17 ms·

Stripe: instant payment processing for developers

• swilliams 15y ago
  "You don't need a merchant account or gateway." That's a killer feature right there. I've been considering using Braintree for a project, but seeing this is really making me reconsider.
  • seldo 15y ago
    As a beta customer, not having to deal with 95% of PCI and merchant accounts etc. really made a huge difference to how fast we got going.
    • davidcuddeback 15y ago
      Sure, but other companies, e.g., Spreedly, let you outsource PCI compliance as well. This is the first I've seen that let's you get away without having a merchant account.
      • boucher 15y ago
        We're abstracting away the problem of having a merchant account, because we generally believe there are too many complex moving parts.
        • dsrikanth 15y ago
          Wow! This feature is what I was looking at. Glad to have something processor that doesn't need me to have a merchant account. Sweet!
    • deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
  • edash 15y ago
    Braintree also acts as your merchant account though, right? I'm really excited to learn more about Stripe, but I have Braintree implemented in one application and have had a good experience. For future apps, why choose Stripe over Braintree?
    • swilliams 15y ago
      They do, but you have to pay extra for all that. Stripe's pricing is simple enough for my small mind to comprehend without needing a spreadsheet.
      • edash 15y ago
        That's a strong sell even after sign-up actually. We're trying to sort through Braintree charges right now and it is pretty painful...
        • philipsflat 15y ago
          Hey edash, Shoot to hear you're having trouble sorting it out. Please feel free to reach out to Erin@braintreepayments.com . She'll help you out.
          • edash 15y ago
            Thanks so much, we'll do that!
  • aculver 15y ago
    Yeah, I was referred to Braintree when I was building http://limelightapp.com/ http://limelightapp.com/ and I really liked them. However, using them required getting a merchant account, and getting a merchant account required getting a business license, and getting a business license cost $60 and a few hours going on a trip to City Hall and the Court House. Once I had that, Braintree still had to take a couple days to get the underwriting approved for my merchant account. To their credit, the crazy thing is that this is actually an awesome experience compared to working with other payment gateways. If I could have, I definitely would have done this instead. This is like Square for web apps.
    • marcamillion 15y ago
      Definitely agree. Braintree is by far the best of a very, very bad lot of merchant account providers. Try getting an account with Authorize.net...I nearly killed myself when I tried that. Braintree was a breath of fresh air after I went the 'traditional' way. But, even then...as you said, I still had to jump through tons of hoops and even though they were very, very helpful and super attentive - they even bent over backwards for me by going to multiple underwriting banks to increase the likelihood that my business would be underwritten. When one of the banks rejected my application, their decision to go to multiple ones definitely seemed prescient. But even then, the entire process still took at least a week - with LOTS of paperwork back and forth being printed out, scanned, emailed, etc. Little did I know...I didn't NEED a merchant account. I just want to accept credit cards securely and not be gauged by the fees. Stripe does both perfectly...the fees are pretty competitive - no monthly and no merchant account headache. Avoid it if you can, at all costs, and just go straight to Stripe.
• gwoo 15y ago
  Excellent API and fast support. These guys are gonna go far.
• markbao 15y ago
  Stripe pretty much takes payment processing kicking and screaming into 2011. Merchant accounts are a serious drag. I've opened a few and they've been nothing but headaches (especially if you're young—nobody trusts you.) Couple that with getting a gateway account, dealing with credit checks, monthly fees, monthly minimums, slow people in the payments industry, PCI compliance... Stripe takes payments and put them behind a simple API. No crappiness and 1099 rules of PayPal. No more reconsidering the meaning of life like back when I had a merchant account. The only downside I see is the 7-day rolling batch (deposit to bank), versus the nightly batch from the merchant account, though I assume that is for fraud protection. Maybe if you're charging millions of dollars, you should use a regular merchant account. If you aren't, I'm telling you now: don't even bother with a merchant account. Just use Stripe.
