Stealth Payment Startup Stripe Backed By PayPal Founders

http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/28/stealth-payment-startup-stripe-paypal/

by parth16 • 15 years ago

132 52 15 years ago

techcrunch.com

mhb• 15 years ago

What did that domain cost?

staunch4• 15 years ago

Since they're not answering I'll take a guess: $80k - $140k

seldo3• 15 years ago

We (awe.sm) have been using Stripe for our payments since last November. They are great: a simple, tiny API that abstracts away huge chunks of the complications around taking credit cards -- you don't need a merchant account, they handle 99% of PCI compliance, they handle pro-rating and recurring billing natively. We got our payments system to market way faster than we could have otherwise.

lux• 15 years ago

Anywhere us HN folks can go to request early access? :)

pc4• 15 years ago

Mention that you're a HN user when you email us :)

phlux• 15 years ago

Anyone else just not trust 100% the paypal folks?

Just from a subjective perspective based on the history PayPal has had with withholding funds etc...

How does WePay compare to Stripe?

3kMarlin4• 15 years ago

The lowdown on Stripe:

JSON-based HTTP API

PHP, Ruby, Python and JavaScript Support

Setup in 5 minutes.

No branding requirements or redirects.

5% + $0.30 per transaction.

US Based Sellers Only.

Recurring Billing Support.

Data Portability if you ever want to leave.

You pay all initial fees (5% + $0.30) if you issue a refund.

You will only receive money at the end of the next month.

seldo3• 15 years ago

Other neat features:

WS callbacks (aka webhooks) that notify you before a recurring payment happens, and after success/failure.

Incremental billing support, so you can e.g. tack on overage charges or small micro-charges to the next upcoming bill without needing a separate transaction for each one. Depending on your business model this could save you a lot of transaction fees.

lancewiggs• 15 years ago

Sounds like one problem is solved - but the big one for many is that "US Sellers only." Fix that one and expect demand to go nuts.

barrydahlberg2• 15 years ago

+ .Net support please. Not that it matters being US only.

haploid2• 15 years ago

5% is horrendously expensive. Just the other week I was ragging on Braintree for being very slighty above wholesale merchant rates.

Stripe is quite literally double Braintree's rates, with no value-add.

And on top of that, they hold the float for up to thirty days?

Good luck, guys. You're going to need it.

Scramblejams2• 15 years ago

Does Braintree eliminate the need for a merchant account, with all the complexity that entails? Do they offer a developer API that's super-friendly to write for, allowing for weird use cases like processing payments from native BlackBerry apps without exposing you to PCI requirements or risks of publicly exposing your API keys by shipping them in apps?[1] And most importantly, is it a piece of cake to communicate directly with Braintree's founders?

'Cause that's what I've seen so far from Stripe. They're incredibly responsive and helpful. They even changed their SSL cert provider for me because older BlackBerries had a rough time with their prior cert provider.

Not to rag on Braintree, they've sounded like a good choice for a long time, but Stripe's changing some of the rules of the game. Killing the need for a merchant account is a really big deal and I'm happy to pay their rate.

[1] This isn't a rhetorical question, actually. I'd be interested in whether you can do this with Braintree.

perlgeek• 15 years ago

If that's the payment/billing API, I hope it goes over https and not http...

rgrieselhuber• 15 years ago

We've been using Stripe since August and couldn't be happier. They are super-responsive, do things right and make it incredibly easy to get up and running.

BenWGarton• 15 years ago

I would be interested to know how the rates look for high dollar transactions.

ecksor• 15 years ago

We (Simplenote) have been using Stripe since summer also, it's awesome. At least an order of magnitude easier than Paypal api and the merchant account process was completely transparent, we actually have no idea what's involved with getting a merchant account because they just handle it all and payments show up in our bank account.

johnrob• 15 years ago

Do you know if you actually have a merchant account somewhere (created by stripe)? Or does everything go through stripe?

3kMarlin4• 15 years ago

Everything goes through Stripe.

There is no way that any merchant account provider would allow you to sign up and start charging customers in 5 minutes like Stripe lets you.

mef• 15 years ago

If that logo in the TC article is accurate, you may be getting a call from Deutsche Bank http://www.db.com/en/img/logo.gif

nelhage• 15 years ago

I'm pretty sure TC just made up that logo because they couldn't find one on the Stripe website. These guys are too canny to come up with a logo that shitty.

staunch4• 15 years ago

They went through YCombinator for Auctomatic, but not to for this company it appears. I wonder what what led them to that decision.

jharrison• 15 years ago

A 5 million dollar exit and previous YCombinator experience (and the network that comes with that) would by my guess.

staunch4• 15 years ago

Steve Huffman did Reddit through YC and then Hipmunk again. I'm sure you would get an even better deal on the second round, so not sure what the downside is. The upside is still big.

pg• 15 years ago

Stripe is also funded by YC.

marcamillion• 15 years ago

Thank God that YC backed a company taking on Paypal for consumer 2 business and business 2 business.

About time a YC quality company gets in that space.

pc4• 15 years ago

For Stripe, YC was actually the first firm we took investment from. Doing so was a very easy decision.

staunch4• 15 years ago

Well there ya go.

zby• 15 years ago

It's not really about 'stealth payment' but rather a startup in a 'stealth' mode (for those confused by the title as myself).

rabble• 15 years ago

So i'm assuming this is the YC company in this batch that didn't present in Demo Day?

Stealth Payment Startup Stripe Backed By PayPal Founders

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