How it works
Free to build. Paid per order. Nothing hidden in between.
The whole arrangement fits on one page, so here it is on one page.
The process
Four stages, start to selling
Only the last one involves money changing hands, and only if orders come in.
- 013 minutes
You apply
Tell us what you sell, roughly how much of it, and where you sell it now. No call, no deck, no commitment.
- A short form, not a sales process
- We reply within two working days
- Applying costs nothing and commits you to nothing
- 022 working days
We assess it honestly
We look at whether the site is likely to generate enough orders to fund itself. If we do not think it will, we tell you, and we say why.
- We turn projects down, because our income depends on it
- If we decline, we point you somewhere better
- If we accept, you get a written fee agreement with the exact rate
- 032 to 4 weeks
We design and build it
A custom design, on your domain, wired to your payment account. You review it before anything goes live.
- Your domain, registered in your name
- Custom design, not a recycled template
- Payments flow into your account, not ours
- Nothing is invoiced at any point
- 04Ongoing
You sell, your buyer covers the fee
$0.99 + 2% is built into the price your customer sees from the first page, itemised at checkout, and routed to us by Stripe Connect. Your payout is the full ticket price, and a month with no orders means a month with no fee.
- Nothing is deducted from your payout
- The 99c is per order, not per item
- Free tickets carry no fee at all
- Or absorb it yourself and settle weekly
Why we do it this way
The incentives point the same direction, which is rarer than it should be.
An agency paid upfront has been paid whether your site works or not. Their incentive ends at the invoice. A monthly platform is paid the same whether you sell one item or ten thousand.
We are paid a slice of what your site earns, for as long as you stay. If it does not convert, we do not eat. That is uncomfortable for us and it is exactly the point.
What this means in practice
- We say no. Projects without a plausible route to sales get declined, politely and quickly.
- We keep improving it. A site that converts better pays us more, so maintenance is not a cost centre for us the way it is elsewhere.
- We show our working. Every fee is itemised per order. You never receive a total you cannot check.
- We charge your buyer, not you. The fee is part of the price your buyer pays, so your payout is never reduced.
- We are straight about the catch. Your domain and data are always yours; the build itself stays ours, and we say so before you sign.
- No upfront costNothing to pay to start
- No monthly billHosting included, always
- You keep 100%The fee is paid by your buyer
- Your domain, your dataYours to take at any time
The arithmetic
What the fee looks like on your numbers
Change the figures to match what you actually sell.
Fee calculator
Where the $0.99 + 2% actually lands
By default the fee is built into the price your customer pays, so your payout is the full ticket price. Put in your own numbers.
In USD. Set 0 for a free ticket.
Each checkout counts as one order.
The $0.99 is charged once per order, not per item. Two tickets bought together are one order. Free tickets carry no fee at all.
One order
$0.99 + 2% per order
- Ticket price
- $100.00
- Application fee
- +$2.99
- Customer pays
- $102.99
Advertised to your customer as $102.99, itemised at checkout as $100.00 + $2.99 fee. Stripe Connect routes $100.00 to you and $2.99 to us.
Across 120 orders
You receive
$12,000
100% of $12,000 in ticket sales
Illustrative only. Your terms are confirmed in writing before your site goes live.
Start freeBeing clear
What is not free
A page about a free offer is only credible if it also says where the offer stops.
Custom software
Apps, internal tools and bespoke platforms are conventional paid projects, quoted and invoiced normally. There are no orders for us to earn a fee on, so the free model does not apply.
Advertising spend and management
Your free site ships with SEO fundamentals in place, but running paid search and social campaigns is a separate monthly retainer, and the ad spend itself is always yours.
Third-party costs
Domain registration, payment gateway processing charges and any paid integrations you ask for are billed by those providers directly. We do not mark them up.
Straight answers
Ownership, leaving, and what happens if we disappear
What exactly do I own?
Your domain, registered in your name from day one. Your brand. Every piece of content you supplied. And all of your customer and order data, exportable in a standard format whenever you ask. Those are yours outright and we will never hold them hostage.
Do I own the website itself?
No, and we would rather say so plainly than let you find out later. The design and code we build remain our copyright and stay on our hosting, in the same way you would not own the software behind a hosted shop platform. What you are getting free is the use of a site we built and continue to run, not a transfer of the asset.
So what happens if I leave?
You take your domain, your content and a full export of your customers and orders, and you point that domain at whatever you build next. What you cannot take is our build. That is a real cost of leaving and we would rather you weighed it going in than felt tricked on the way out.
Is that not just lock-in?
It is a form of it, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. What we can promise is that the parts that make leaving possible are unconditional: no exit fee, no notice penalty, no charge to release your data, and no argument about whose customer list it is. If you want a site you own outright, ask us for a paid custom build instead and you will own the code.
Can I leave whenever I want?
Yes, on 30 days notice, with no exit fee and no penalty of any kind. Hosting continues for 30 days after you give notice so you are never left without a site while you migrate.
What happens to my site if Owlyn Tech closes?
Your agreement includes a wind-down clause: at least 60 days notice, all funds held on your behalf remitted before anything else, a full data export and help moving your domain. It is an uncomfortable question to publish an answer to, which is exactly why we publish one.
Is there a contract?
There is a written agreement, which exists to protect both sides, but there is no minimum term. You can read the standard terms before you apply.
Find out whether your project qualifies
Applying takes about three minutes and costs nothing. We reply within two working days, either way.