  • zaidf 15y ago
    they've been nothing but headaches (especially if you're young—nobody trusts you.) Ah, things must have changed from early 2000s. I had no problems getting (pretty high risk) merchant accounts back in high school. That said, Stripe looks pretty cool. No more authorize.net mess=)
    • dorianj 15y ago
      I'm a college student, and pay cash for nearly everything, so I have very little credit history. After trying 3 or 4 merchants earlier this year, I still couldn't find one that would accept me, even with my father co-signing. Stripe is good news for young businesses.
      • high5ths 15y ago
        Get a credit card and start using it -- paying it off 100% every month. I was in your shoes only a few years ago and it is worth starting to build your good credit early on. Even if you can only get a $300 limit.
        • sixtofour 15y ago
• physcab 15y ago
  Stripe is a game changer. I've been using it for a few months and honestly its the best API I've ever used. The documentation is clear and concise. Its customized to your account so you can literally copy and paste and see the result. Just like it says, it gets out of your way. I was up and running and accepting recurring payments in less than an hour or so. I actually began to think of larger "swing for the fence" type of ideas that I would have never considered if I were stuck to using Paypal because it was so painless. Looking forward to them eating every other payment processor's lunch.
  • marcamillion 15y ago
    It's so funny, how APIs are supposed to be written by developers for developers - but you don't realize how crappy most are until you come across a good one. The first time that happened to me, was when I wanted to run my first test transaction at the command-line, and Stripe had generated the customized console commands for my specific app (with my specific API keys, etc.) and literally allowed me to copy and paste from their secure site to my command-line without having to do any thinking. That was my first 'aha! OMG...this API is awesome' moment. There were many others, and the truth is I forgot until you mentioned it. Now that you mentioned it, it reminded me how blindingly simple that is to implement - but SOOO many developers (I am guilty as charged too) overlook those little details that make SUCH a difference.
  • mikey_p 15y ago
    Not only that but their docs include sample responses. I'm amazed at how many folks document their APIs but leave out this simple step. It can be a huge help when shopping around between providers, both just to see the quality of their docs, but also to see if their API does what I need. Since I usually have some pseudo code in my head already, being able to see sample responses and see how they fit with my code or schema, etc can make the difference between your API product and a competitor.
  • CeiII 15y ago
    Anyone know whether they used a documentation tool to generate the 'example on right' style pages? E.g. https://stripe.com/api/docs?lang=python#delete_customer https://stripe.com/api/docs?lang=python#delete_customer. It's very clean. The general layout and feel of the API doco is great.
• marcamillion 15y ago
  Been a beta user for a while, and I love their Ruby API. I used to use Braintree...while they were a good merchant account provider - it was overkill for what I needed. I much prefer only paying when I make money. I don't NEED a merchant account. I just need to be able to collect money from my customers in an automated way. Stripe makes that relatively easy. Their API has a quick feedback loop, where you can execute a transaction from the command-line very quickly (for Ruby anyway...I imagine it would be the same for other languages). Their support is also awesome - could be because they only had beta users. But either way, awesome service so far and much better to deal with than a 'traditional' payment solution for those webappers out there (in my experience). Not affiliated with the company in anyway, other than a customer.
• almost 15y ago
  US only at the moment. Anyone know if they have plans for the UK? I would dearly love to say goodbye to PayPal forever.
  • boucher 15y ago
    We're definitely working on expanding to other countries. There's no definite timeline just yet, but it's one of our top priorities.
    • almost 15y ago
      Well if you ever need a UK based (UK Limited Company) beta tester let me know! :)
    • grecy 15y ago
      I'll start using it as soon as you do...
    • matthewking 15y ago
      Another UK LTD company here wanting to use your service the minute its available, so many headaches to be avoided.
