Ask HN: What Payment Platform do you use?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7019908

by axelbouaziz • 13 years ago

14 11 13 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Hey HN readers, I would like to know which payment platform are you currently using if you're selling products / SaaS subscriptions / eBooks / anything which can be bought online.

cakexss• 13 years ago

For us (http://spryli.com) we use Stripe, and couldn't be happier. Ease of implementation, and documentation are both great.

axelbouaziz3• 13 years ago

Thank you for your reply ! How do you track metrics for your business (MRR, LTV...etc) ?

ondiekijunior• 13 years ago

am creating a payment platform and am interested in knowing what informs your choices there.

dangrossman2• 13 years ago

Spreedly, which provides a unified API for 55+ payment processors and gateways, as well as card vaulting for recurring bills. Code against Spreedly and you can change processors on a whim to whoever's cheapest at the moment, or use multiple at once.

My primary processor is a standard merchant account provider and I pay interchange plus 0.04%. Interchange is the set of fees Visa and MasterCard charge to the processor, and starts around 1.8% + $0.10 for card-not-present transactions.

I also accept PayPal as there's a large number of countries where credit cards are not easy to come by and fund, but PayPal is readily available.

Both the merchant account (1.84%+ + $0.10) and PayPal (2.2% + $0.30) are significantly cheaper than Stripe (2.9% + $0.30) which someone recommended last time you asked this two days ago.

axelbouaziz3• 13 years ago

Thank you Dan ! I didn't have time to read the explanation 2 days ago because due to HN outage, my post was deleted and replies too...

cristinacordova• 13 years ago

(I work at Stripe)

PayPal actually starts at 2.9% + $0.30 and charges a variety of add-on fees which you didn't include in your assessment: $30 per month if you want to design and host your own checkout pages, 1% cross-border surcharge if you want to accept payments from another country, 3.5% transaction fee when your customers pay with American Express, $0.30 per uncaptured authorization, a fixed fee portion of the original transaction fee when you issue a refund ($0.30 for domestic payments).

They do offer volume discounts, which is why you're at a 2.2% rate, and Stripe also offers volume discounts to businesses on track to do $1MM per year.

I'm not sure what your current processor and merchant account provider are, but we often do similar assessments against their add-on fees and come out to be less expensive.

dangrossman2• 13 years ago

A new venture is a lot more likely to reach PayPal's threshold for discounted fees ($3,000/month) than Stripe's ($83,333/month). There is no additional fee for American Express cards with Website Payments Standard.

The only fixed fee my current merchant provider charges is $5/month, and I pay a $99/year fee to a PCI scanning service. The merchant account space isn't resting on its laurels with startups like yours moving in; there's dozens that have moved to simpler pricing and eliminated bullshit fees to remain competitive.

Anyone accepting mostly domestic transactions with a monthly volume between a few thousand and $80,000 is probably going to save at least $30/month by choosing PayPal over Stripe, so the monthly charge isn't really a barrier even for their Pro service. Unless they go through one of your partner integrations like Shopify where you seem willing to offer the discounted rates without a minimum volume. I've set up a few people on that, it's a good deal for little shops.

tagabek2• 13 years ago

I am launching my first book at the end of this month and I will be using Gumroad for payments. They offer the most simple, responsive, and beautiful experience for accepting payment. They take 5% + 25¢ per transaction.

axelbouaziz3• 13 years ago

Thank you for your feedback Taylor ;)

PS : did you read Authority from Nathan Barry ?

tagabek2• 13 years ago

Yep!

Ask HN: What Payment Platform do you use?

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