Stripe launches in Australia

https://stripe.com/blog/stripe-in-australia

by thairu • 12 years ago

160 79 12 years ago

stripe.com

SimonDawlat• 12 years ago

What took you so long Susan!

shruubi• 12 years ago

Awesome! I've been waiting for Stripe here down under for ages!

girvo• 12 years ago

Finally! Where I work we're already discussing moving every (all 6 of them) project that we're working on at the moment over to Stripe. I'm so happy, this was a great start to my Tuesday morning!

shimms2• 12 years ago

Can I ask why Stripe and not Pin? I've been using Pin for a number of different projects and have been really happy with it.

Curious why Stripe seems to be the default alternative to PayPal/eWay etc, even though Pin has been established in AU for a while now.

Pephers2• 12 years ago

Awesome! Can't wait until Stripe is launching in Denmark, hopefully soon!

pc• 12 years ago

We actually launched our Danish beta earlier this morning: https://twitter.com/stripe/status/491224812958650370. You can sign up for an invite over at https://stripe.com/global.

MattPearce• 12 years ago

Any plans for NZ? As you can see with the success of EFTPOS here, we have a history of adopting new payment technologies quickly. I personally have an idea that's just waiting for a proper mobile payment system.

Pephers2• 12 years ago

Wow, that's so cool! I was already signed up for the beta, so I'll be crossing my fingers for an invite.

Shizka• 12 years ago

That is awesome! In a project I'm doing we are currently assessing payment gateways and Stripe comes in as a clear first, but since it wasn't previously available for Denmark we had dumped it. Looks like we might not have to do that now!

The alternatives were a bit lacking in Denmark for the kind of payment flow we need. It is reminiscent of the one from Airbnb where the fees are collected in two steps - first from the customer and then for the merchant. We went through Braintree, Paypal, and Paymill among others, but there wasn't a good fit. And it was surprisingly hard to find information about the different payment gateways for a specific country. Really hope we can get access to this beta!

How do you draw invites for the beta and do you do the drawing more than once?

SupremumLimit4• 12 years ago

I wonder if Stripe is planning to launch in New Zealand any time soon - it's very close to Australia :) I'm really keen to stop relying on Paypal for accepting payments.

thairu2• 12 years ago

We are working on New Zealand, but don't have an immediate ETA for an New Zealand beta. Sign up at https://stripe.com/global to be notified when we launch

jbardnz3• 12 years ago

That is amazing news. Payments are absolutely horrible in NZ, I have been desperate for Stripe to be here for the longest time :)

dahx4Eev• 12 years ago

How about Hong Kong? Is it on the roadmap?

maknz• 12 years ago

Please, please come to NZ. We are stuck in an awful monopoly of Payment Express and overpriced merchant accounts.

jordanthoms• 12 years ago

YES, please! Stripe in NZ would be amazing. Email is in my profile if you need someone to pre-beta test.

lemming• 12 years ago

Has anyone tried http://swipehq.com? Their website looks good and the cost looks ok too.

SupremumLimit4• 12 years ago

I think it might be OK for one-off payments, but I couldn't find anything other than manual setup of recurring payments on their web site. Price wise it's comparable to Paypal though. The trouble for me is that it doesn't integrate with my shopping cart (getdpd.com).

dojomouse• 12 years ago

I looked at it in some detail but they were a pain to assess. Wouldn't give me any details of the API or feature set unless I created an account... for a non-refundable $200 fee. I pointed out how ridiculous this was, and they said that if I went through their signup process and committed to paying the $200, they would let me look at the documentation without actually paying the fee. It was all so vague and ad-hoc I found it pretty hard to trust whatever might be behind the curtain.

(edit: Looks like fee is now $99, and there's a little more detail on their developers page.)

PX pricing is actually pretty good if you've got high transaction volume. But it's terrible for small biz. Most people I know default to Paypal.