    • klaut 15y ago
      i am your customer as soon as you do this :)
    • dorian-graph 15y ago
      Australia. ;)
    • keeran 15y ago
      I've held off developing / launching a few small biz ideas because of the state of payment providers in the UK - ready and waiting to help you test when you're over here :)
      • Silhouette 15y ago
• wylie 15y ago
  In Patrick Collison's presentation at Startup Bootcamp last weekend, he really brought home the social impact that a payment processing company can have in the third world. Even though it's US only for now, this team has huge goals and the experience and vision to back it up. Their goal is to abstract away the complexity of payments, especially internationally. I wish them luck, and can't wait to use it.
• phzbOx 15y ago
  Wondering when it will work in Canada? Also, how does it work "without merchant account or gateway" ?
  • saikat 15y ago
    We're working on international support right now -- though we don't have an ETA, launching in the US was definitely the first part of getting there (and we care a lot about going international -- about half our team is from other countries). You don't need to make your own merchant account or payment gateway because we abstract over those details. We'll make whatever accounts are necessary and we work directly with the banks to make sure that your money is held in your name, what you want appears on your customers' credit card statements, etc.
    • sesh00 15y ago
      Is there any chance you guys could set up a mailing list for people to be notified when there is more international support? Merchant services in Australia suck.
      • boucher 15y ago
        Just shoot an email to support@stripe.com
  • mattm 15y ago
    Will also be waiting for Canada.
  • shadowz 15y ago
    Canada +1
  • lobo_tuerto 15y ago
    Will be waiting for Mexico support, we need something like this now.
  • makira 15y ago
    Canada +1
• kloncks 15y ago
  Amazing product. We're building an eCommerce platform (http://www.kout.me http://www.kout.me) and have been building our payments on top of stripe. Very amazing concept and something that we've needed for a long time. The best thing is the developer focus behind it; it's clear from the beginning that this came to fruition with fellow developers in mind.
• drtse4 15y ago
  Something that is really needed, looking forward to the availability outside the states.
• adriand 15y ago
  This looks really, really nice. Support for Canada would be wonderful and pretty much essential for me to be able to use it. The other thing I'm wondering about is ACH payments - will Stripe handle those; if not, is it planned? Also, would Stripe be suitable for a card-holder present situation, e.g. if you wanted to use it for web-based point of sale software?
  • boucher 15y ago
    We don't handle direct transfers between two ACH accounts yet, but it's something we're thinking about and planning for down the road. As for point of sale applications, Stripe isn't really optimized for that. Have you checked out Square?
    • seiji 15y ago
      ACH payout to multiple endpoints would be killer (think App Store type 70% payouts to users). On another note, your markup is doing some strange things: ;var MrchComponent = Component.extend({});var MrchComponent = Component.extend({});var MrchComponent = Component.extend({});var MrchComponent = Component.extend({});var MrchComponent = Component.extend({});var MrchComponent = Component.extend({});var MrchComponent = Component.extend({});var MrchComponent = Component.extend({});var MrchComponent = Component.extend({});var MrchComponent = Component.extend({});var MrchComponent = Component.extend({});var MrchComponent = Component.extend({});var MrchComponent = Component.extend({});var MrchComponent = Component.extend({});var MrchComponent = Component.extend({});var MrchComponent = Component.extend({});;var SideboxComponent = Component.extend({});var SideboxComponent = Component.extend({});var SideboxComponent = Component.extend({});var SideboxComponent = Component.extend({});var SideboxComponent = Component.extend({});var SideboxComponent = Component.extend({});var SideboxComponent = Component.extend({});var SideboxComponent = Component.extend({});var SideboxComponent = Component.extend({});var SideboxComponent = Component.extend({});var SideboxComponent = Component.extend({});;var RecentPaymentsComponent = Component.extend({});var RecentPaymentsComponent = Component.extend({});var RecentPaymentsComponent = Component.extend({});var RecentPaymentsComponent = Component.extend({});var RecentPaymentsComponent = Component.extend({});var RecentPaymentsComponent = Component.extend({});
• ednc 15y ago
  This is an amazing service. I've been researching all of this for a project I am advising on. Merchant Accounts, gateways, fee here,fee there, PCI - it can make your head explode. It looks like these guys have done it right, and finally hidden the layers friction, banking (and open palms) for us. Nice Work! One Nit if anyone from Stripe is reading - it was a bit hard to find the answer to "How & When do I get paid". There is a small blurp on the pricing page (still doesn't say how), but nothing in the FAQ or Docs. Please spell this out a bit more.
