A child selling bracelets, lawn care or baked goods can promote the business online. Accepting a card payment is harder.
Most mainstream commerce accounts must be controlled by adults, even when the product or service belongs to a young entrepreneur. B.C.-built Lemonade Lab is targeting that gap with a platform that lets children create shops, accept digital payments and learn basic business skills under parental supervision.
The mobile app uses near-field communication technology to accept contactless cards and digital wallets without a separate payment reader. Users can also build branded shop pages, list products and services, manage bookings, issue digital receipts and monitor their earnings.
Lemonade Lab founder Dean Horsfield told Retail Insider in an online interview that the idea came from repeatedly passing a neighbourhood lemonade stand and noticing how many potential customers lacked the cash needed to make a small purchase.
“I want my daughters to understand digital payments,” Horsfield said. “I want them to understand reinvesting. I want them to understand the digital flow of money.”
The lemonade stand provided the name, but it represents only one type of business on the platform. Horsfield said young users have created shops for jewellery, sculptures, lawn care, pet services, digital products and horse massage.
Some children operate several businesses throughout the year. A user could offer lawn care in summer and snow shovelling in winter, with separate storefronts feeding into one record of earnings.
A gap in retail payment infrastructure
Lemonade Lab is entering a Canadian market where contactless payment is routine, even though cash remains widely used.
Canadians paid with cash for 21 percent of purchases in 2024, according to the Bank of Canada. Cash usage has remained relatively stable since 2020. Almost two-thirds of in-person payments, however, were contactless, and mobile payments accounted for almost five per cent of purchases.
For a neighbourhood seller, the issue is practical. A customer may be willing to spend a few dollars on a drink or bracelet but still expect to pay with a card or phone.
The technology needed to accept that payment is increasingly accessible. Apple launched Tap to Pay on iPhone in Canada in May 2024, allowing merchants to accept contactless debit cards, credit cards and digital wallets through supported apps without buying a separate terminal. Stripe, Square, Moneris and Adyen were among the first Canadian payment platforms to support the service.
Lemonade Lab applies that capability to a child-facing commerce platform. Its distinction is the structure around the payment, including shop-building tools, learning activities, parental approval and moderated customer communication.
Mainstream commerce services can support a young person’s business, but an adult usually has to own the account and assume legal responsibility. Shopify requires its account holder to be at least 18 or the age of majority where the service is used. Shopify Payments also requires a parent or guardian to establish an account for a seller who is under 18.
Horsfield said Lemonade Lab was designed so children could take the lead in creating and operating a shop without being expected to manage the legal and financial obligations attached to payment processing.
How payments and withdrawals work
Lemonade Lab acts as the merchant of record for payments processed through the platform, according to follow-up information supplied by Horsfield. Stripe is the payment processor.
The parent or guardian remains the responsible adult and legal seller behind the child’s shop. The adult is also financially responsible for the products or services being sold, along with refunds and customer disputes.
When a customer completes a payment, the child’s net earnings appear in a Lemonade Lab Bank balance. The child can request a withdrawal, but a verified parent or guardian must approve it and receive the money.
Entering an adult’s email address does not activate that approval. The adult must independently verify the email, create a parent account and provide consent. Identity and bank-account verification are required before funds can be withdrawn.
Refunds, chargebacks and related dispute costs can be deducted from the shop’s balance. Withdrawals may be held while Lemonade Lab and Stripe review a dispute, identity issue or potential fraud concern.
The model gives young sellers visibility into their business activity while leaving control of the money with an adult.
The economics of small sales
Payment costs can be difficult for businesses selling low-priced products. A fixed fee on every transaction can consume a large share of a two-dollar or four-dollar purchase.
Lemonade Lab does not charge a shop-running fee on the first $100 in sales each month. Sales above that threshold carry a 3.5 per cent charge, which Horsfield said includes card-processing costs.
The company’s public pricing page also states that the first $100 earned each month has no transaction fee and that a 3.5 per cent shop-running charge applies after that point.
A shop generating $150 in monthly sales would pay $1.75 on the final $50, leaving a balance of $148.25.
The withdrawal model creates an additional cost for families using a free account. Free accounts pay a 10 per cent withdrawal processing fee, according to Horsfield. A withdrawal of the remaining $148.25 would therefore produce a payout of approximately $133.43.
Paid plans do not carry the withdrawal fee.
That difference is important for small sellers. The transaction charge above the monthly threshold is limited, but the withdrawal fee changes the effective cost of using the free plan.
Lemonade Lab says children can continue using the platform without paying a subscription. Optional memberships remove cash-out processing charges and add business, learning and reporting tools.
