Privacy by default · Now in beta

Your payment systems know your clients better than you do.

Every deposit, cancellation, and repeat visit is tracked, aggregated, and sold on, built into profiles neither you nor your clients ever get to see.

Stop being harvested.
Continue getting paid.

Artega is the sovereign booking and payment infrastructure for independent practitioners.

Take deposits, manage appointments, get paid without surveillance, moral clauses, or frozen funds.

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No moral clausesOWN YOUR FUNDSZero profiling

Artega booking and payment app showing Emily's Agreements

in beta

Documented incidents · public record

Sovereignty isn't a fix for when things go wrong. It's the standard your practice deserves from day one.

Most of us carry a quiet unease now, the sense that everything we do, and increasingly everything we buy, is being logged somewhere by someone we never agreed to let in. That's what data sovereignty means, stripped of the jargon: your information, and your clients', should belong to you by default and not be collected simply because collecting it was possible. Practitioners feel this more than most because trust is part of your service. You don't have to wait for this to happen to you.

Practitioner standing confidently with arms crossed

Edited from a photo by Fausto Sandoval

Not Hypothetical: Four Case Studies

Case 01

$26,984 seized

22-year customer

Frozen funds – PayPal

A 22-year customer's funds were seized. Money never returned.

Lena Evans used PayPal for 22 years to sell clothing on eBay, run payments for a poker league she owned, and handle donations for a nonprofit that helps women in need. PayPal froze her account, and six months later, seized $26,984 without ever telling her why. She's one of three plaintiffs in a federal case alleging PayPal told them they'd "have to get a subpoena" just to learn why their own money was being held.

With Artega

With Artega, there's no balance for anyone to freeze, no subpoena required to find out why. Payouts settle straight to your own wallet. There's nothing sitting in our system to hold onto in the first place.

Case 02

Invisible sharing

with every business that uses Stripe

Silently profiled – Stripe

A shopper's purchase history was scored and shared with other merchants.

Jasen Silver shopped on Instacart. He never knew Stripe was involved: no branding, no indication on the checkout screen. But Stripe was running quietly underneath, building what it internally calls a "Risk Insights" score on his purchase history, then sharing that score with every other business that uses Stripe, so it could follow him into stores he'd never even visited. Silver and four others took Stripe to court over it; a federal judge let the privacy claims proceed.

Case 03

Account deactivated

money never returned

Frozen funds – Square

Square deactivated a small business owner's account without reason and froze his customers' payments and nearly a year on, the money still hasn't reached him.

John Bradshaw runs a mobile RV repair business. Three customer payments went through Square nearly a year ago: $1,500 total, still unpaid. Square deactivated his account without explanation, then told him there was nothing further they could do. It took a local news team contacting Square directly before anyone there would even acknowledge his case by name — and as of the most recent reporting, the money still hasn't been released.

Case 04

Name leaked

across four major processors

Shown without consent – Square, SumUp, Stripe & PayPal

Sellers' real names are exposed on client statements by default.

Square's own community support forum is full of merchants who discovered their personal name was showing up on a customer's bank statement, because they never configured a separate business name. PayPal shows a seller's real name to the buyer by default on Personal and Premier accounts, and sometimes even on Business accounts. SumUp lets you set a different name that appears on statements, but it's never verified against anything, so nothing stops it defaulting to whatever you first typed, or staying that way if you forget to check. In our own test transaction, SumUp went further still: it displayed the seller's personal phone number directly to the client, tappable to call, not just the legal name. Even Stripe, which lets you set a trading name, requires your verified legal name on file regardless of what's displayed.

Practitioner meditating with a client in a serene studio

Edited from a photo by Antonika Chanel

How It Works

We can't freeze what we never hold. We can't sell what we never see.

Every practitioner has always been responsible for who they choose to work with. Artega doesn't change that. It isn't, and was never meant to be, the referee for what you and your client agree.

We prove the agreement happened. We're not part of it. What's agreed, delivered, or disputed is between you and your client, same as it's always been.

You've already agreed to work together: the details, the price, the terms, all settled between the two of you. Artega doesn't get involved in that part. There's no messaging, no negotiation, no third voice in the conversation. What we do is confirm it.

When you're ready, Artega mints an NFT, proof that the agreement exists and payment has been made. It sits on the blockchain, so it's permanent and verifiable, but it names no one: only you and your client would ever recognize what it refers to. Think of it as a receipt, not a product: it records that something happened, nothing more.

As that happens, your client pays by card, similar to how they would anywhere else. Behind the scenes, our payment partner converts it and sends it straight to your own wallet. Stablecoin, not cash, which is what keeps the whole thing private. Artega never holds the money, never sees a balance, and never sits between you and your funds.

The only new step is setting up your wallet, and it's a small one. Every practitioner gets 1:1 onboarding right now to walk through it.

