4 ms·
Stealth Payment Startup Stripe Backed By PayPal Founders
- mhb 16y agoWhat did that domain cost?
- staunch 16y agoSince they're not answering I'll take a guess: $80k - $140k
- seldo 16y agoWe (awe.sm) have been using Stripe for our payments since last November. They are great: a simple, tiny API that abstracts away huge chunks of the complications around taking credit cards -- you don't need a merchant account, they handle 99% of PCI compliance, they handle pro-rating and recurring billing natively. We got our payments system to market way faster than we could have otherwise.
- lux 16y agoAnywhere us HN folks can go to request early access? :)
- pc 16y agoMention that you're a HN user when you email us :)
- lachyg 16y agoHow do your fees compare to that of PayPal's? Sounds great!
- 3kMarlin 16y agoOn the surface they are more expensive than PayPal (2.9% + $0.30) Fees. The fees for Stripe are 5% + $0.30. However when you take a deeper look you see that things are not so simple. Compared to PayPal's free product, you are not forced to leave your website and go to a 3rd party site to complete the transaction. Compared to PayPal's Web Payments Pro product, you don't have the $30 monthly fee. Also this doesn't even taken into consideration the complexity and cost of implementing PayPal's Payments Pro api vs Stripe's simpler JSON api.
- seldo 16y agoThere are also lots of hidden costs around maintaining a merchant account, which lots of other payment gateway systems require.
- techiferous 16y ago"you are not forced to leave your website and go to a 3rd party site to complete the transaction" I understand this is a usability win, but doesn't this subject the original web app to PCI compliance rules?
- modoc 16y agoYes. People often make the mistake of thinking that if you aren't storing credit cards then you don't have to deal with PCI compliance. While it does remove a few requirements, if you accept/transmit the credit card through any of your systems (web server -> web-app -> 3rd party API) for instance, you're still on the hook for PCI compliance. Which is a huge pain.
- fido 16y agoThanks for pointing this out! This needs a lot more attention IMO! The PCI verbage is "store, process, or transmit", which means that if you host a payment form on your site, you are on the hook for SAQ-D.
- namityadav 16y ago
- whatusername 16y agoAny chance you're international or is it just US only for now?
- 3kMarlin 16y agoIt's only US right now. Moving to other countries will take time as each country has their own banking/financial/etc issues that need to be dealt with. It took years for PayPal's Web Payments Pro to go from US only to US, UK. And then a few more years to go to US, UK and Canada. Amazon FPS has been around for ages and is still US only. So it may be a while.
- barrydahlberg 16y agoGrr. Argh. I don't know what the market outside of the US but since there's basically no one serving us in this space you would think it would be a huge opportunity if anyone figures out how to crack it.
- jorangreef 16y agoAnyway Stripe can figure out a way to innovate around this?
- bigiain 16y agoCan I suggest you announce loudly and publicly when you're ready to roll out in non-US countries (in my case, Australia), remembering that many of us will have already written you off as "US only" in our heads and will skip straight past future mentions of you, expecting to be disappointed.
- pc 16y ago3kMarlin isn't involved with Stripe. collision and I are the founders. (Good point, though.)
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- phlux 16y agoAnyone else just not trust 100% the paypal folks? Just from a subjective perspective based on the history PayPal has had with withholding funds etc... How does WePay compare to Stripe?
