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Payment

Picora supports multiple payment gateways depending on your platform.

MethodOverseas (picora.me)Mainland (picora.cn)Best for
Lemon Squeezy (card)✅—International cards, EU VAT-included
Polar (card)✅ (v0.11.0)—Open source friendly, alternative to LS
WeChat Pay—✅Mainland China users
Alipay—✅Mainland China users

Overseas: Lemon Squeezy

Lemon Squeezy is the default gateway on picora.me. They handle credit cards (Visa / MC / Amex), PayPal, and Apple Pay, plus EU VAT compliance.

Subscribing

  1. Open Settings → Billing → Upgrade
  2. Choose pro or pro_plus and click Subscribe
  3. You’re redirected to Lemon Squeezy’s hosted checkout
  4. Enter card details (Picora never sees them)
  5. After successful payment, you’re redirected back; the new plan activates within 30 seconds via webhook

Currency and pricing

Default currency is USD. Lemon Squeezy auto-converts to your local currency at checkout. The amount you pay may differ slightly from the displayed USD due to exchange rates.

Overseas: Polar (v0.11.0+)

Polar is an alternative gateway introduced in v0.11.0, especially favored by open-source-friendly users.

To switch from Lemon Squeezy to Polar:

  1. Cancel your Lemon Squeezy subscription (no refund applied to remainder of paid period — service continues until end of cycle)
  2. Wait for cycle to end
  3. Re-subscribe on the upgrade page choosing Polar as gateway

You cannot be subscribed via both gateways simultaneously.

Mainland: WeChat Pay

  1. Open Settings → Billing → 升级
  2. Choose pro or pro_plus, click 微信支付
  3. A QR code appears — scan with WeChat on your phone
  4. Confirm payment in WeChat
  5. The page auto-refreshes within 10 seconds; new plan activates

If the QR code expires (10 minutes), refresh the page to generate a new one.

Mainland: Alipay

Same flow as WeChat Pay, but click 支付宝 and scan with the Alipay app instead.

Failed payments

If your card / wallet fails:

  • The plan does not activate (no service interruption — you stay on the current tier)
  • An error code is shown (e.g., “card declined”, “insufficient funds”)
  • You can retry immediately or use a different method

For recurring failures, contact your bank / wallet provider — Picora cannot diagnose card-side issues.

Refunds

See Subscription management for the full refund policy. In short:

  • Within 14 days of first paid subscription: full refund on request, no questions asked
  • After 14 days: pro-rated refund only if billing error or service unavailability >24h
  • Mainland: refund period and amount governed by 消费者权益保护法

Webhooks (admin / debug)

Internally, payment events flow through /webhooks/lemon-squeezy / /webhooks/polar / /webhooks/wechat-pay / /webhooks/alipay — see admin / observability if you need to debug a payment that didn’t activate the plan.