  • metageek 15y ago
    The front page says "Earnings are transferred to your bank account on a 7 day rolling basis.".
    • ednc 15y ago
      Thanks, I did miss that. There are probably better specifics in the TOS or elsewhere, I guess I was looking for something spelled out better in the docs. (Ex: "Use any standard US Business or Personal checking account") It's probably just me though :-)
      • boucher 15y ago
        Good suggestion, thanks.
• rednaught 15y ago
  Is the TOS(Terms of Service) a work in progress? Currently "not found." https://manage.stripe.com/tos https://manage.stripe.com/tos
  • pc 15y ago
    Sorry about that. https://stripe.com/tos https://stripe.com/tos is the correct link. We'll get it fixed.
    • rednaught 15y ago
      Thanks for the update. I did have one other question and wasn't sure where to post it here. What's your timeline for a Perl API binding?
      • pc 15y ago
        We're not working on it right now, but would love to discuss. I'm patrick@stripe.com -- want to drop me a line?
    • Silhouette 15y ago
      Having looked into a lot of payment services recently, including scanning Stripe's terms at the link above, I'm genuinely curious about something. What kind of management trusts a new start-up with such a fundamental part of their business, inevitably including a certain amount of opportunity cost and risk of delay if moving to another service is necessary, based only on a contract of adhesion that allows for the service to be terminated at any time with negligible notice and without any sort of compensation or guaranteed handover arrangements?
• smoyer 15y ago
  I've been watching Stripe for a future project that is looking more and more likely ... but this looks so good, I might do the project just to have a reason to use Stripe! (j/k) Can't wait to see how the international version works.
• deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
  • russ 15y ago
    Another difference: Samurai's front page is far more confusing.
• alexcoomans 15y ago
  Been playing with the API as a beta tester and the docs truly were written by devs. Clean, concise, and gets straight to the point, and they have example code in multiple languages. Plus some really awesome customer support - overall Stripe really rocks.
• david5342 15y ago
  Sounds nice, but the bottom line for me is that a typical $47 credit card sale, which always costs me $1.33 at PayPal, would cost me $1.66 at Stripe. Not much difference, true, but discouraging. I have no need of a fancy API, either--PayPal lets me specify the basics and fire off a simple Post from my PHP code. PayPal takes care of receiving financial information so I remain clean. Just my experience; yours may vary.
  • dangrossman 15y ago
    That's much how I feel as well. I accept credit cards and PayPal, and pay 2.2% as well. Stripe gets added to the bookmark collection for "services to use should I ever have a problem with PayPal" (which, knock on wood, won't ever happen -- my account is 11 years old now).
• carsonm 15y ago
  Wow. Excited. After watching PintPay toy with my emotions, I'm glad someone did it up right. I hope they've got a viable model. The market is positively starving for something like this.
• pitdesi 15y ago
  EDIT: removed so as to not hijack another announcement. Was not the intention, just wanted to offer something people thought was useful.
  • 46Bit 15y ago
    As regards merchant accounts - what country & typical size/age of business do you tend to work with? Appreciate you've not posted anonymously so might not want to go into things much.
    • pitdesi 15y ago
      US/Canada, startups and non-startups. 2/3rds of our businesses are online (mostly startups), 1/3rd brick and mortar. I don't have a better breakdown than that at my fingertips. Average size of our customer is fairly large, skewed by several large customers. We have a lot of startup customers. The ones that are a challenge to get underwritten are typically marketplace businesses of some kind (you sell something, a third party gets paid for it and you take your cut). We have a bunch of them as customers but some are a challenge to get underwritten (fraud reasons/banks are stupid about it). We are totally upfront and transparent and never post anonymously btw. Our business name is actually Transparent Financial Services!
