passepartout

Name

passepartout

Legal name

PassePartout

Website

https://passepartout.io

Company type

Private

Founded year

2019

Operating status

Operating

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Revenue model

1. Transaction commission: PassePartout charges a flat 10% commission on all transactions regardless of amount, with no fixed fees. Widgets are distributed free of charge with no installation costs. Revenue is generated only when publishers earn revenue.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

PassePartout provides a cross-publisher micropayment platform for digital press publishers, enabling readers to pay for individual articles, 24-hour unlimited access passes, micro-donations, or gift articles through a two-click payment flow. The company operates a unified reader wallet usable across all partner publishers, charging a flat 10% commission on transactions with no fixed fees or installation costs.

Product overview

PassePartout is a unified micro-payment platform for the press industry, consisting of a core payment infrastructure and four distinct purchase products: (1) Achat à l'article for single-article payments, (2) Pass illimité 24H for time-limited unlimited access, (3) Micro-don for voluntary reader donations, and (4) Offrez cet article à un ami for gifting articles to others. The platform operates as a cross-publisher network, allowing readers to maintain a single wallet across all partner publishers, with a 10% commission structure on all transactions.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• PassePartout Platform Cross-publisher micropayment infrastructure that enables press publishers to monetize casual readers through single-article payments, 24-hour passes, micro-donations, and gifting features, with a unified reader wallet across all partner publishers.
• Pay-per-Article (Achat à l'article) Core micro-payment product allowing readers to purchase and unlock individual articles through a two-click payment flow, targeting occasional press readers who do not want a subscription.
• 24-Hour Unlimited Pass (Pass illimité 24H) Time-limited access pass granting readers full access to all publisher content for 24 hours at a set price point, providing an alternative to recurring subscriptions.
• Micro-Donation (Micro-don) Voluntary micro-donation option enabling readers to support press publishers with small, frictionless contributions via two-click payment.
• Gift Article (Offrez cet article à un ami) Feature that allows readers to purchase an article as a gift for another person, expanding publisher reach through reader-driven viral distribution.

Quantifiable outcome

• 15% of all reader transactions reversed to the publisher who brought them into the network, for 2 years

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration3 records

Feature4 records

Partnerships

Three partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• QiotacoreTechnology or IntegrationQiota is a paywall provider. PassePartout integrates natively with Qiota dashboard, allowing publishers using Qiota to add PassePartout micropayment in just 5 minutes with one-click integration.
• PooolcoreTechnology or IntegrationPoool is a paywall solution provider. Native integration with Poool enables publishers to offer PassePartout micropayment options through the Poool paywall interface.
• PianocoreTechnology or IntegrationPiano is an enterprise paywall and monetization platform. Integration with Piano allows enterprise publishers to offer PassePartout micropayment options alongside existing Piano monetization tools.

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves6 records

Direct peers

• Blendle: Dutch micropayment platform for individual news articles that was PassePartout's most direct historical peer; referenced by PassePartout itself as a prior failed attempt at article-level payments. Direct overlap in product (pay-per-article for journalism) and target market (digital press readers).
• Poool: French paywall and reader conversion platform for publishers. Competes head-to-head with PassePartout for the same French press customer while also being a partner via native integration — a hybrid competitor/distributor relationship.
• Coil: Web micropayments and streaming payment platform that enabled per-article and per-second payments to content creators via a shared browser wallet. Closest direct functional analog to PassePartout's cross-publisher wallet model, though Coil operated with a different funding mechanic.

Broad incumbents

• Piano: Enterprise paywall, subscription, and audience monetization platform serving major publishers globally. Overlaps with PassePartout in publisher monetization infrastructure and is also an integration partner, making it both a competitor and a channel.
• Stripe: Global payments infrastructure provider explicitly named by PassePartout as a competitor for micropayment use cases. While Stripe serves a much broader market, its fixed-fee model makes it economically unsuitable for small transactions — the exact gap PassePartout targets.

Emerging players

• Qiota: Paywall provider offering one-click integration with PassePartout. Operates in the same French publisher monetization space but with a more limited product surface, functioning both as a direct competitor and a key distribution partner.
• Memberful: Membership and subscription monetization platform for independent publishers and creators. Targets the same 'monetize content without going full enterprise SaaS' need as PassePartout, primarily through subscriptions rather than micropayments.
• Outseta: All-in-one membership, subscription, and payment platform for content businesses. Competes for the same publisher customer wallet with a subscription-first model, offering an alternative path to reader monetization.
• Substack: Subscription publishing platform for independent writers and newsletters. Competes for the same digital-publisher reader-payment relationship, although via subscriptions rather than per-article micropayments.
• Ghost: Open-source publishing platform with built-in membership and subscription monetization. Competes for the same digital publisher customer, with a self-hosted model that appeals to publisher-sophisticated buyers.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/passepartoutio
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/passepartout-io

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about passepartout