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Ask HN: I have users, I have traction, How do I get paid?
Hi HN, first let me say thanks in advance for your suggestions and insight.
I was hoping to get some advice on a side project I'm looking to monazite. I've built a social tool that is starting to pickup traction, and I'm looking at building a "pro" version which users would have to pay a monthly fee to use (it's a service). It would be great if they could just fill out their payment info and a few other pieces of data we would need, and then be on their way.
I'm not expecting a ton of monthly subscribers at first, and I'm trying to figure out the best way to charge users. Essentially I'd like to test the market without a huge investment.
I'm looking for the lowest barrier of entry. I've been considering using Paypal as it is incredibly easy to setup, and I won't have to mess with a merchant account. However, I've seen people completely bash Paypal around HN, and I'm not entirely sure why. Is there a better tool I should be using here?
Thanks for your advice.
- mgkimsal 16y agopaypal's likely going to be the easiest. To some extent, whatever your initial results are, factor in a few % who aren't buying solely because it's Paypal. If you have profit, expand in to using Google Checkout as an alternative (though I don't think they have recurring) then look at getting a full merchant account that support recurring (or investigate spreedly or other services). Good luck.
- eduardo_f 16y agoGoogle Checkout does have recurring: http://checkout.google.com/support/sell/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=63440 http://checkout.google.com/support/sell/bin/answer.py?hl=en&...
- jaddison 16y agoHave you checked out http://beanstream.com/public/index.asp http://beanstream.com/public/index.asp? Payment processing with great customer service - I'm pretty sure they can help you achieve what you want... but it would probably be better to look to a service like their's once you had a serious number of paying users. Still, look into them.
- jsankey 16y agoThe silent majority are using PayPal without problems. They support recurring payments like this, and eliminate the need for you to directly handle credit card details at all. Just don't leave piles of money sitting in your PayPal account. And once you have things started, assuming it's working out, consider adding additional payment methods as a backup (even if PayPal mostly works, some customers may have trouble with, e.g. their credit cards not being accepted).
- duncan_bayne 16y agoWhen I last checked (a few years ago mind you) PayPal didn't support recurring payments if the merchant wasn't US-based. I was angry to discover this part-way through integrating with their service, as I'm based in Australia.
- g0atbutt 16y agoI'm in the US, so no problems there. I upvoted you for other people who might be looking into using paypal and are outside the US. That would be really frustrating.
- jsankey 16y agoI'm in Australia too, although I don't accept recurring payments myself. However, I do make a recurring payment to a New Zealand based company. And by logging into the PayPal Australia website I see an Australian freecall (i.e. 1800) number that I can contact to help set up recurring billing. So it seems things may have changed. That said, it would be best for people to check more thoroughly first, to avoid any wasted effort!
- toast76 16y agoPayPal do support recurring payments in Aus. We used it (briefly) before ditching it and going with Chargify. Unfortunately it is horrible to use for your customers. It is literally a "recurring payment" not a subscription. I know that sounds like nothing more than a semantic difference, but in practice it is a huge problem for people looking to change plans/unsubscribe.
- 16y ago
- bap 16y agoPayPal is _ok_ but I don't feel like they're really pushing the innovation envelope (and haven't for a long time.) You might consider Recurly http://recurly.com/ http://recurly.com/ as an alternative.
- dangrossman 16y agoI have used PayPal for about 10 years now, and process six figures with them per year. I also have merchant accounts and other 3rd party payment system integrations, but there's no reason to exclude PayPal based on fears of future problems. With over 90 million active accounts, the occasional problem you read about isn't unexpected or more extreme than you'd get processing anywhere else. Regarding Recurly, my opinion of that company is much lower, but maybe I am one of the few with a bad experience: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1678143 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1678143
- raerae7133 16y agoHi Dan, We're sorry to hear you had a bad experience with Recurly - in that same post we had replied to you (which you can see at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1679599 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1679599). If there's anything we can do to change your opinion of Recurly, I'd love to hear it! Rachel - Recurly Support
- lsc 16y agoeh, I am not sure that I want my payment processor to 'push the innovation envelope.' I want them to process my payments, with as little hassle as possible.
- code_duck 16y agoWell, I wouldn't mind if Paypal could improve certain organization features on their site, and also improve the search so it is no longer the slowest website in existence.
- karzeem 16y agoNo first-hand experience with these guys, but I've heard good things: http://chargify.com http://chargify.com. It's free until the 50 customer mark, although you'll still have to mess with a merchant account.
- g0atbutt 16y agoAbout how long does it take to setup a merchant account at a reputable place? I assume they take a 3% cut or so? Would you have any recommendations for merchant accounts, or are they all pretty much the same?
- drm237 16y agoStart with website payments pro by paypal. It's the easiest to get setup and approved for and has reasonable rates. Later, once you have more paying customers, you can switch if you really think it will make a difference. And using something like Chargify or Spreedly allows you to change your merchant account without affecting the recurring billing. Paypal isn't always perfect and they certainly screw up, but for the handful of issues you hear about, there are millions of transactions that work out just fine.
