4 ms·

Thanks for the info! I tried your site and I saw that it adds the VAT when the user selects their country. Since the order page makes network requests to Charg

Thanks for the info! I tried your site and I saw that it adds the VAT when the user selects their country. Since the order page makes network requests to ChargBee, I guess they provide all that functionalilty. Would you say ChargeBee is also a good solution for small one-time-payments? When you say it abstracts away 'most of the pain' - what pain is left?

theseanstewart 9y ago
> Would you say ChargeBee is also a good solution for small one-time-payments? My startup uses ChargeBee and deals with one-time-payments as well as subscriptions. It's definitely geared towards the subscription model, but you can make the one-off payments work by using the API and utilizing add-on products. First, the customer would need to be signed up for a subscription plan that has a trial set to expire X years out (I think the maximum is 10). ChargeBee's pricing model is based on the total number of invoices per month (or at least that's how our plan works), so signing them up for a trial does not result in an invoice being generated. Then you would set up an add-on product in ChargeBee that is of the "Quantity" type and has a price of $.01. When the customer makes a one-off purchase, you would call use the ChargeBee API to purchase a quantity of X of the add-on. So if the total charge is $10, you would use a quantity of 1,000 (1,000 x .01 = 10). If you have products that have a set price, you can just add each one as an add-on and reference that product ID when calling the API. It sounds kind of hack-ey, but I'm very happy with our decision to go with ChargeBee. Their customer support is awesome as well.
dkyc 9y ago
I think my sibling comment's experiences are somewhat dated. Running one-time payments has been absolutely no problem with ChargeBee for us. It's obviously geared toward subscription businesses, but it has full support for one-time charges as well. No need for any hacks or weird work-arounds. Regarding what pain is left: I'm approaching this from an end-to-end perspective, so answering the question "Even when using ChargeBee, what additional work do we have to do compared to a similar business based in the US?": - You still have to code in UI-level support for multiple currencies. ChargeBee handles the backend. - ChargeBee gives you a nice UI for keeping track of paid and unpaid invoices. Nonetheless, for payments via bank transfer [which your EU business customers will want to use], you still have to manually confirm in ChargeBee that you've received payment. - You still have to supply quarterly MOSS tax returns to your local tax authorities (though ChargeBee does all it can to make that process quick).
- theseanstewart 9y ago
  AFAIK there is no other work-around for one-time charges that have variable pricing. The $.01 quantity add-on is what's recommended by their support.

theseanstewart 9y ago

> Would you say ChargeBee is also a good solution for small one-time-payments? My startup uses ChargeBee and deals with one-time-payments as well as subscriptions. It's definitely geared towards the subscription model, but you can make the one-off payments work by using the API and utilizing add-on products. First, the customer would need to be signed up for a subscription plan that has a trial set to expire X years out (I think the maximum is 10). ChargeBee's pricing model is based on the total number of invoices per month (or at least that's how our plan works), so signing them up for a trial does not result in an invoice being generated. Then you would set up an add-on product in ChargeBee that is of the "Quantity" type and has a price of $.01. When the customer makes a one-off purchase, you would call use the ChargeBee API to purchase a quantity of X of the add-on. So if the total charge is $10, you would use a quantity of 1,000 (1,000 x .01 = 10). If you have products that have a set price, you can just add each one as an add-on and reference that product ID when calling the API. It sounds kind of hack-ey, but I'm very happy with our decision to go with ChargeBee. Their customer support is awesome as well.

dkyc 9y ago

I think my sibling comment's experiences are somewhat dated. Running one-time payments has been absolutely no problem with ChargeBee for us. It's obviously geared toward subscription businesses, but it has full support for one-time charges as well. No need for any hacks or weird work-arounds. Regarding what pain is left: I'm approaching this from an end-to-end perspective, so answering the question "Even when using ChargeBee, what additional work do we have to do compared to a similar business based in the US?": - You still have to code in UI-level support for multiple currencies. ChargeBee handles the backend. - ChargeBee gives you a nice UI for keeping track of paid and unpaid invoices. Nonetheless, for payments via bank transfer [which your EU business customers will want to use], you still have to manually confirm in ChargeBee that you've received payment. - You still have to supply quarterly MOSS tax returns to your local tax authorities (though ChargeBee does all it can to make that process quick).

theseanstewart 9y ago
AFAIK there is no other work-around for one-time charges that have variable pricing. The $.01 quantity add-on is what's recommended by their support.