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This is a good list, but many customers (i.e. more than 50% in my experience, especially if they're non-US) prefer to pay with PayPal rather than bank cards. So

This is a good list, but many customers (i.e. more than 50% in my experience, especially if they're non-US) prefer to pay with PayPal rather than bank cards. Some don't even have bank cards. So if you use a service on this list, be sure to choose one that supports PayPal as a secondary payment method, like Shopify or Braintree, otherwise you could lose potential customers. I also find it funny that Braintree is on this list, since it's entirely owned by PayPal since 2014.

TomMarius 7y ago
Why not just integrate two payment solutions (Paypal + something for cheaper card payments) instead of having a middleman in front of Paypal? That's how we do it in Europe... And we sometimes have a dozen of different payment options.
- vortico 7y ago
  Some companies do that, but then you'd have two completely different systems to interact with your subscription system / shipping processor, handle refunds/chargebacks, automated emails, tax forms, etc. You've just gotta evaluate the cost/benefit. My company uses Shopify with several payment processors to get a single payment API.
  - TomMarius 7y ago
    You just build an abstraction before Paypal/CC processor/whatever else...? From my calculations it is worth it even for small companies if they operate in EU.
    - vortico 7y ago
      An abstraction layer is the primary service Shopify, Braintree, etc provide.
JoshTriplett 7y ago
What's the underlying reason for people wanting to use PayPal? Hooking it up to their bank account (yikes) and not having to have a credit card? Are there analyses available on what type of products/services have this problem, and what customer base primarily wants PayPal? I refuse to do business with PayPal, due to the many many horror stories of them holding money hostage, issues with charitable donations, utterly opaque dispute resolution, etc. (I've had issues with them myself, as well, trying to make donations.) I'd love to know alternatives, not just to the features of PayPal (for which there are many), but for serving the customer base of PayPal.
- vortico 7y ago
  >What's the underlying reason for people wanting to use PayPal? That's a good question, and here's what my customers have said. My company's market is digital products at around $10-100. Not saying everything here is justified, but the fact that a customer thinks these things should be justification for you to cater to them. (Customer-is-always-right principle.) - Credit cards are hard to obtain in my country, but PayPal is easy enough. - The last time I had a credit card, I spent it all at once! So all I have is PayPal now. - I have USD in my PayPal account, but I don't think my credit card works with USD. - PayPal is safer because it offers some protections against fraud. - I don't trust to give a company my credit card number, but I trust that logging into PayPal at a paypal.com URL is fine. - I have extra money in my PayPal account that I can spend, but I shouldn't spend from my checking account. - PayPal is easy to sign up for. I don't have to walk into a bank or make phone calls.
  - hakfoo 7y ago
    Some people have money in their PayPal stored-balance component, and it's easier to spend it out than to have them credit it back to a bank account. I suspect some people use it as an "off the books" account in family/spousal relationships. They'd have a fit if the credit card had a $300 charge, but they don't even know you had $300 in PayPal balance from selling stuff on eBay and can go to town.
  - k__ 7y ago
    I'm thinking about integrating with Amazon Pay because most people have Amazon accounts already.
dawnerd 7y ago
I use PayPal whenever I can for subscriptions since it’s really easy to cancel there instead of dealing with figuring out how to cancel directly.
- jfk13 7y ago
  Please don't do that; it's abusive towards the provider of the service you subscribed to. They deserve to be informed that you want to cancel, rather than to discover that you've unilaterally stopped fulfilling your side of a contract. (Indeed, in many cases they might be within their rights to pursue you for non-payment, depending on the details of the agreement you entered into.) I understand that in some cases, companies make their cancellation process so arduous and difficult to access that stopping payment seems the only option, but I don't think it's fair for users/consumers to treat it as a default method.
  - dawnerd 7y ago
    I don't just go to Paypal first necessarily. If it's easy and obvious I'll do it on the site then cancel in Paypal. But sadly most services don't make it easy so it's kinda on them if I go to PayPal first. Would be no different than if I used Privacy.com with a fake name. Good luck coming after me then. Also fail to see how it's "abusive" since if you implement Paypal you should have your service setup to handle Paypal cancellations.
  - sdfsdfsdfsdf3 7y ago
    You talk about a provider like a person. You can easily listen to webhooks for subscription cancellations, and you can also poll the API for subscription information - ideally both to guarantee consistency (watch+list pattern). Any non-trivial integration would have this. Don't blame end users for your tech #fails. Even as I point this out I don't seem to understand your attitude, unless it's on behalf some lame shared cpanel hosting providers using some crappy billing software like whmcs - those providers lame everything on the customer.
    - scrollaway 7y ago

