product will create a link to your product’s own page where your customers will be able to purchase it. You can share this link with your email list, or use our social buttons to post directly to Twitter and Facebook.

You can also send people directly to your creator profile, where they can view and purchase all of your products from you at once.

Sharing your products on your website with Overlay and Embed

Bring the ArchiPal checkout experience right to your own website with a short snippet of JavaScript code. The overlay brings up a payment window in which your customers can pay you and immediately download any files you have uploaded to the product:

You can also use our Embed to sell your products within your website:

You can access, customize, and preview these features through the Widgets page of your dashboard. Learn how to use both of these features through our Guide to Widgets.

Affiliates

If you have a network of like-minded pals who you want to help sell your products and receive a commission, you can add them as Affiliates.

Note: They will need to have a ArchiPal account set up before they can start making sales for you.

Affiliates Dashboard

Under Products, we have the Affiliated dashboard. Here your affiliates can see the products they’re affiliated for, see their sales, fees and revenue made. They can also copy the special affiliate link they can share with prospective customers from this

Data and reporting

Get live notifications on your phone

By using the ArchiPal Dashboard app for iOS, you can see all the sales you’re making in real time.

Analytics Dashboards

The Sales dashboard displays the views, sales, and conversion rates on your products and profile page, as well as the referral sources of your customers.

All your sales data (including customer emails, shipping addresses, etc) can be downloaded as a CSV from your Customer Tab. Download a free sample CSV.

On the Following dashboard you can track how many followers you have and where they’re following you from.

Customer support

What ArchiPal does

ArchiPal provides support to your customers for any questions related to:

• Payments and receipts
• Downloads
• Other questions specific to our service

If your customer’s card won’t work on a purchase or they’re having difficulties downloading something, you can refer them to us. We leave purchase updates (e.g., changes to shipping info), refunds/cancellations (which can be handled through the Customers tab), and other questions specific to your product up to your discretion.

These requests should be rare, but it’s important to designate someone on your team to handle them and respond to customers in a timely manner.

Refunds

On ArchiPal, you are in charge of refunding your customers. Decide on a refund policy, and communicate it in the bottom of your product descriptions.

To issue refunds, search for the buyer’s email from your Customers dashboard and click on it to open the customer drawer. You can either refund them in full by clicking the Refund fully button, or enter an amount in the box and click Issue partial refund. (Note: You cannot issue a partial refund for Membership products.)

Refunded purchases appear in your customer CSV with a “1” in the “Refunded” column.

Chargebacks

A chargeback happens when someone pays for your product, then disputes that charge with their payment provider (PayPal or a credit card agency). Typically, chargebacks are used for fraud (when a card or account is compromised), but they can be issued at other times, too.

Chargebacks are an unfortunate (but necessary) side effect of processing payments online. They happen only rarely, and ArchiPal is limited by regulatory laws and banking policies in how we can respond, but we always fight to get your money back for you.

ArchiPal will cover all chargeback fees for you, but chargebacks are deducted automatically from your account just as a refund would be. You do not pay any fees for refunds or chargebacks.

Get Started!… Or, learn more!

If you’re interested in learning more about selling on ArchiPal, we have a wide variety of resources for creators:

• The ArchiPal blog, where we post about feature upgrades and share creator stories.
• ArchiPal Creator Challenges and Guides– Follow along our challenges and guides about selling, email lists and more.
• ArchiPal University– a whole host of products, Q&As, tutorials, and case studies.
• ArchiPal on Youtube– all of our videos in one place.
• The ArchiPal Community – a place for creators to chat, share tips, and learn more about selling.
• Our account with demo products– here you can get our demo products that give you a look into the customer experience on ArchiPal.