Paying 402lounge

Books, Books for teams, the archive, the sponsored place and the seller check for level 2 can be paid three ways. All three give the same plan with the same limits. Prices are in EUR and include VAT, a year costs ten months. The sponsored place is one month, paid once.

The seller check is included in Books and Books for teams. Asking for it on a paid plan answers check_included.

The archive

Without a paid plan, the receipts and documents of a year are deleted on 31 January of the next year. The archive keeps them at 402lounge for a company that does not need Books: receipts, monthly documents and invoices stay as long as the archive runs, and 30 days after it ends. Nothing else changes, the company stays on Free with its limits and the monthly overview. Books and Books for teams keep the records anyway, so the archive is only for companies without a paid plan (archive_with_plan).

• Through Polar it renews each month or year until you cancel. A company has one subscription at Polar: to move from the archive to Books, or back, switch it in the customer portal (billing.portal). Polar credits the rest of the period, and the new one starts at once.
• In USDC it covers the period you pay. A period paid while the archive runs is added to its end.

GET /v1/billing shows it in archive: whether it runs, until when, how it is paid and whether it renews. company.get says in retention what keeps the records (by: "plan" or "archive") or when they go. A company that closes renews nothing any more, and a paid archive keeps its records until the first 31 January after the archive ends.

Which way fits

• Polar. Card, PayPal and more. Polar is the seller and issues the invoice. It renews a plan or the archive each period. The sponsored place and the seller check are paid once. billing.checkout gives a link for a person of your company.
• Your agent pays in USDC. The agent asks for an offer and pays it over x402, from its own wallet. Nothing renews by itself.
• Your own transfer in USDC. A person sends exactly the amount of the offer to our wallet on Base, from any wallet. Nothing renews by itself.

GET /v1/billing lists the ways that are open right now in pay_with: polar, usdc or both.

The offer

billing.quote (or POST /v1/billing/usdc/quote) makes an offer for one item:

{"plan": "books", "period": "month"}
{"archive": "year"}
{"sponsor": "<your listing slug>"}
{"seller_check": "<your listing slug>"}

Admins, owners and finance ask for offers. The company needs its name, address, country and confirmed email first, because the invoice names them.

The answer has the price in EUR with the VAT for your company, the ECB rate of the day (USDC counts as USD, as on receipts) and amount_usdc. The digits after the cent are a marker: no other open offer has the same amount, so a plain transfer finds its offer. The offer is open for 30 minutes.

Every company pays the price on the pricing page. What it holds follows where your company sits.

• Germany: 19 % German VAT is in the price.
• Another EU country with a VAT ID confirmed by VIES: the same price without VAT, reverse charge. Without a confirmed VAT ID the price holds 19 % German VAT, the offer says how to add one.
• Outside the EU: the same price, not taxable in Germany, no VAT on the invoice.

Your agent pays it

The offer's pay_url is an x402 route. Without payment it answers 402 with the amount, our wallet and Base. Your x402 client pays it like any other paid call, and the answer says paid with the invoice.

npx awal x402 pay <pay_url> -X POST

Most x402 clients cap one payment at 1 USD by default. A plan costs more, so allow the amount of the offer for this one payment (for @x402/core: client.setSpendControls({ maxAmountPerPayment: '$400' })). The pay_url needs no sign-in: whoever pays it pays for your company. A paid offer is never charged twice.

You send it yourself

Send exactly amount_usdc in USDC on Base to pay_to, before expires_at. Any wallet works, it does not have to be in your company. We see the transfer within a minute or two of its block. GET /v1/billing/usdc/quote/{id} then says paid, with the invoice.

A different amount, or a transfer after the offer ran out, unlocks nothing. We look at every such payment and write to you. Ask for a new offer instead of sending more.

After the payment

• The plan starts at once. Paying the same plan again adds its period to the end of the current one.
• A different plan while one paid in USDC runs goes by hand: write to hello@402lounge.com and we credit the rest.
• The archive runs from the payment, or from the end of the archive that runs.
• The sponsored place runs for one month from the payment. A month paid while it runs is added to its end.
• The seller check counts for a year from the payment, or from the end of the year already paid. The check of the listing then goes on by itself (seller levels).
• Nothing renews by itself. We send a notice 7 days before the end. Without a new payment the plan falls back to Free at the change of month after it ends.

The invoice

Every payment in USDC gets an invoice from 402lounge (Florian Baraz, Cuxhaven), numbered 402R-<year>-<number>. It names your company as on the offer, the item and its period, net, VAT or the note on reverse charge, the total in EUR, and the payment: the amount in USDC, the rate and the transaction on Base.

billing.invoices (or GET /v1/billing/invoices) lists them, each with a PDF in English or German (?lang=de). We keep every invoice as issued. A mistake is corrected with an invoice correction, with its own number, and the original stays.

These invoices are for payments in USDC. For what you bought through Polar, Polar issues the invoice. The one for the sponsored place or the seller check comes with Polar's confirmation email. For a plan or the archive you find it in Polar's customer portal (billing.portal). A payment of an offer has our invoice, so it does not show up again in your monthly documents.