Your client pays similar to how they would anywhere else: nothing to set up, nothing to learn.

1

Agree the details

Client and practitioner agree the service and price.

Pseudonymous by default

Clients and practitioners appear on the blockchain as wallet addresses, no names or content of the agreement leaked.

Private between the two of you

Only given details, not personal details, are shared between client and practitioner.

No personal data collected

Artega doesn't take personal data from either party.

What's actually happening behind the scenes

How Artega compares · Private by default

Built to serve you. Not harvest your data.

Most payment platforms study what you do so they can profit from it later: through profiling, ad targeting, or data quietly sold on. We don't. Your booking and client details stay exactly where they belong: with you, not packaged as someone else's product.

Edited from a photo by Igor Bispo

CapabilityArtegaStripe Square SumUp PayPal

Payment goes directly to a wallet only you control: no holding period, no platform sitting in between. PayPal held one customer's account for six months before seizing $26,984; Square has frozen a merchant's $1,500 for nearly a year.

Read the full breakdown →

Booking, deposits, and payment all live in one flow, out of the box. Stripe and PayPal are payments-only — you'd need a third-party plugin just to take a booking.

Read the full breakdown →

What you're paid, and when, is never packaged up and sold to advertisers or data brokers. Stripe shares a purchase-history risk score across every merchant that uses it. PayPal, Square, and SumUp have all disclosed sharing customer data with advertising partners for targeted ads.

Read the full breakdown →

We can't freeze what we never hold. We can't sell what we never see. Your client pays by card, similar to how they would anywhere else: behind the scenes, our payment partner converts it and sends it straight to your own wallet. Artega never holds the money, never sees a balance, and never sits between you and your funds. PayPal seized $26,984; Square held $1,500 for a year; Stripe reserves up to 15% for 120 days; SumUp merchants report weeks-long holds. These aren't isolated cases. These are just the ones that went public.

Read the full breakdown →

We don't ask for your legal name: only the name you choose to trade under. There's nothing on our end to leak, share, or start suggesting later, the way banks sometimes populate a payee name from account data without asking. Square's own support forum has merchants whose name leaked onto a customer's statement; PayPal shows a seller's real name to buyers by default; there's nothing to stop SumUp's display name defaulting back to the legal name already on file, and SumUp's exposure isn't limited to the display name: in our own test transaction it showed the seller's personal phone number directly to the client, tappable to call; Stripe keeps your legal name on file regardless of what's displayed.

Read the full breakdown →

Your profession is never grounds for being shut down. Artega doesn't police what your work is, only whether it's legal. Square, Stripe, PayPal, and SumUp all reserve the right in their terms to shut down accounts based on what they personally judge acceptable; Artega doesn't.

Read the full breakdown →

A real person sets you up personally: not a help article and a support ticket queue. Stripe, Square, PayPal, and SumUp are all self-serve sign-up — automated approval, no dedicated person to help.

Read the full breakdown →

What you book and get paid for here never feeds an ad profile that follows you elsewhere. Stripe, PayPal, Square, and SumUp have all disclosed selling or sharing data for behavioural advertising under California privacy law.

Read the full breakdown →

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Pass Mixed Fail

Edited from a photo by Ghen Mar Cuaño

Pricing

We don't use extractive pricing.

The price you see is the only way we make money: no selling your data, no ads run against your clients, no cut anywhere else in the chain.

Foundation

For practitioners just getting started.

£19/month

✓Services page + booking system
✓Up to 40 bookings / month
✓Deposits & full payments by card
✓1 payout wallet
✓Email support

Start with Foundation →

Most chosen

Select

For established solo practices.

£49/month

✓Unlimited bookings
✓Custom domain & branding
✓No-show protection & auto-reminders
✓Multi-currency payouts
✓Priority concierge support

Start with Select →

Signature

For senior practitioners & small teams.

£119/month

✓Everything in Select
✓Up to 5 practitioner profiles
✓Client CRM & private notes
✓API access & Zapier
✓Dedicated account partner

Start with Signature →

Limited places

Join the Beta: Become a Founding Member

Keep Signature, our highest tier, for life. Free for the first 3 months, then just £5/month, forever.

A separate payment processing fee applies, taken from what you receive as a practitioner. The price your client pays never changes.

Claim Your Founding Spot →

Early access

Infrastructure aligned with your values, not against them.

Artega is new. We'd rather tell you that than fake the alternative. These spots are reserved for the practitioners who join first: real names, real work, once there's something real to say.

Edited from a photo by Vitaly Gariev

Your story here.

Reserved

Join early access to claim this spot

Join Early Access

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FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Straight answers on privacy, ID verification, and getting paid

Practitioner smiling while working on a laptop

Edited from a photo by AllGo

Beta cohort closing soon

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Your payment systems know your clients better than you do.