Payment channels are useful when a user wants to make a large volume of small payments to another user. These payments aren't immediately credited to the recipient's account. However, the recipient can claim the payments to their account at any time.

Ronat is a fitness expert and influencer on social media. Paul is the owner of a gym. He wants his gyms to gain some attention on social media. Paul approaches Ronat for help. She agrees to blog and tweet about the gym. Paul agrees to pay 30 XRP for every blog post and 10 XRP for every tweet she makes. However, he has a spending limit of 200 XRP. 

Paul can start a payment channel with Ronat as the recipient. The total balance of the payment channel is set to 200 XRP. This amount will be debited from Paul's account and would be transferred to the payment channel's balance. Every time Ronat writes a blog post, Paul sends a receipt that mentions the amount he owes to Ronat. For the first post, Paul will owe Ronat 30 XRP. Later, for the second one, he will owe her 60 XRP and so on. The receipt can be sent through any mode of communication. Ronat would be able to verify these receipts. She can submit these receipts anytime on Ripple to cash out her money.