Check where the money goes first, then what the fee costs at the sales you expect, then how the extension checks that someone paid. Those three decide most of it. After them come trials that survive a reinstall, sign-in on a second device, device limits, the pricing models you need, your build setup, the permission warning at install, and how you would leave.
This guide takes each in turn, with what to ask, and how Toolaby answers. For the tools side by side, see Chrome extension payment tools compared.
1. Where the money goes
Some platforms charge your buyers on your own Stripe account. Others sell to your buyers themselves, as the merchant of record, and pay you out. On your own account, the customers, subscriptions and cards stay yours if you leave. A merchant of record handles sales tax and VAT for you, but the buyers are on its books.
Toolaby: your own Stripe account, through Stripe Connect. The buyer sees your name on their statement. Any tax you owe is yours to account for. See Money.
2. The fee at your size
A percentage is cheap while sales are small and expensive once they grow. Work out what each option takes at $500, $5,000 and $20,000 of sales a month, and add the payment processor's own fee, which every option pays.
Toolaby: 0.5% of a sale on Hobby, or $25 a month per workspace on Pro with no fee. Pro costs less from $5,000 of sales a month. See Plans.
3. How the extension checks payment
Ask whether each check is a network request, what happens offline, and what stops someone setting paid to true in their own browser.
Toolaby: the extension verifies a token Toolaby signs for that device, so most checks need no request, and paying users keep working offline for a while. See Check if a user has paid.
4. What people get before paying
Free uses, a free trial, or a feature that is always free. Ask where free uses are counted: on the device alone, a reinstall gives them again.
Toolaby: free uses in total or per day, week or month, a plan's free trial, and a trial with no card. Requiring an account stops a reinstall from resetting the uses. See Add a free trial.
5. A second device, and device limits
A buyer who pays on one computer expects it on the next. Ask how they sign in there, and what stops one licence from running on fifty machines.
Toolaby: sign-in by email link or Google, or a licence key, and a device limit per plan that the buyer manages on their account page. See Licences.
6. The pricing you need
One payment, monthly or yearly subscriptions, paid features on different plans, team seats, a bundle of several extensions.
Toolaby: all of these. See Monetize a Chrome extension.
7. Your build setup
Plain Manifest V3, WXT, Plasmo or CRXJS. Ask whether the client works in the background, the popup, a side panel and content scripts, and how much you paste by hand.
Toolaby: npx -y toolaby@latest wire works with each. WXT needs nothing pasted; CRXJS and Plasmo need a few lines once. See WXT, Plasmo or CRXJS.
8. The permission warning at install
A client that runs a content script on the platform's own site needs a host permission, and Chrome then warns at install that the extension can read data on that site. Some people stop installing at a warning.
Toolaby: the client adds no host permission, and wire removes one an older version added.
9. Leaving
Ask what you take with you: the buyers, their subscriptions, their cards, the licences.
Toolaby: payments, subscriptions and cards are on your Stripe account and stay there. Configure → Export downloads the rest. See Export.
10. What you learn once it sells
Active users, the way from install to purchase, which feature sells, why people uninstall.
Toolaby: Analytics, with no code to add once the extension is wired.
Two more, if they matter to you
- A test mode, to buy with test cards before anything is live. Toolaby's Test side charges nothing. See Test and Live.
- Coding agents. Toolaby has an MCP server for Claude Code, Cursor and others. See Add payments with Claude Code or Cursor.