Business education built around activity
Lemonade Lab is positioning itself as an educational platform as well as a commerce tool.
Children earn points, digital coins and status by completing activities in several areas. Revenue is one measure, but users can also progress by creating marketing material, updating their shops, completing lessons, supporting other users and working as part of a team.
Horsfield said the company did not want sales to be the only sign of achievement. Children who start a business may not make money immediately, and an early lack of sales can discourage them from continuing.
“You don’t have to be that top earner to be a top achiever,” he said. “You just have to stick it through.”
The platform includes short games and exercises related to entrepreneurship and financial management. One lesson teaches users how to distinguish a product feature from a customer benefit. Older participants can complete text-based lessons, multiple-choice questions and other activities.
Horsfield said the status system has become an important engagement tool. Children frequently contact support when they believe a digital coin or level has not been awarded correctly.
Lemonade Lab is also developing a team mode that allows several users to operate a business together. A lead user can assign roles such as product manager or marketer, giving participants experience with shared responsibilities.
Early shops and classroom adoption
Lemonade Lab opened its full platform to the public on March 15, 2026, following a beta program that began with 10 users in December 2025. Its educator module launched earlier in March, according to the company’s published timeline.
As of July 10, 2026, Lemonade Lab had 210 children registered, 117 shops created, 27 educator registrations and 25 classrooms created, according to figures supplied by Horsfield.
Those numbers clarify earlier growth claims. Horsfield said a previous reference to more than 300 accounts included children, parents and educators. It did not represent 300 active child sellers.
He also said the company’s reference to monthly doubling concerned the pace of new shop creation, not revenue or cumulative user growth.
Lemonade Lab is not yet publishing a verified conversion rate showing how many registered users have completed a first sale. Horsfield said commerce is live but remains at an early stage, making shop creation a more reliable validated measure than transaction conversion.
That distinction matters. The platform supports real commerce, but a portion of its current use is centred on experimentation, education and creating a business before generating sales.
The education product includes classroom dashboards, assignments, challenges, leaderboards and student storefronts. Lemonade Lab says the tools are free for schools and after-school programs.
The company is not naming individual schools or youth organizations without permission. It is also not describing every classroom created on the platform as an active class or cohort.
Safety controls and parental visibility
Allowing children to publish storefronts and interact with customers raises concerns that do not apply to a conventional adult merchant account.
Children aged 13 and younger can begin in a private environment where they create a business without immediately publishing it. Parental participation is required before younger users can access public, financial or customer-facing functions, Horsfield said.
Parents receive a separate dashboard where they can review activity, monitor communications and adjust settings. Conversations between a child and Lemonade Lab’s support team are also visible to the parent.
Customers cannot see a child’s home address, private location, personal phone number, email address or private schedule, according to Horsfield. Users offering services can publish selected availability without exposing their complete schedule.
Customer communication is routed through structured forms, not unrestricted direct messaging.
The company’s LL Safe system screens communications for grooming, scams, manipulation, inappropriate requests and attempts to move a conversation outside the platform. Messages identified as unsafe can be blocked before reaching the child, while repeated concerns can result in a customer losing access to student sellers, according to Lemonade Lab’s safety materials.
LL Safe is currently an internally developed moderation system. Horsfield said it has not undergone a formal independent privacy, cybersecurity or child-safety assessment.
Lemonade Lab’s terms also acknowledge that the platform cannot guarantee every harmful or inappropriate activity will be identified or prevented.
The system should therefore be viewed as a layer of monitoring and parental visibility, not a guarantee against harmful interaction.
Building a longer relationship with young founders
Lemonade Lab’s longer-term strategy extends beyond a child’s first sale.
Horsfield said the company is developing a more advanced product under the working name LL Studio. The planned product would let users move into more sophisticated tools as they become older, reach higher platform levels or generate greater revenue.
The company is also considering an archival option that would preserve a user’s early storefronts, branding and business records after the person stops actively using the platform.
Horsfield said he wishes he still had copies of the flyers and websites he created during his own early business ventures. Preserving that material could give users a record of their first commercial work and, in some cases, a verifiable account of what they built.
There is also a customer-retention opportunity. A young person might begin with lawn care, jewellery or pet services and later need tools for a larger operation.
Lemonade Lab is trying to establish that relationship at the earliest stage, when the first shop, product and customer payment are still being created.
For the Canadian retail and payments industries, the platform offers an early example of commerce technology being adapted for sellers who have generally remained outside conventional merchant systems.
Its next challenge is turning shop creation into sustained sales while maintaining the parental oversight, privacy controls and customer safeguards required when the merchants are children.
