The Friction of Getting Paid Across Borders
You finish a custom theme or a migration, the store goes live, and the client says they will send the payment. Then the questions start. Do you have a US bank account? Can you provide a W-9? Will they have to pay wire fees? The invoice you sent from your local entity looks foreign to their accounts payable department, and the payment stalls.
You end up waiting while the client's finance team figures out how to pay a non-US freelancer. Sometimes they ask you to use a payment platform that takes a cut or holds funds. Sometimes they offer to pay by credit card with a processing fee deducted. The work was completed on time, but the money takes a detour.
This friction is routine for Shopify developers outside the United States. The client's store is their revenue, so the work is urgent and the invoices pile up. You need a way to make the payment process as domestic for the client as the work itself.
The Mechanism: A US Company Issues the Invoice
PANORAMA payments registers you, verifies your identity once, and then you describe each project and client. The platform issues the invoice from a United States company, so your client pays a US bank account by ACH or wire, in dollars, with no foreign transaction from their side. If the client asks for a W-9, that document is available.
The client does not have to be in the United States. PANORAMA can invoice clients in any country that is not under sanctions, and invoices can be issued in eleven currencies, including US dollars, euros, pounds sterling, Canadian dollars, Australian dollars, and Swiss francs. The money is always received by the US company.
When the client pays, PANORAMA deducts one platform fee and sends the rest to you in your own country. The payout method depends on where you live: bank transfer, SWIFT, SEPA, Wise, a local account, or dollar-denominated digital assets. There is no monthly subscription, and nothing is charged before your client has paid.
Shopify Work Has a Shape
As a Shopify developer, you hand over custom storefront themes, Shopify apps, checkout and subscription setups, and store migrations. The work is a defined piece with a clear deliverable, so you usually bill a fixed price for the whole project, split it across stages like discovery, build, and launch, or charge the same amount every month for continuing work.
Your US clients are direct-to-consumer brands, ecommerce agencies, and sellers scaling off a template. They need the work done fast because the store is their revenue. A broken checkout or a slow theme costs them money every hour, so they approve invoices quickly when the documentation is straightforward.
The payment problem is that the invoicing has to keep up with the work. You might have several projects at different stages, some fixed-price and some on retainer, all billed to US companies. PANORAMA gives you a single process for all of them, so you can focus on building instead of chasing payments.
Your Taxes, Your Responsibility
PANORAMA payments is not your employer and does not give tax advice. When you receive payment in your home country, you remain responsible for reporting that income and paying whatever taxes apply. The platform does not withhold taxes on your behalf, except where local law requires it, and it does not tell you what to do.
What PANORAMA does is keep the client's side clean. The invoice is from a US company, the payment is domestic for them, and they get a W-9 if requested. This means your client does not have to deal with foreign contractor forms, and you do not have to incorporate in the United States to get paid.