Cutting out the middleman

Worldwide payments & annual plans across the board

Over the past month, we’ve made significant progress in stabilizing the independent payment infrastructure of Unauthorized. With U.S. subscriptions now being successfully handled by Silicon Prairie’s e-Check system, we are taking the next crucial step by restoring global access through international bank transfers.

Today, we’re introducing two major upgrades:

1. Annual plans for all subscriptions

2. Bank transfer payments via SWIFT for subscribers worldwide

These changes are not just new payment options. They are part of our long-term strategy to maintain uninterrupted, entirely antifragile service regardless of the actions of external payment processors.

Bank transfers come with their own limitations and requirements, and we hope to cover all of the relevant details in this article. That being said, the important thing to remember is that they provide a reliable, independent fallback option when all other systems fail.

The big news

As of now, annual plans are available for all subscription types. Most are priced at an equivalent value to their monthly counterparts, though the Premium subscription keeps its 1-month discount under the classic Annual plan.

By purchasing these plans, you are guaranteed a full calendar year of uninterrupted access to Unauthorized regardless of any changes to the payment system in the meantime.

The introduction of annual plans across the board also means we can now accept international bank transfers via SWIFT. Due to the increased overhead of manually processing wire payments, this option is only available for:

• Annual subscription plans;

• Superchat token bundles of $50 or more.

This means that non-US viewers finally have a way of subscribing again, in the absence of a functioning card payment option. However, it must be noted that wire transfers involve several additional considerations, which are covered later in this article.

Subscribe from anywhere

To set up/renew an annual subscription (or purchase superchat tokens) via bank transfer, follow these steps:

1. Choose the annual plan you want to buy, either from the full subscription list or from the “subscribe” link under any video or livestream.

2. At checkout, select the “Bank transfer” payment method. This option only appears for annual subscription plans and for superchat token bundles worth $50 or more.

3. Accept the ToS and hit the yellow purchase button. You will be taken to a page with payment instructions.

   

4. These instructions must be followed exactly when entering your payment at your bank, otherwise we will not be able to receive the full amount and your order will not be processed.

5. Once your payment has been submitted at your bank, it will normally take 1-3 business days for the banks to complete your transfer and another day or so for us to see your payment and process your order, since all wire transfers have to be handled manually.

6. You can check on the status of your order(s) at any time on your Unauthorized account page. We will also be introducing automatic order confirmation emails and order delivery alerts so that you can be notified immediately once your order has been processed, though these are still a work in progress.

Important considerations for bank transfers

There’s a reason card payments are so ubiquitous these days - bank transfers are tricky, expensive, and require considerably more effort on the part of the customer to be done properly. With that in mind, here are the key requirements and limitations of using bank transfers on Unauthorized:

• Bank fees apply: nearly all banks, no matter where in the world, charge fees for international payments and for currency conversions. These fees vary by bank and by day, meaning it is essentially impossible to predict what they will be for any given customer on any given day.

  • All transaction fees, including intermediary bank charges, are your responsibility. This means that, at your bank, you must accept all fees when sending your payment. Unauthorized is not a payment service and we do not have the resources to recalculate all of our prices for everyone around the world.

  • Fees typically range from $15-$50 depending on your bank, location, and currency. For those unaccustomed to bank transfers, the total fees are usually not known until after the payment goes through. So you will see the amount you paid reserved for payment, and then after the payment has cleared you will see a slightly larger amount actually debited from your account.

  • We can only accept payment in US dollars. If you have a USD account at your bank, this will almost certainly be the least expensive one to use in terms of transfer fees. Otherwise, you will have to submit payment in USD and accept the additional conversion fee from your local currency.

  • We cannot credit partial payments. Your subscription will only be activated/renewed and your superchat tokens will only be delivered once we have received the full amount for your order.

• Processing time: bank transfers are just about the slowest form of digital payment in existence. Compared to credit/debit cards, it’s the digital equivalent of driving rather than booking an airline.

  • Transfers typically take 1-3 business days to complete.

  • Some international transfers may take up to 7 business days, in extreme cases.

  • Your order will only be processed after we receive the full amount.

• No automatic renewals

  • Unlike card payments, bank transfers do not support auto-renewal.

  • You’ll need to manually renew your subscription after it expires in a year’s time.

  • We will be soon be introducing subscription renewal emails, so you won’t be caught off guard by your subscription’s expiration.

  • If you would like to set up a recurring payment for your subscription, please contact us to discuss it on a case-by-case basis.

• No refunds

  • Due to the irreversible nature of bank transfers, all payments are final.

  • We quite simply cannot process refunds for bank transfer payments.

  • Please ensure the correct USD amount (including fees) is being sent before submitting your payment!

  • Cases of accidental overpayment will be compensated with the appropriate number of superchat tokens.

What’s the point?

Given all of these conditions & caveats and the effort that goes into making bank transfers work, you might be wondering why we’re bothering to do this.

To make a long story short, bank transfers are just about the ultimate backup plan. We’ve gained and lost various payment processing contracts before, most recently this spring, and it’s always a massive blow to have to rebuild our subscriber base from the ground up.

Remember, Unauthorized does not sell ads, does not take sponsorship, and does not take outside investment. We are 100% subscriber-funded and we do not answer to anybody except our own subscribers.

Therefore, an option which does not allow any middleman to interfere with our core business is absolutely worth providing even if it is slower and more difficult to use than more sophisticated methods. As cumbersome as bank transfers are, they give us total independence from payment service providers—which is quite simply invaluable nowadays.

In addition to that, the only non-bank transfer option that we currently offer is Silicon Prairie’s e-Check system which can only handle American subscribers. With bank transfers, our most dedicated supporters in Europe, Asia, Australia, and the rest of the world have a guaranteed path to remaining subscribed.

As Unauthorized grows and develops, we will bring back card payments and continue to add other payment options as the opportunities present themselves. But the bank transfer option is here to stay as the backup plan for everybody.

What’s next?

The next visible change to Unauthorized will likely be the introduction of comments under published videos, as mentioned in last month’s article. In a similar fashion to the live chats, the comments will be publicly visible though only active subscribers will be able to engage.

We also intend to up our email game considerably in the near future with regards to order confirmations and subscription renewal/expiration alerts. It is our hope that this will reduce confusion regarding the statuses of your subscriptions.

Finally, development of our new frontend is continuing apace and we expect the first signs of that work to begin appearing in the early autumn.

Recap

With the introduction of annual plans and international bank transfers, we now have multiple avenues to maintain the fully independent operation of Unauthorized. While we recognize that these payment methods are not ideal for all users, they are the lifeline that allow us to push onward when mainstream options become unavailable.

We sincerely appreciate your continued support and encouragement as we continue to build and strengthen the infrastructure of Unauthorized. Your subscriptions fuel our creators, our ongoing operations, and continued development & improvement of the platform.

We are all perfectly aware of the difficulty of achieving complete independence, and each successive challenge has made Unauthorized more resilient than before. All of us, subscribers, creators, supporters, and developers, are continually proving that Unauthorized can survive and even thrive as a subscriber-funded platform without the need for external funding or the approval of traditional payment processors.

Thank you all for being part of this journey and sticking with us throughout!

—Jordamøn