Collect a W-9 by link, free

You land on the payee screen with the add form open, after you verify your email and sign in.

What happens, in order

1. 1

   Create the account

   Firm name, an email address, a password. No card, and nothing to cancel: an account that never files costs nothing and is never billed.
2. 2

   Add the contractor

   Name and email. The first name and the last name are separate fields on purpose: the IRS matches on a name control built from the last name, and a form that splits one free-text field guesses at exactly the thing that has to be right.
3. 3

   Send the link

   One click mints a single-use link and emails it. If no address is on file, or outbound mail is not configured, you get the link back to send yourself. It is real either way, and the screen says which happened rather than claiming an email that never left.
4. 4

   They fill it in

   A browser page, no account, no PDF. What comes back is keyed against the payee record rather than sitting in your inbox: the certification, the classification, the address and whether they are subject to backup withholding.
5. 5

   It is already there in January

   The point of doing this in the fall. A W-9 collected now is a payee record that needs nothing done to it when the season opens, and the details it carries are the details the filing uses.

What is free, and what is not

Collecting is free, with no cap and no card. What is metered is transmitting a return to the IRS, and nothing is counted until the IRS accepts it.