Pay What You Want Pricing

Let customers choose their price above a minimum. Optionally show a suggested price. Optimized for one‑time purchases.

Pay What You Want (PWYW) lets customers decide how much they pay—at or above a merchant‑defined minimum. It increases engagement, encourages community support, and provides flexible pricing for digital products.

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What Is Pay What You Want?

PWYW is a pricing model where customers set their own price within guardrails you define. It’s ideal for:

• Digital products and media: Templates, e‑books, courses, plugins
• Experimental launches: Early access, beta releases, time‑boxed promos
• Bundles and extras: Add a PWYW tier to boost participation

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Key Benefits

• Customer‑driven pricing: Buyers choose what they pay
• Revenue floor: Enforce a minimum to protect margins
• Anchored expectations: Optional suggested price to guide choices
• Seamless checkout: Hosted checkout and receipts handled for you
• Developer‑first: Clear APIs for creation, refunds, and webhooks

PWYW is available only for Single Payment (one‑time) products.

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Creating Pay What You Want

Create a one‑time product and enable PWYW in your Dodo Payments dashboard. The sections below map directly to the creation form.

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Product creation

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Product details

• Product Name (required): Display name shown in checkout and invoices
• Product Description (required): Clear value statement customers see before paying
• Product Image (required): PNG/JPG/WebP up to 3 MB
• Brand: Associate the product with a specific brand for theming and emails
• Tax Category (required): Choose the correct category to determine tax rules

Pick the most accurate tax category to ensure correct tax collection per region.

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Pricing

• Pricing Type: Choose Single Payment
• Pay What You Want (toggle): Enable to let buyers choose the amount
• Minimum Price (required): Lowest allowed amount a customer can pay
• Suggested Price (optional): Recommended amount shown on the product page

Use metadata to store identifiers from your system (e.g., orderId) so you can reconcile events and receipts later.

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API Management

Create checkout sessions (PWYW)

제품에서 POST /checkouts을 사용하여 일회성 결제 세션을 생성합니다. 결제 시 구매자가 PWYW 최소 금액을 충족하는 금액을 입력하라는 메시지가 표시됩니다.

API Reference

View the create checkout session API.

Refund payments

Use POST /refunds to create full or partial refunds. Customers are refunded the exact amount they paid.

API Reference

Learn how to refund a payment.

List and retrieve

Use GET /payments to list payments and GET /payments/{payment_id} to retrieve one. Retrieve line items with GET /payments/{payment_id}/line-items.

List Payments

Browse the listing API.

Get Payment Detail

See the retrieval API.

Retrieve Line Items

Inspect purchased items for a payment.

Payment webhooks

React to events like payment.succeeded or payment.failed in your backend.

Webhook Guide

Handle payment lifecycle events.

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Common Use Cases

• Digital assets: Themes, templates, icon sets, media, or plugins
• Content and education: E‑books, courses, workshops with supporter pricing
• Community & donations: Fundraisers, open‑source sponsorships, creator support
• Launch experiments: Beta access and time‑boxed campaigns to gauge demand

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Integration Examples

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Checkout Sessions (single payment, PWYW)

Add a PWYW product to the cart. Checkout collects the buyer’s amount (respecting your minimum) — no extra fields are required.

const session = await client.checkoutSessions.create({
  product_cart: [
    { product_id: 'prod_pwyw_demo', quantity: 1 }
  ],
  return_url: 'https://yoursite.com/checkout/success'
});

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Best Practices

• Choose a sensible minimum: Cover costs while keeping participation easy
• Use a suggested price: Anchor expectations to improve average order value
• Explain value clearly: Tell buyers what their contribution unlocks
• A/B test campaigns: Time‑box offers and experiment with messaging
• Monitor distribution: Track paid amounts to refine minimum and suggested price

PWYW is a flexible way to invite more customers in while preserving a revenue floor. Start simple, test thoroughly, and iterate based on conversion, contribution distribution, and refund rates.