  • marquis 15y ago
    Do you do recurring billing? It's not clear with a quick view of the documentation. Or do you expect that individuals are provided sufficient information to build their own (easy?) recurring systems? If you do, we'll look at moving immediately. We'd not only be saving money but your API doesn't confuse the hell out of my like what we're currently using.
    • pitdesi 15y ago
      You got it. We don't handle the recurring stuff for you, but we give you back a token that lets you bill your customer cards on a recurring basis. We have other customers who are doing this on their own.
• ww520 15y ago
  Interesting. Is there an end-to-end demo from the user's perspective? Do the users know they are storing the CC info on Stripe? Or they think my site handles everything and is responsible for everything (privacy, etc)?
  • anurag 15y ago
    We are completely transparent to your users - it's a conscious design choice. You can always choose to tell them about Stripe and link to our security page if it makes sense. https://stripe.com/security https://stripe.com/security
  • deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
• debaserab2 15y ago
  I'm guessing that the target audience is solo developers that don't qualify for the volume discounts that every other payments vendor/gateway offers. As lovely as this API looks, not offering a volume discount is a complete dealbreaker for my business. There's no way I could justify eating an extra ~1% per transaction just so my API integration goes more smoothly and I don't have to deal with the headaches of a merchant account (and while I would call that process anything but smooth, I don't seem to have the awful experiences of some of the commenters here -- just chance, I guess). The cost/benefit to a business that does any significant volume online just isn't there for this.
  • boucher 15y ago
    Volume pricing is something we'll think about in the future, but you're right -- right now we're trying to focus on building the simplest possible payments system on the web, even at the expense of maybe being less attractive to the biggest merchants for a while.
• alexpogosyan 15y ago
  I was very excited reading their faq until I realized it's US only service. Can't wait to see you guys expand internationally. Best of luck.
  • boucher 15y ago
    Thanks! We're excited for International support too.
  • tomelders 15y ago
    Stripe looks so good, I think I'm going to try and open a US account.
• whichdan 15y ago
  I'm comparing payment processing options for a very straightforward SaaS app. I was heavily leaning toward Braintree, but Stripe and Samurai seem easier/cheaper. Is there a strong reason to go with Braintree? I'm not sure if having my own merchant account makes a big difference. The pricing for 1,000 monthly users looks (roughly) like: (edit: I did the % based on $9/transaction) Stripe: $329/mo @ $3,948/yr Samurai: $358/mo @ $4,296/yr Braintree: $487.90/mo @ $5,854.80/yr
  • saikat 15y ago
    We work directly with Wells Fargo on our backend to make sure you end up with all the normal benefits of a merchant account (the money will be held in your name, you will be able to put whatever you want on your customers' credit card statements, etc.). We just want to abstract the whole process here -- basically, putting you on the account or accounts that makes the most amount of sense so you can start processing immediately and then continue processing at high volume.
    • whichdan 15y ago
      Very cool. Is there no underwriting process then? That seemed to be one of the biggest steps in getting setup with Braintree.
      • anurag 15y ago
        There is quite a bit of screening/evaluation behind the scenes, but one of our goals is to not have legitimate businesses worry about any of it.
• _corbett 15y ago
  echoing the excitement for the international expansion.
• psadauskas 15y ago
  Their signup process threw me for a loop. You just click into the dashboard, then fill in a name and password later. It looks like just visiting the front page gives you an account, because the sample code is already using some generated API tokens. I've considered doing something similar for my own side project, but went with the more standard sign up because I was worried it would be confusing (as it was to me, for a few minutes). Do you guys think this is becoming more mainstream, at least amongst developers and the tech-savvy, that other projects could get away with this? I'm curious how many support requests Stripe gets because of this. Edited to add: How does this work for the non-logged-in state? I already have an account, and the browser cookie expires (or manually delete the cookies). I'll go to the dashboard, and be logged in as "anonymous", and have to sign out and sign in again as the right user. Seems like an extra incongruous step.