Please Stripe, please come to NZ fast. You've been talking about it for more than a year. I know we must look like smaller-poorer Australia, but I promise there are people here who'd use you!

chrisrickard• 12 years ago

Great news. I have built a number of MVPs for startups that will be very happy to move from PayPal.

elithrar3• 12 years ago

The currency support that hit the AU beta a month or two ago was the big one for me, but the low rate (1.75% + 30c for Australian cards) is a nice touch for those who might normally smash their heads against a bank's merchant API, PayPal or someone like eWay (who I don't have nice thoughts about).

jsmeaton• 12 years ago

What would be an example of a traditional rate with other merchants in Australia?

elithrar3• 12 years ago

eWay is $49/setup + 2.9% + 30c per transaction at the low end (http://www.eway.com.au/pricing/popular-plans), which is their closest option to Stripe. Now, trying to read their API docs is another thing entirely: they give you a PDF with a couple of examples and that's it - http://www.eway.com.au/docs/api-documentation/token-payments...

PayPal Express Checkout starts at 2.4% + 30c (across all trans). One might use PayPal for other reasons than just their fees (i.e. your user demographic) but their API is still a mess.

thejosh3• 12 years ago

Commonwealth Bank provides MIGS, a low rate I've seen is 0.7%+transaction fee.

Once stripe has 2 day turn around time for bank payments like in the US, we'll be switching for our clients who use PIN.

Bank transfers in AU don't cost anything either.

Tortoise• 12 years ago

Any idea when similar currency support is coming to Canada? It only does CAD/USD right now.

shearnie• 12 years ago

Will anyone who signed up for pin be moving to stripe?

djtidau• 12 years ago

I did this once stripe announced their beta as I had been waiting for some time. The additions of subscriptions and checkout was attractive. Along with the fact that stripe was more established.

thejosh3• 12 years ago

Been with PIN since the start.

Will only move if Stripe introduces the 2 day bank transfer feature that the US has.

chrisdahl2• 12 years ago

Happy to offer 2-day settlement (we've got a number of merchants on this already). E-mail chris@pin.net.au.

Andys• 12 years ago

Probably not: in the past, Pin has matched stripe's pricing so we'll see if they do it again.

chrisdahl2• 12 years ago

Shoot me an e-mail at chris@pin.net.au and we'll see what we can do.

johnx123-up• 12 years ago

Couple of weeks before, had a discussion with SudoPay guys about market share. From my understanding, Pin is already popular in Australia.

bobbles• 12 years ago

For anyone from Stripe reading this, having a '401k' plan for Australia makes no sense, but is listed on the AU hiring page.

axman6• 12 years ago

I guess they just mean a superannuation plan.

jwilliams• 12 years ago

Which is a statutory requirement. So not a big surprise, really. I wonder if an open vacation policy is legal too.

gdb• 12 years ago

(I work at Stripe.)

Don't worry, the benefits box just isn't localized (yet). We have a draft of a new jobs page we're working on, but figured we should prioritize launching products over it :).

illumen• 12 years ago

Products are more important than people. Good to know.

semerda• 12 years ago

Nice work peeps! Definitely needed for Australia.

thejosh3• 12 years ago

Yep, amazingly during BETA a major competitor dropped its monthly fee ;).

eddy_chan• 12 years ago

Going to be tough for that competitor to survive if they don't pivot from a 'Stripe-clone'. Hope they're well funded and well backed.

You need to do a huge volume of transactions to be able to live off 2.6% + 30c, close to two million a month to support a startup with 5 fully loaded employees including the founders.

Working with a lot of Ecommerce sites I know a well established one (attached to 3 bricks and mortar stores) does on average $16k a month. Say on average an Online store is doing 10k/month you're looking at 200 clients to keep the payment processor afloat. Doable but you'd want them to have some runway otherwise people are gonna go with Stripe to know they've got a payment gateway that's not gonna disappear

ux-app• 12 years ago

fantastic news! I just finished a Stripe integration a day or two ago. Everything I had heard about stripe was true. I've done eWay, PIN and now Stripe integration and Stripe is hands down the easiest to get up and running.

Subscriptions in particular are very well designed. Their documentation is outstanding. I was up and running with a multi-tiered subscription setup in 1 day. The checkout flow is particularly awesome.

benologist2• 12 years ago

What actually prevents Stripe from just being international?

sjtrny• 12 years ago

Different regulatory requirements and banking systems. For example Stripe still only has support for sending funds to third-party bank bank accounts for US users and US bank accounts.

elithrar3• 12 years ago

What actually prevents Stripe from just being international?