- dsghjtj 16y agoONLINE STORE: ====== ( http://www.fullmalls.com http://www.fullmalls.com )==== ====== ( http://www.fullmalls.com http://www.fullmalls.com )==== Air jordan(1-24)shoes $30 Handbags(Coach l v f e n d i d&g) $35 Tshirts (Polo ,ed hardy,lacoste) $15 Jean(True Religion,ed hardy,coogi) $30 Sunglasses(Oakey,coach,gucci,A r m a i n i) $15 New era cap $12 Bikini (Ed hardy,polo) $20 accept paypal and free shipping ====== ( http://www.fullmalls.com http://www.fullmalls.com )==== ====== ( http://www.fullmalls.com http://www.fullmalls.com )==== ====== ( http://www.fullmalls.com http://www.fullmalls.com )==== ====== ( http://www.fullmalls.com http://www.fullmalls.com )==== ====== ( http://www.fullmalls.com http://www.fullmalls.com )==== ====== ( http://www.fullmalls.com http://www.fullmalls.com )==== ====== ( http://www.fullmalls.com http://www.fullmalls.com )==== ====== ( http://www.fullmalls.com http://www.fullmalls.com )====
- 3kMarlin 16y agoThe lowdown on Stripe: JSON-based HTTP API PHP, Ruby, Python and JavaScript Support Setup in 5 minutes. No branding requirements or redirects. 5% + $0.30 per transaction. US Based Sellers Only. Recurring Billing Support. Data Portability if you ever want to leave. You pay all initial fees (5% + $0.30) if you issue a refund. You will only receive money at the end of the next month.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- jedsmith 16y agoEdit: Oh, deleted. Now I'm really curious. (The parent originally claimed that launch pricing is going to be cheaper. Cat out of the bag, much?)
- 3kMarlin 16y agoWell I doubt it'll be any lower than the industry standard of 2.9% + $0.30 for < $3k/month. If it is, that would be pretty disruptive. What will be more interesting is if they can match both Amazon and PayPal's microtransaction rate of 5% + $0.05 for products under $10 (Amazon) to $12 (PayPal).
- seldo 16y agoOther neat features: WS callbacks (aka webhooks) that notify you before a recurring payment happens, and after success/failure. Incremental billing support, so you can e.g. tack on overage charges or small micro-charges to the next upcoming bill without needing a separate transaction for each one. Depending on your business model this could save you a lot of transaction fees.
- lancewiggs 16y agoSounds like one problem is solved - but the big one for many is that "US Sellers only." Fix that one and expect demand to go nuts.
- 16y ago
- rgrieselhuber 16y agoWe've been using Stripe since August and couldn't be happier. They are super-responsive, do things right and make it incredibly easy to get up and running.
- BenWGarton 16y agoI would be interested to know how the rates look for high dollar transactions.
- ecksor 16y agoWe (Simplenote) have been using Stripe since summer also, it's awesome. At least an order of magnitude easier than Paypal api and the merchant account process was completely transparent, we actually have no idea what's involved with getting a merchant account because they just handle it all and payments show up in our bank account.
- johnrob 16y agoDo you know if you actually have a merchant account somewhere (created by stripe)? Or does everything go through stripe?
- 3kMarlin 16y agoEverything goes through Stripe. There is no way that any merchant account provider would allow you to sign up and start charging customers in 5 minutes like Stripe lets you.
- mef 16y agoIf that logo in the TC article is accurate, you may be getting a call from Deutsche Bank http://www.db.com/en/img/logo.gif http://www.db.com/en/img/logo.gif
- nelhage 16y agoI'm pretty sure TC just made up that logo because they couldn't find one on the Stripe website. These guys are too canny to come up with a logo that shitty.
- staunch 16y agoThey went through YCombinator for Auctomatic, but not to for this company it appears. I wonder what what led them to that decision.
- jharrison 16y agoA 5 million dollar exit and previous YCombinator experience (and the network that comes with that) would by my guess.
- staunch 16y agoSteve Huffman did Reddit through YC and then Hipmunk again. I'm sure you would get an even better deal on the second round, so not sure what the downside is. The upside is still big.
- pg 16y agoStripe is also funded by YC.
- marcamillion 16y agoThank God that YC backed a company taking on Paypal for consumer 2 business and business 2 business. About time a YC quality company gets in that space.
- pc 16y agoFor Stripe, YC was actually the first firm we took investment from. Doing so was a very easy decision.
- staunch 16y agoWell there ya go.
- zby 16y agoIt's not really about 'stealth payment' but rather a startup in a 'stealth' mode (for those confused by the title as myself).
- rabble 16y agoSo i'm assuming this is the YC company in this batch that didn't present in Demo Day?