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Its the basis upon which I form my opinion as to what "good docs" look like. It makes you incredibly spoiled when trying to use some of Stripe's competitors.

stickfigure 7y ago
I've integrated 8+ payments APIs over my career. IMO, Stripe's "secret sauce" is the quality of the API and the documentation. It's so compelling that I repeatedly choose Stripe over other payments systems that offer network effects like PayPal and Amazon. I sometimes get asked by customers if we take PayPal. I tell them truthfully "no, it's just too much trouble". It doesn't seem like "better developer experience" is much of a moat, but based on how bad the competition is - year after year - it sure seems to be. I wonder what other services could be "disrupted" the same way.
- rhaksw 7y ago
  I had the same experience my first go at integrating Stripe. I was able to accept donations in all the ways I wanted: - using Netlify (free hosting, includes lambda) - custom amounts - one-time payment or recurring - form on my own site code is here: https://github.com/revddit/revddit/blob/master/lambda-src/donate.js https://github.com/revddit/revddit/blob/master/lambda-src/do... https://github.com/revddit/revddit/blob/master/src/pages/common/donate/index.js https://github.com/revddit/revddit/blob/master/src/pages/com...
- speedplane 7y ago
  > I repeatedly choose Stripe over other payments systems that offer network effects like PayPal and Amazon. For one of the first SaSS products I ever worked on, I (naively) chose Amazon payments. Within six months, Amazon introduced backwards incompatible changes. Six months later, they did it again. For another project I started 5 years ago, I used Stripe. We're still using the same 5 year old API and it works perfectly, even though Stripe has added new features and bells and whistles in their newer versions. Their commitment to backwards compatibility is probably the best I've seen of any fast moving API.
tnolet 7y ago
Totally agree. I implemented stuff like Paypal and Adyen. Bit of a horror show. But even Stripe's API has some gotcha's. I documented how I implemented Stripe for the SaaS I run quite extensively at https://blog.checklyhq.com/our-stripe-billing-implementation-the-one-webhook-to-rule-them-all/ https://blog.checklyhq.com/our-stripe-billing-implementation...

stickfigure 7y ago

I've integrated 8+ payments APIs over my career. IMO, Stripe's "secret sauce" is the quality of the API and the documentation. It's so compelling that I repeatedly choose Stripe over other payments systems that offer network effects like PayPal and Amazon. I sometimes get asked by customers if we take PayPal. I tell them truthfully "no, it's just too much trouble". It doesn't seem like "better developer experience" is much of a moat, but based on how bad the competition is - year after year - it sure seems to be. I wonder what other services could be "disrupted" the same way.

rhaksw 7y ago
I had the same experience my first go at integrating Stripe. I was able to accept donations in all the ways I wanted: - using Netlify (free hosting, includes lambda) - custom amounts - one-time payment or recurring - form on my own site code is here: https://github.com/revddit/revddit/blob/master/lambda-src/donate.js https://github.com/revddit/revddit/blob/master/lambda-src/do... https://github.com/revddit/revddit/blob/master/src/pages/common/donate/index.js https://github.com/revddit/revddit/blob/master/src/pages/com...
speedplane 7y ago
> I repeatedly choose Stripe over other payments systems that offer network effects like PayPal and Amazon. For one of the first SaSS products I ever worked on, I (naively) chose Amazon payments. Within six months, Amazon introduced backwards incompatible changes. Six months later, they did it again. For another project I started 5 years ago, I used Stripe. We're still using the same 5 year old API and it works perfectly, even though Stripe has added new features and bells and whistles in their newer versions. Their commitment to backwards compatibility is probably the best I've seen of any fast moving API.

tnolet 7y ago

Totally agree. I implemented stuff like Paypal and Adyen. Bit of a horror show. But even Stripe's API has some gotcha's. I documented how I implemented Stripe for the SaaS I run quite extensively at https://blog.checklyhq.com/our-stripe-billing-implementation-the-one-webhook-to-rule-them-all/ https://blog.checklyhq.com/our-stripe-billing-implementation...