How to accept Monero payments Get paid privately, with nobody in the middle.

To accept Monero payments, you give each customer a fresh address and an exact amount, they pay from any Monero wallet, and the money lands straight in your own wallet. No payment processor holds it, no account can be frozen, and no customer can claw it back with a chargeback. This guide shows you the three ways to set it up, from a single invoice link to a full online checkout, and the details that matter once real money comes in.

Let's dive in.

Every Monero wallet can make as many subaddresses as you like. They all pay into the same wallet, but nobody outside can link them to each other. That one feature is the whole trick behind accepting Monero well:one fresh address per sale.

1. Set the price
   In XMR, or in your own currency converted at a live rate that is held for the sale.
2. Show a fresh address
   As a QR code, a link or a checkout page. The amount is built into the QR, so the customer does not type it.
3. The customer pays
   From any Monero wallet: Cake, Feather, the official GUI, MonkStash, anything.
4. The sale is marked paid
   Because the address belongs to that sale only, your wallet knows exactly which order the money is for.

That last point is more important than it looks. Some older Monero shop plugins match payments by amount. If two customers buy the same €20 item, one payment can mark both orders as paid. Matching by address makes that impossible.

chargebacks: payments cannot be reversed

0

to the first confirmation

~2 min

until the money is spendable

~20 min

fresh address, so sales never get confused

1 per sale

Card payments are easy to start and expensive to keep. Monero flips that. Here is what you get:

• No chargebacksOnce a payment confirms, it is final. Nobody can reverse it weeks later.
• Fees close to zeroThe network fee is paid by the sender, not you, and is usually around one or two cents. See the fee calculator.
• Nobody can freeze itThe money is in your wallet, not a processor's account that can be closed.
• Customers anywhereAnyone with an internet connection can pay you, without a bank or a card.
• Private for your customersAmounts and addresses are hidden on the blockchain, so paying you does not publish their spending.
• Private for youCompetitors cannot add up your sales by watching an address, the way they can with Bitcoin.

Now the trade-offs, because they are real:

• The price of XMR moves. If you hold what you earn, its value in euros goes up and down. Chapter 8 covers how to handle that.
• Fewer customers have it. Monero works best as an extra option next to what you already accept, and for audiences that care about privacy.
• Cashing out is getting harder in some places. Several large exchanges have dropped XMR. Chapter 10 explains what that means for you.

MonkStash gives you three ways to accept Monero. They share the same rules for prices and confirmations, and in all threethe key that can see your sales stays on a device you own.

A view key lets software see incoming payments without being able to spend them. That is why we use it for tills and shop servers: if one of them is lost or hacked, your money stays put.

For a counter, use cashier mode in the MonkStash wallet. It turns a tablet or phone into a till: you type a price in your currency, a QR code appears, the customer scans it, and the screen turns green when the payment is seen. Each sale gets its own address, and the sales list is kept encrypted on the device.

Run the till on a watch-only wallet. It sees payments but cannot spend, so a stolen tablet costs you a tablet, not your takings. Leaving the till needs your wallet password, so staff cannot open the wallet itself.

An online shop needs something that creates an invoice for every order and tells the shop when it is paid, even when you are asleep. That is what MonkStash Pay does: a small payment server you run yourself. It is an early version: built and tested on stagenet, Monero's test network, with its code open source for anyone to read and self-host. It has not had an independent security review yet, so start with small amounts. If you want a mature self-hosted option today, BTCPay Server with its Monero plugin is it.

• Your shop asks it for an invoice. It returns a checkout link with a fresh address and a held price.
• The customer pays on that checkout page, which shows the QR code, the exact amount and a live status.
• When the payment confirms, it sends your shop a signed message, and the order completes itself.

It runs on your server with a view-only wallet. No MonkStash company server is in the middle, and nothing on it can spend your money. On WordPress, the coming WooCommerce plugin will connect your store to it with three settings.

With cards, a processor sits between you and every sale. With Monero you can skip it entirely: the customer's wallet pays your wallet, and the money is yours the moment it arrives. All you need is a wallet, a fresh address per sale and a way to show it. Our Monero QR code generator turns an address and amount into a code a customer can scan.

A hosted payment processor can still be convenient, but know the trade-off. It sees your orders and your customers' payment details, and a custodial one holds your money before paying you out. Self-hosted options keep that data with you: MonkStash payment links and cashier mode today, BTCPay Server with its Monero plugin, and MonkStash Pay once it is released.

Can I accept Monero on Shopify?

Not natively. Shopify's help page on cryptocurrency says crypto is accepted through third-party providers you activate, and Monero is not mentioned on it (checked 15 October 2026). The workaround that keeps you in control is a manual payment method: the order is placed as pending, you send the customer a Monero payment link, and you mark the order paid when the XMR arrives. It is manual work, so it suits shops with a modest number of Monero orders.

No shop, just a client who owes you? Make a payment link in the wallet. You set the amount (in XMR, or in euros or dollars at a held rate), add a note like "Logo design", and choose when it expires. The client opens the link, sees the price and a QR code, and pays from any wallet. The request is marked paid in your wallet when the money arrives.

The details live in the part of the link after the #, which browsers never send to a server. So MonkStash never sees who you invoiced or for how much. You can also turn a request into a "Pay with Monero" button for your website, in plain HTML with no tracking. Need just a code for a printed invoice or a counter sign? Use the QR code generator.

A Monero payment goes through three moments: your wallet sees it within seconds, it gets its first confirmation in the next block (about 2 minutes), and after 10 blocks (about 20 minutes) you can spend it.

You do not have to wait 20 minutes to hand over a coffee. How long you wait is a business decision: an unconfirmed payment could in theory be double-spent, so the right wait depends on the amount. MonkStash uses three presets:

Ten confirmations is the usual line, not a guarantee. In September 2025 the network rolled back 18 blocks, deeper than 10, and the Monero Research Lab advised waiting longer for large amounts. For a sale you could not afford to lose, wait for more confirmations than the Safe preset before you hand over the goods.

Most shops think in euros or dollars. MonkStash converts your price into XMR at a live rate and holds that rate for the sale: 15 minutes at a till, 30 minutes for online orders by default, or whatever you choose for a payment link. The rate is the middle of several exchanges, so one bad price feed cannot short-change you.

If a payment arrives after the hold ends, it is not marked paid automatically. It is flagged as late, and you decide.

After that, what you do with the XMR is up to you:

• Keep it if you want to spend it or save in it, and accept that its value moves.
• Convert some or all of it on a schedule, so price swings never matter much. See where people trade XMR.

Monero payments cannot be reversed, and they do not show you who sent them. So a refund is a new payment from you to an address the customer gives you. Good practice:

• Ask for a refund address in writing, and send to exactly that.
• Overpaid? MonkStash shows the extra amount on the sale. Offer to send it back the same way.
• Underpaid? The checkout or till asks for the rest, to the same address, so it adds up automatically.
• Need proof? A customer can prove a payment with the transaction key from their wallet; see how to check a transaction.

Accepting Monero is a sale like any other, and most tax systems treat it that way. Keep the records your accountant needs: MonkStash exports your sales, payment requests and wallet history as CSV files, with the price, the rate used, the XMR received and the transaction ID. The files are made in your browser and saved to your device.

On the rules: from July 2027, regulated exchanges and custodians in the EU may not handle anonymity-enhancing coins like Monero. That limits where you can convert XMR in the EU. It does not, on its own, stop a business from receiving payments into its own wallet. Our guide to Monero and the EU's 2027 rules explains what changes. Rules differ by country and change, so check with a local adviser before you start, and read our country-by-country guide to whether Monero is legal.