# FAQ

> Straight answers to the most common questions about Soca: fees, refunds, chargebacks, supported wallets, settlement speed, self-custody, subscriptions, and how Soca differs from Stripe.

Part of the Soca documentation (https://soca.finance/docs). Human version: https://soca.finance/docs/faq
The questions businesses and customers actually ask, answered plainly. For the full mechanics, see [How Soca works](/docs/how-it-works); for every number, see [Pricing and fees](/docs/pricing).

## Do my customers need to understand crypto?

No. A customer can sign in with email or Google and a secure embedded wallet is created for them automatically. They see prices in dollars, pay in dollars, and get a normal receipt. Customers who already use a wallet like Phantom can connect it instead, but nobody is required to know what a wallet is to pay.

## What does Soca cost?

Businesses pay 1.5% when they get paid, online or in person. Customers paying with a Soca account pay 1% **less** than the listed price; paying from a connected wallet without an account costs the full listed price. The business receives the same net either way — $98.50 on a $100 sale — because Soca funds the customer's discount out of its own fee, not the business's. Sending money between people is free, refunds carry no fee, and there are no monthly, setup, or minimum fees. The full breakdown is on the [pricing page](/docs/pricing).

## How fast do I get paid?

Immediately: settlement is the payment. Funds settle wallet-to-wallet inside the payment transaction itself: there is no pooled balance, no payout schedule, and no withdrawal step. When the customer's payment confirms, the money is already in your wallet.

## What currency do I receive?

USDC: a fully-reserved digital dollar designed to stay worth one US dollar. You price in dollars, your customer pays in dollars, and your wallet receives dollars; there is no volatile cryptocurrency anywhere in the flow. All settlement happens on the Solana network.

## Are there chargebacks?

No. Payments are push-based wallet transfers, so card-style chargebacks (and their fees) do not exist. Businesses keep what they earn, and disputes are handled the way they were before card networks: directly, with refunds.

## How do refunds work?

A refund is a new merchant-signed USDC transfer back to the customer, never a reversal, always visible on-chain. A business can send a full or partial refund from the dashboard to the original customer wallet, with no refund fee. Because it is a real transfer rather than a reversal, both sides can see it on the network.

## Which wallets are supported?

Customers can connect a Solana wallet such as Phantom, Solflare, or Backpack. They can also simply sign in with email or Google, which creates an embedded wallet for them. Both paths reach the same checkout and settle identically. The one difference is price: The discount is a Soca account benefit: it applies when you are signed in to a Soca account and paying from a wallet registered to it. Paying from a connected wallet without a Soca account works exactly the same way, at the full listed price. An embedded wallet's key remains exportable, so signing up is never a lesser form of self-custody.

## Do subscriptions auto-renew, and can customers cancel?

Yes and yes. A subscription renews automatically inside the limits the customer approved on-chain: a capped amount, a fixed destination, and at most one charge per billing period. The customer can cancel at any time from their own account, and once their revocation confirms, no future charge can execute. Cancellation does not depend on the merchant's cooperation.

## What if I lose my device or my keys?

If you sign in with email or Google, your account recovers the way any modern account does. Sign in on a new device and re-verify with a passkey; your funds were never stored on the lost phone, only on the network. If you exported a wallet's private key and manage it yourself outside Soca, you are responsible for that copy: anyone who has it can spend from the wallet, and no one, including Soca, can regenerate a key that is lost.

## Is my money safe if Soca disappears?

Yes. Soca is non-custodial: your balance lives in your own wallet on a public network, not in a Soca account. If Soca shut down tomorrow, your funds would be untouched and fully spendable. Export the key into a wallet app like Phantom and carry on. What you would lose is Soca's software around the money, never the money.

## Can I withdraw to my bank?

Yes. The personal app has **Add money** and **Withdraw** flows through an integrated partner for moving between your bank and your Soca balance. And because your balance is standard USDC in your own wallet, you are never locked in, and any service that supports USDC on Solana can convert it to your local currency.

## Is there a minimum payment amount?

There is no monthly minimum and no minimum volume to use Soca. The one floor that exists: a subscription plan must be priced at least 1.00 USDC per billing period. One-off payments can be small enough for tipping and micro-purchases, precisely because the network fee is a fraction of a cent and sponsored anyway.

## What about taxes and reporting?

Every payment, refund, and subscription charge has a complete, timestamped record you can export from the dashboard for bookkeeping, and each one corresponds to a verifiable transaction on the network. Note that Soca provides records, not tax advice: how USDC income and payments are taxed depends on your jurisdiction, so consult a tax professional.

## How is Soca different from Stripe?

The surface is similar on purpose: hosted checkout, subscriptions, invoices, webhooks, and a dashboard. The rail underneath is different. Stripe processes card payments, which means intermediary fees (typically 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction, settling in days), payout schedules, and chargebacks; Soca settles digital dollars wallet to wallet, which means a 1.5% fee, instant settlement, no chargebacks, and a 1% discount for the customer. Many businesses run both: cards through Stripe, and Soca for customers who want to pay less.