  • boucher 15y ago
    Yeah, it does sometimes confuse people. This is something we're considering about changing (the flow worked differently when we were invite only), but we thought it was worth experimenting with a little longer. Mostly, I think it depends on the type of app you have. For something like 280 Slides (a previous project I worked on), it makes a lot of sense to get started right away without having to sign up. We'll see how things go for Stripe.
    • monological 15y ago
      This is extremely confusing. Thought it was just a test account. Left depressed because I couldn't sign up.
      • axx 15y ago
        yep, i thought the same.
  • grah4 15y ago
    fwiw, that design pattern is called lazy registration.
  • 15y ago
• city41 15y ago
  If a Stripe employee is reading this, tiny suggestion: I just shared the URL to stripe on both Facebook and G+. On G+, the nice little blueprint icon showed up as the thumbnail. But on Facebook, no icon at all making the post far less noticable in people's feeds. Just a tiny thing that will help the spreading of the word.
  • deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  • anurag 15y ago
    Thanks, fixed.
• destraynor 15y ago
  This is an incredible product built by a team of amazing developers, solving a serious problem. I will enjoy watching their success.
• Kilimanjaro 15y ago
  Just curious, how does the gambling industry manage payments? I've been thinking about building a poker saloon and would like to know how to get players to put their money on the table, so to speak.
• acabal 15y ago
  Man... I literally just bit the bullet and opened a merchant account and gateway at Auth.net last week, and the second I do, FeeFighters comes out with their own superior gateway, and Stripe launches. Talk about bad timing for me :(
  • martin1b 15y ago
    Makes 2 of us. Just finished integrating with Auth.Net. Yep, bad timing IF this is as easy and secure as everybody says.
• wheelerwj 15y ago
  I tried stripe a couple months ago and I was unimpressed. Mostly it was the pricing ( i think at the time it was 3.9% + 30 cents ) because I was looking to do smaller transactions $4.99 a month subscription. But I got into the beta anyways and started playing with it. Within 10 minutes a rep was emailing me trying to get more information and that I wasn't ready to give out. I ended up going with Paypal's micro transaction processing.
  • boucher 15y ago
    Our account application asks for your personal information (thinks like bank account details, home address, etc.) as part of our automated verification process. Once it gets submitted, we try to verify and approve the application as quickly as possible, hence the quick contact. Of course, you don't have to submit this application until you're ready. You can save your account on Stripe without filling out the account app, and do as much testing as you like, forever. Once you're ready to process real payments, that is when we'll require some of this information. Hope that helps explain things.
• Erwin 15y ago
  I'm not sure about avoiding PCI compliance so easily. You're embedding their JS library on your page. That page has to be secure, otherwise if someone can inject malicious Javascript they can sniff the CC data as soon as they are entered. You might not be storing the data on your servers, or transmitting the data directly, but security failures in your setup can cause the data to be leaked. Compare this to sending the user to an external website via a redirect that lets the user at least verify that they're really talking to PayPal or whoever.
  • boucher 15y ago
    You're right, you should be using SSL on your payment pages. It's required for our users (see https://stripe.com/help/ssl https://stripe.com/help/ssl). PCI, however, doesn't actually have requirements around SSL, so it's not technically related to PCI compliance.
  • yahelc 15y ago
    They require that you host your payments in HTTPS. https://stripe.com/help/ssl https://stripe.com/help/ssl They themselves are PCI Compliant. https://stripe.com/security https://stripe.com/security
  • tptacek 15y ago
    PCI is absolutely schizophrenic about this point, and right now embedding your provider's form within your own same origin domain is kosher with them. You're right if you're thinking it shouldn't be.
    • Silhouette 15y ago
      > You're right if you're thinking it shouldn't be. Why do you think it should not? AFAIK, doing so exempts you (legitimately) from much of PCI DSS that applies if sensitive data hits your network, but does not automatically exempt you from the rest. Are you concerned that someone will be able to compromise the page on your own server so it no longer embeds the payment service's form correctly, and then capture card data that way?
• seanharper 15y ago
  Respect. Stripe is a very smart company solving a big problem.
• kylebragger 15y ago
  Been using them for a while now on Forrst and Tinyproj and they're downright awesome. Smart folks, super developer friendly product.
• ryanwaggoner 15y ago
  What about lock-in? This is awesome for getting started fast, but what happens when you have 100,000 subscribers and you want to switch to Braintree or someone to get some better pricing?
  • boucher 15y ago
    We don't like lock in either, and we'll never use it as a business tactic. If you want to move your stored credit cards to another provider, we'll help you out in doing so. It's a bit tough to make this obvious, because we can't automate it unfortunately. PCI requires that we work directly with the environment that we're sending your data too, to ensure the transfer is also secure.
    • clistctrl 15y ago
      This is great business, right now I have a lot of confidence in you guys.
    • ryanwaggoner 15y ago
      Best answer, thank you.
  • namityadav 15y ago
    I would also like to know about this. Their solution looks great! But I'd want to ensure that if this company goes under, or if it doesn't do what it promises, there's a way for me to get ALL of my data (subscribers, past payments, other details) and switch to another provider.
    • boucher 15y ago
      See the sibling post for more info on moving credit cards to another provider, but as for everything else (customer info, subscriptions, charges, etc.) everything is available through our API (https://stripe.com/api/docs https://stripe.com/api/docs).
• krosaen 15y ago
  looks great, though recurly has met my needs so far, not sure what would make me consider porting over to something new
  • boucher 15y ago
    The difference between Stripe and Recurly is that Stripe is dealing with the full payments stack for you. You don't need a separate merchant account or gateway, and it's just one flat fee of 2.9% and 30 cents per successful charge, including our subscription billing services. As a result, it's often quite cheaper than combining several separate services.
    • krosaen 15y ago
      Thanks for the details. Merchant account setup with intuit through recurly was very easy though, we had that setup within a few hours. At this point, sounds like stripe would be cheaper though (~50 paying customers at $40 a month).
• julian37 15y ago
  This looks amazing. @boucher, sounds like support for Canada and the UK is in the pipeline, how about other EU countries such as Germany? In the meantime, can somebody recommend a (vaguely) similar service in/for Germany, or otherwise an old-fashioned payment processor that's less painful to deal with than others?
  • kayoone 15y ago
    we use infin.de for mobile/phone payments but they also offer credit card and direct debit. The site looks dated but their service and experience is really good!
    • julian37 15y ago
      Thanks for the pointer, I'll check it out.
  • boucher 15y ago
    Germany is definitely on our list, thanks!
    • julian37 15y ago
      That's great to hear, thanks.
    • markokocic 15y ago
      Can you share list of countries you expect to be supported "real soon now"? It would be helpful to know if I should keep an eye on your service, or just forget about you fro another year or two.
• weixiyen 15y ago
  Best API ever for a payments processor - period. It literally takes a couple hours to set up begin collecting payments. If I could buy some shares right now I would. I've convinced 2 people to use it and both are in love. This startup is money.
• abcd_f 15y ago
  I was under the impression that if my website is asking for a credit card number that is later used for a transaction, then it needs to be PCI compliant. Perhaps, it is a Canadian specific, but this need for the PCI compliance is the major selling argument in favor of hosted payment services. And on a related note - is Stripe available outside of the US? (edit) Ah, found it. > Do I need to be in the United States to use Stripe? > Yes. Damn. Bummer.
  • boucher 15y ago
    The exact details of PCI are pretty complex, but, roughly the answer is that any system that touches credit card numbers has to be PCI compliant. This means that if you take credit cards on your website, you need to be PCI compliant. But the exact requirements differ depending on your setup, and what Stripe helps you do is ensure the credit card information never hits a server owned by you. This drastically reduces the scope of your compliance to a simple questionnaire. As for being outside the US, not quite yet. We're working hard on that front though, so stay tuned.
    • deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    • abcd_f 15y ago
      I was first going to say how's that the CC #s from my web form are not hitting my server, but then looked at your Docs - and what you did is ingenious - the form is mine, but it is submitted to your site. The curl example on the front page is rather misleading. It was the only thing I actually read through on that page and I walked away with an impression that that code snippet needs to go to my server. Just the 2c worth of UX feedback :)
      • boucher 15y ago
        Thanks for the feedback. We'll work on clearer examples.
        • 15y ago
• zealoushacker 15y ago
  I think that aside from the lack of support for marketplace, like https://www.wepay.com/developer/usecases/marketplace https://www.wepay.com/developer/usecases/marketplace Stripe is awesome. Any plans to add marketplace support in the near term? Also are you guys PCI compliant yet?
  • boucher 15y ago
    We're certified as PCI Level 1 Compliant (the highest level). You can definitely build a market place on top of Stripe. We don't, at the moment, have an easy way for you to take money and then pay it out to other people, but if you're able to handle that step on your own then Stripe can be a great way to collect payments for your marketplace.
    • zealoushacker 15y ago
      Is it on the roadmap for the near future?
      • saikat 15y ago
        Possibly -- it's something we're still talking about internally.
• jfruh 15y ago
  I'm not a developer, but I am considering selling things through my website and maybe also selling things in person outside any shop. Is there any particular reason I would pay a developer to build this into my site rather than just using Paypal (which I've used for years and had no big complaints with) and/or Square?
  • saikat 15y ago
    You would use Square for your in-person payments (Square, so far, is for brick-and-mortar stores whereas we are doing online payments). But we definitely are targeting developers more currently, so can see why we may not be as easy of a choice for you. We do offer quite a bit of analytics around what you are making and being paid out, and we also give you a viable way to get set up easily with minimal PCI compliance without having to use a hosted payment solution (so customers checking out wouldn't be sent to another website, which I believe PayPal's hosted solution does), so these features may appeal to you.
• megaman821 15y ago
  Can you fetch any meta data on a customer's saved card? For example if a single customer has four saved cards you might want to present it as: * Visa ending in 1234 * MasterCard ending in 5678 Also, when a customer's card is expiring how are they prompted to enter an non-expiring card?
  • boucher 15y ago
    You can get the type and last 4 digits of the card. Right now, we only allow you to store one card for a customer -- something we'll probably change in the future. Since we aren't putting ourselves anywhere in the front end of your app, we can't notify your customers when they have cards that are about to expire -- it's something you'll have to choose how you want to communicate.
• PStamatiou 15y ago
  We've been using Stripe for Picplum.com since the middle of the summer. These guys are insane -- they saw an error before we even did and emailed us saying they were working on fixing it. Top notch team.
• flixic 15y ago
  US only. Well, I kind of knew it before even hitting FAQ. A bit of a rant here, but it's crazily difficult to do so many interesting things when you don't live in top-20 country (Lithuania here) Stripe? Nope. BrainTree? Nope. Recurly? Nope. Something else... Likely, Nope. And so, the only way to get paid is to deal with some of the most expensive and oldest gateways and merchant accounts. Oh, and: Hulu? Nope. iTunes? Nope, but we do have App Store. Netflix? Nope. Spotify? Nope. Pandora, Rdio, ... Nope. ...Amazon? Mostly nope. And so, the only way to buy or stream media is to buy CDs and DVDs for crazy prices. Sigh. Rant is over. Stripe, I know that may take years, but please, don't forget the little guys.
  • boucher 15y ago
    We totally get it. We're working on expanding to other countries right now, it's one of our top priorities.
    • superasn 15y ago
      Please think of India when you do. Paypal recently botched big-time in India (search paypal pan card) and there is a big hole that needs to be filled. We have a volume of about $500k and with Paypal failing us big time, we've ourselves been searching like crazy for the past one week for a good payment processor. