4 ms·

For simple e-commerce websites, Stripe is a fantastic and simple option. If you're trying to do anything remotely interesting with money, Stripe probably isn't

For simple e-commerce websites, Stripe is a fantastic and simple option. If you're trying to do anything remotely interesting with money, Stripe probably isn't for you. Stripe rejected two of our applications for a standard Stripe usage, and they rejected another of our applications for Stripe Atlas. All three applications were completely separate products, using payments in different ways from each other. They told us that our two applications interfered with their acceptable-use policy[0]. The application for Stripe Atlas was rejected because it interfered with the goals of Stripe's bank(s). Stripe isn't in control of how their product is used, their product exists almost entirely at the whim of the banking network which Stripe depends on. In my experience, I have learned to avoid Stripe for any use-case which isn't a simple E-commerce site. Stripe is incredibly limiting and, evidently, their primary goal is to avoid risk at the expense of innovation. We ended up folding all three products, and are considering rejuvenating the third product with cryptocurrency payments instead of dealing with credit cards and banking networks. No doubt, using cryptocurrency payments for our application would be simpler and less limiting. It would just be us and our customers at that point, which is how it should have been all along. [0] https://stripe.com/us/prohibited-businesses https://stripe.com/us/prohibited-businesses

patio11 8y ago
(I work at Stripe, on Atlas.) We're building Stripe to be useful to anyone building internet businesses. This occasionally is a balancing act; we are a regulated financial institution and we do have commitments to partners, and sometimes this means that we can't support entrepreneurs who we'd otherwise like to support. We attempt to build products to allow entrepreneurs to innovate inside the system, like Stripe Atlas (which, among other things, lets users get on good financial rails even if good financial rails are not abundant in the area they happen to live) or Stripe Connect (which allows entrepreneurs to build complicated use cases for moving money around in commerce without having to themselves become e.g. a regulated money services business). We also attempt to advocate zealously for good entrepreneurs within the constraints of regulations and partner requirements. One example: it's surprisingly difficult to accept money for selling alcohol. That's a perfectly legitimate business, and so we've worked with several companies (like e.g. 750 Commerce, which makes wine order management software, for wineries) to get them access. We have some representative examples of the types of exceptions we fight for here: https://stripe.com/blog/why-some-businesses-arent-allowed https://stripe.com/blog/why-some-businesses-arent-allowed We're working constantly to get good companies supported and to help regulators and the financial industry understand that they can have their concerns met while saying yes to more entrepreneurs more quickly. I'm happy to discuss your specific use cases privately if you'd like; my email is patio11@stripe.com. (Offer open to anyone; I'm always happy to talk to HNers.)
usaphp 8y ago
> We ended up folding all three products, and are considering rejuvenating the third product with cryptocurrency payments instead of dealing with credit cards and banking networks. So does it mean the problem was not Stripe, but you could not get account in any of the payment processors due to the nature of your product?
- anonytrary 8y ago
  Braintree supported two of our apps. We didn't try with the third.

patio11 8y ago

(I work at Stripe, on Atlas.) We're building Stripe to be useful to anyone building internet businesses. This occasionally is a balancing act; we are a regulated financial institution and we do have commitments to partners, and sometimes this means that we can't support entrepreneurs who we'd otherwise like to support. We attempt to build products to allow entrepreneurs to innovate inside the system, like Stripe Atlas (which, among other things, lets users get on good financial rails even if good financial rails are not abundant in the area they happen to live) or Stripe Connect (which allows entrepreneurs to build complicated use cases for moving money around in commerce without having to themselves become e.g. a regulated money services business). We also attempt to advocate zealously for good entrepreneurs within the constraints of regulations and partner requirements. One example: it's surprisingly difficult to accept money for selling alcohol. That's a perfectly legitimate business, and so we've worked with several companies (like e.g. 750 Commerce, which makes wine order management software, for wineries) to get them access. We have some representative examples of the types of exceptions we fight for here: https://stripe.com/blog/why-some-businesses-arent-allowed https://stripe.com/blog/why-some-businesses-arent-allowed We're working constantly to get good companies supported and to help regulators and the financial industry understand that they can have their concerns met while saying yes to more entrepreneurs more quickly. I'm happy to discuss your specific use cases privately if you'd like; my email is patio11@stripe.com. (Offer open to anyone; I'm always happy to talk to HNers.)

usaphp 8y ago

> We ended up folding all three products, and are considering rejuvenating the third product with cryptocurrency payments instead of dealing with credit cards and banking networks. So does it mean the problem was not Stripe, but you could not get account in any of the payment processors due to the nature of your product?

anonytrary 8y ago
Braintree supported two of our apps. We didn't try with the third.