TomMarius 7y ago

Why not just integrate two payment solutions (Paypal + something for cheaper card payments) instead of having a middleman in front of Paypal? That's how we do it in Europe... And we sometimes have a dozen of different payment options.

vortico 7y ago
Some companies do that, but then you'd have two completely different systems to interact with your subscription system / shipping processor, handle refunds/chargebacks, automated emails, tax forms, etc. You've just gotta evaluate the cost/benefit. My company uses Shopify with several payment processors to get a single payment API.
- TomMarius 7y ago
  You just build an abstraction before Paypal/CC processor/whatever else...? From my calculations it is worth it even for small companies if they operate in EU.
  - vortico 7y ago
    An abstraction layer is the primary service Shopify, Braintree, etc provide.

JoshTriplett 7y ago

What's the underlying reason for people wanting to use PayPal? Hooking it up to their bank account (yikes) and not having to have a credit card? Are there analyses available on what type of products/services have this problem, and what customer base primarily wants PayPal? I refuse to do business with PayPal, due to the many many horror stories of them holding money hostage, issues with charitable donations, utterly opaque dispute resolution, etc. (I've had issues with them myself, as well, trying to make donations.) I'd love to know alternatives, not just to the features of PayPal (for which there are many), but for serving the customer base of PayPal.

vortico 7y ago
>What's the underlying reason for people wanting to use PayPal? That's a good question, and here's what my customers have said. My company's market is digital products at around $10-100. Not saying everything here is justified, but the fact that a customer thinks these things should be justification for you to cater to them. (Customer-is-always-right principle.) - Credit cards are hard to obtain in my country, but PayPal is easy enough. - The last time I had a credit card, I spent it all at once! So all I have is PayPal now. - I have USD in my PayPal account, but I don't think my credit card works with USD. - PayPal is safer because it offers some protections against fraud. - I don't trust to give a company my credit card number, but I trust that logging into PayPal at a paypal.com URL is fine. - I have extra money in my PayPal account that I can spend, but I shouldn't spend from my checking account. - PayPal is easy to sign up for. I don't have to walk into a bank or make phone calls.
- hakfoo 7y ago
  Some people have money in their PayPal stored-balance component, and it's easier to spend it out than to have them credit it back to a bank account. I suspect some people use it as an "off the books" account in family/spousal relationships. They'd have a fit if the credit card had a $300 charge, but they don't even know you had $300 in PayPal balance from selling stuff on eBay and can go to town.
- k__ 7y ago
  I'm thinking about integrating with Amazon Pay because most people have Amazon accounts already.

dawnerd 7y ago

I use PayPal whenever I can for subscriptions since it’s really easy to cancel there instead of dealing with figuring out how to cancel directly.

jfk13 7y ago
Please don't do that; it's abusive towards the provider of the service you subscribed to. They deserve to be informed that you want to cancel, rather than to discover that you've unilaterally stopped fulfilling your side of a contract. (Indeed, in many cases they might be within their rights to pursue you for non-payment, depending on the details of the agreement you entered into.) I understand that in some cases, companies make their cancellation process so arduous and difficult to access that stopping payment seems the only option, but I don't think it's fair for users/consumers to treat it as a default method.
- dawnerd 7y ago
  I don't just go to Paypal first necessarily. If it's easy and obvious I'll do it on the site then cancel in Paypal. But sadly most services don't make it easy so it's kinda on them if I go to PayPal first. Would be no different than if I used Privacy.com with a fake name. Good luck coming after me then. Also fail to see how it's "abusive" since if you implement Paypal you should have your service setup to handle Paypal cancellations.
- sdfsdfsdfsdf3 7y ago
  You talk about a provider like a person. You can easily listen to webhooks for subscription cancellations, and you can also poll the API for subscription information - ideally both to guarantee consistency (watch+list pattern). Any non-trivial integration would have this. Don't blame end users for your tech #fails. Even as I point this out I don't seem to understand your attitude, unless it's on behalf some lame shared cpanel hosting providers using some crappy billing software like whmcs - those providers lame everything on the customer.
  - scrollaway 7y ago