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Ask HN: PayPal Alternatives for Subscriptions*

11 points by ubuntuftw 16y ago

Are there any easy to use PayPal alternatives out there that can handle monthly subscriptions, and don't require a merchant account?

bradleyjoyce 16y ago
No... that's the short answer. Taking people's money on the internet is a HUGE pain. The only other potentially "easy to use" alternative would be Amazon I believe https://payments.amazon.com https://payments.amazon.com Most everything else is going to require a merchant account.
- krates 16y ago
  Amazon Payment is easy to use, that's why we are on it. Our experience is that amazon's payment approval process is long and strict for the consumers who have credit cards that are not from the major banks. About 5-8% of our payments ended up rejected by Amazon, while the customers contacted us and told us that they use that credit everywhere and on paypal fine. Some of them have to send us a check, but most of cases, we just lost the customers. We are switching to paypal.
  - pbhjpbhj 16y ago
    >About 5-8% of our payments ended up rejected by Amazon I'd be interested to know what the Amazon response was to this support request. Surely, if Amazon Payments can't process it then Amazon stores can't be purchase from with these cards either and some not insignificant value of purchases are failing at Amazon's card verification stage? Their revenue is according to WolframAlpha approaching $30Billion .. 1% of 5% of $30B is $15M USD.
joeuser12 16y ago
https://www.wepay.com https://www.wepay.com perhaps? I see a recurring bills feature there.
anthony_franco 16y ago
Social Gold (recently acquired by Google) handles subscriptions. Although they take a 10% cut.
stevenwei 16y ago
If you're taking subscriptions, I think in general you're much better off getting a merchant account and perhaps using one of the recurring billing services out there. (Chargify, Recurly, CheddarGetter, Spreedly, etc). It's not that much harder to do than PayPal (took me about two weeks), and keeps you from having your customer's credit card info locked into some third party service that you can't get out of.
lzw 16y ago
Here's a good service that has been around quite awhile, and has generally good terms. Dunno about specific recurring support, ut you should be able to set that up with one of the support providers. http://www.2checkout.com/community/ http://www.2checkout.com/community/ Also, google payments may work for you.
adrianscott 16y ago
Worldpay.com part of royal bank of scotland. it's not great, but it is a decent alternative.

11 points by ubuntuftw 16y ago

Are there any easy to use PayPal alternatives out there that can handle monthly subscriptions, and don't require a merchant account?

bradleyjoyce 16y ago

No... that's the short answer. Taking people's money on the internet is a HUGE pain. The only other potentially "easy to use" alternative would be Amazon I believe https://payments.amazon.com https://payments.amazon.com Most everything else is going to require a merchant account.

krates 16y ago
Amazon Payment is easy to use, that's why we are on it. Our experience is that amazon's payment approval process is long and strict for the consumers who have credit cards that are not from the major banks. About 5-8% of our payments ended up rejected by Amazon, while the customers contacted us and told us that they use that credit everywhere and on paypal fine. Some of them have to send us a check, but most of cases, we just lost the customers. We are switching to paypal.
- pbhjpbhj 16y ago
  >About 5-8% of our payments ended up rejected by Amazon I'd be interested to know what the Amazon response was to this support request. Surely, if Amazon Payments can't process it then Amazon stores can't be purchase from with these cards either and some not insignificant value of purchases are failing at Amazon's card verification stage? Their revenue is according to WolframAlpha approaching $30Billion .. 1% of 5% of $30B is $15M USD.

joeuser12 16y ago

https://www.wepay.com https://www.wepay.com perhaps? I see a recurring bills feature there.

anthony_franco 16y ago

Social Gold (recently acquired by Google) handles subscriptions. Although they take a 10% cut.

stevenwei 16y ago

If you're taking subscriptions, I think in general you're much better off getting a merchant account and perhaps using one of the recurring billing services out there. (Chargify, Recurly, CheddarGetter, Spreedly, etc). It's not that much harder to do than PayPal (took me about two weeks), and keeps you from having your customer's credit card info locked into some third party service that you can't get out of.

lzw 16y ago

Here's a good service that has been around quite awhile, and has generally good terms. Dunno about specific recurring support, ut you should be able to set that up with one of the support providers. http://www.2checkout.com/community/ http://www.2checkout.com/community/ Also, google payments may work for you.

adrianscott 16y ago

Worldpay.com part of royal bank of scotland. it's not great, but it is a decent alternative.