- damoncali 16y agoMy experience with WPP is exactly the opposite. Total clusterfuck. And Chargify doesn't support Paypal, last I heard, because Paypal was so unreliable. YMMV.
- chunkyslink 16y agoCan you tell us what your service is ?
- seancron 16y agog0atbutt created the website http://finishshit.com/ http://finishshit.com/ which harasses people into actually finishing what they're procrastinating doing via Twitter. It's sorta like an alternate Awesomeness Reminder. Except it rudely reminds you what you should be working on.
- callmeed 16y agoPayPal definitely is the easiest way to start–and you will want to move up to something better. We did it for the first few years. We never really had any horror stories, but you need to think about how you'll handle the transition. If you don't want PayPal, I wrote up some details about why I recently did for a new venture (and some other options). Here: http://callmeed.posterous.com/choosing-a-cmbb-stack-for-my-startup-corporat http://callmeed.posterous.com/choosing-a-cmbb-stack-for-my-s... I like Chargify and use them at our main company ... but they don't support BrainTree's newest version and I don't really like the other merchants they recommend.
- necrecious 16y agoAs most people have said, PayPal is incredibly easy to get started. I am still using their website payment standard which involves no coding to get started taking payments. You'll need code later for doing IPN and customizing and encrypting the buttons. But it is definitely the lowest barrier to entry. It is also probably the cheapest option, at least when starting out. I added Recurly for credit card payment for flexibility and credibility. The costs are much higher per paying user than PayPal. Each credit card authorization costs about 30cents, and if a customer input bad credit card info and you have dunning on, it can cost more than a dollar to have a nonpaying customer.
- raerae7133 16y agoHi necrecious, Recurly only charges for successful purchases and refunds - we don't charge you for bad credit card data. I hope this helps :) Rachel - Recurly Support
- necrecious 16y agoYou guys don't but the credit card companies does. Perhaps I am reading my statement wrong from my processor, but I got a lot more authorization charges than transaction charges.
- cloudkj 16y agoE-junkie is decent, and cheap ($5 for lowest plan). Not the best interface, but it's simple to set up and works well if you're not looking to do too much customization of the checkout pipeline.
- dasil003 16y agoPayPal is the easiest, so you should start there. As soon as revenues are significant I would go directly with a real payment gateway and merchant account. I've used both authorize.net and Braintree extensively, and both have a secure vault that allows you to build your own recurring payment infrastructure without PCI compliance issues. I have nothing against any of these billing startups—I've never used any of them, and I've set up a lot of payment gateways over the last decade, so take my opinion with a grain of salt—but I have to assume that they charge a significant premium for what isn't that significant of a sunk cost for a web-based startup. In other words, building a recurring payment system is not very hard once you remove PCI compliance from the equation. If you're really short on developer resources then maybe one of these services is a nice stop-gap, but I can't see paying the premium once your revenues are significant. Again, I'm not really familiar with the value proposition of these services, so anyone with experience (especially a founder of one of these services!) please chime in with a counterpoint.
- bosch 16y agoIf there's even a chance this takes off do you want to be at the mercy of PayPal? Man up and set it up properly from the start. It costs more but in the end you'll be happy you spent the time and money to do so.
- dh 16y agoPayPal might be very quick and easy to get going just like Google Checkout or Amazon Payments but you need to think about what is best for actually serving your customers and making it easier for them to pay. - Standard PayPal Your customer must have a PayPal account which could lower your conversion and for sure does not give a professional image. You can schedule a payment to happening each month but it is an amount not a product/plan, making managing customers very difficult and reporting almost impossible. Similar issues apply with Google Checkout and Amazon Payments - PayPal Website Payments Pro This is a gateway and merchant account combination that they offer as a package to try and attract merchants. There are some simple recurring payment options but nothing really. The bigger problem here is errors and support. Try calling PayPal when something does not work, good luck. We have a senior level account manager and direct contact with the Director of Support for this product and this bug has been open for 3 weeks and they still cannot fix. http://support.chargify.com/discussions/support/3296-declined-transaction-the-reason-given-for-the-declined-transaction-was-failed-with-500-internal-server-error http://support.chargify.com/discussions/support/3296-decline... - Real gateway and merchant account Your best option and not a lot of effort if you are in the US or have a US bank account. Overseas it is a little more effort but nothing crazy. If you are concerned with getting the best rate and quickly, we have a few partners for this at http://chargify.com/merchant-accounts/ http://chargify.com/merchant-accounts/. And you can use this and not use Chargify, so it is just there to help you. While there are many reasons you might want to use Chargify or a similar type of service rather than doing this directly you can of course build it yourself. Just think about what you would prefer to spend your time on. I encourage you to talk to actual customers of any product you pick, look at the community around the company and who participates and then make a decision. As a founder at Chargify, I would love to see you working with us, but more important I want you to make the right choice for your business so I would say almost anything is better than PayPal.
- glenngillen 16y agoChargify. No additional cost to start, flexible back end options for you moving forward.