Customers pay their deposit right on the quote page, seconds after signing — but only if you’ve set up a way to get paid. You have two options: turn on LightQuoter Payments for card payments (recommended), or save your own payment link as a simple fallback.
Turn on LightQuoter Payments (recommended)
LightQuoter Payments is powered by Stripe, so setup happens on Stripe’s secure pages.
- Go to Settings and find the 💳 Online Payments card.
- Click Turn on LightQuoter Payments. You’ll be taken to Stripe to set up (or link) an account — business details, bank account, identity. It usually takes about 5 minutes.
- When you finish, you’ll land back in LightQuoter on a “You’re ready to get paid!” screen. The Online Payments card now reads Payments are on ✓ with an Open Stripe Dashboard ↗ link.
That’s it — every quote you send can now take card payments. Money goes through your own Stripe account and pays out to your bank on Stripe’s normal schedule; LightQuoter never holds your funds.
Didn’t finish setup?
If you left Stripe before the end, the card reads Almost there: finish turning on payments. Click Finish setup to pick up where you left off — Stripe saves your progress. If Stripe is still reviewing your details, you’ll see “Stripe is reviewing your details” when you come back; payments turn on by themselves once Stripe approves the account.
Payments not on yet? Use a backup payment link
Until payments are on, you can collect through Venmo, PayPal, Square, or anything else with a shareable link:
- In Settings, find the Backup Payment Link field.
- Paste your link — e.g.
https://venmo.com/u/yourbusiness. - Click Save Payment Settings.
Customers will see a 💳 Pay Deposit → button that opens your link and enter the amount themselves. Payments made this way aren’t tracked automatically — record them yourself in the quote’s Payments panel so your totals stay right. Once payments are on, the backup link is no longer used.
Zelle doesn’t offer shareable payment links, so it can’t go in this field. If a customer pays by Zelle, cash, or check, just log it with 💰 Record Payment on the quote.
Set your deposit percentage
The Deposit Percentage slider (10%–100%, default 50%) controls how much of the quote total customers are asked to pay after signing. Set it to 100% if you want full payment upfront. On multi-year contract quotes, the deposit is calculated from the discounted per-year price the customer actually signed for.
The platform fee, by plan
LightQuoter’s platform fee rides on top of Stripe’s standard card processing fee (2.9% + 30¢ for US cards, which applies on every plan). All-in, a card payment costs about:
| Plan | LightQuoter fee | All-in card cost |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan and Founding accounts | 2% | about 4.9% + 30¢ |
| Season plan ($79/mo Sept–Jan, $9/mo Feb–Aug) | 0.5% | about 3.4% + 30¢ |
| Annual plan ($397/yr) | 0% | about 2.9% + 30¢ |
Two levers:
- Pass the platform fee to the customer (Settings toggle, off by default) adds LightQuoter’s part on top of the customer’s payment instead of deducting it from your payout. Example on a $1,000 quote on the free plan: customer pays $1,020, you receive $1,000 (minus Stripe processing). On the Season plan the same quote is $1,005. Annual has nothing to pass.
- Pick a plan. The ⭐ Your plan card in Settings shows what you are on and the two paid plans. If you collect more than roughly $20k a season through Stripe, Annual pays for itself on the fee alone.
Troubleshooting
- “Your setup link expired.” — the Stripe setup link timed out. Just click Finish setup again; your progress is saved on Stripe’s side.
- Customer says there’s no payment button on their signed quote. Payment options only appear after signing — and only if payments are on or a Payment Link is saved. If neither is set up, the signed quote shows no payment section at all.