The need to partner with a local bank to provide merchant services/accounts. i.e. Pin Payments partners with NAB in Australia, with NAB setting up an "invisible to the user" merchant account. It's part of their model - you just deal with them, not the bank, not anybody else.

benologist2• 12 years ago

I get that's what they do but why do they need to do that for each individual country instead of just running everything through their own bank + only subject to their own state/federal regulations?

davyjones• 12 years ago

Is Stripe Japan on the anvil?

pinpoll• 12 years ago

Sweet! And is Stripe going to obtain stripe.com.au ?

peterjancelis• 12 years ago

Great to see you guys coming to Asia-Pacific.

Can some Stripers on this thread give an estimate as to when Stripe will come to Hong Kong or Singapore?

I am bootstrapping a side project with a colleague and literally the only reason to even consider a UK partnership over a Singapore or Hong Kong one is that we want to use Stripe (or whatever clone gets there first).

Veinlash• 12 years ago

I'm so excited for the Norwegian beta! Been needing Stripe for a project for ages!

michaelmcmillan• 12 years ago

Me too! I just noticed. I think I've signed up to be notified 40 times.

JacobAldridge3• 12 years ago

For the uninitiated, is there benefit in using Stripe (etc) over a bank merchant facility, when your business is already transacting $80,000+ per month?

Working with an Australian client at the moment about moving more sales online - I don't want to hold back information about other payment processors, but can't see any benefit over their existing bank facilities. What am I missing?

te_chris2• 12 years ago

It all comes down to money right? Doing that volume probably doesn't make sense to use stripe as px and a merchant account is probably much cheaper due to leverage against the banks. I'm ecstatic about stripe though as it's so hard to start taking payments well here in Australasia. It's a massive boon for small operators.

JacobAldridge3• 12 years ago

Thanks Chris - I absolutely agree about small operators, and am looking forward to integrating it with some of my other businesses that (sadly) aren't yet anywhere close to turning over a million bucks a year!

netcan• 12 years ago

I'm not sure what your conclusion would be, but don't assume that your client is correct about their real cost of transacting.

In Australia, banks will usually offer an online merchant account and a payment gateway (you can also use a third party like eway). When I worked in Australia I usually found that using a third party payment gateway worked best in terms of price. The UI can also matter. Some clients spend a lot of time in there manually processing, reviewing, refunding transactions, running reports, etc.. I had good reports from clients using Eway. Bad reports from clients using NAB. (This is 5+ years ago, so YMMV).

If the difference in price isn't really relevant in absolute terms to the overall cost of the project, I would always strongly recommend the option with better software & customer support.

The pricing structures can be complicated. If you really want to understand them, it's better to run it as an audit. What did it cost the client in the last 12 months. What would it cost them using stripe. Take into account monthly fees, per transaction fees (depends on transaction size and on volume), any anti-fraud fees, chargeback fees. You can actually send the info to stripe (or another third party gateway) aand they'll probably do the analysis for you.

You will probably find that your client is actually paying a little more than they think they are.

JacobAldridge3• 12 years ago

Thanks netcan, that's a lot of really useful information.

dalanmiller• 12 years ago

Someone needs to fix payment culture in Australia and also in Europe. Going to the bar with a large group of people and either paying with:

A) A pocket full of coins

B) A card but only being allowed to pay with one or two for your whole group, is just straight up silly.

Situation B happened to me a million times while I was down there for a year and it's just an annoyance, and carrying a kilo in coins is no fun either. I actually submitted a suggestion to ANZ for them to make some sort of group payment option for restaurants but heard nothing back and couldn't pursue. Hopefully someone can make something easy with Stripe.

veb2• 12 years ago

Use... Notes?! You know, money... Coins?! Who uses coins? Secondly nobody is going to refuse 5 payments from 5 cards either or they don't get paid. Simple.

asher_• 12 years ago

This is fantastic! We've recently gotten a bank's merchant account and eWay as a gateway, but I've been impressed with neither. I'm so glad that Stripe is now available here.

instakill• 12 years ago

Come to ZA please!

richardw• 12 years ago

Absolutely. It would crush the market.

Stripe launches in Australia

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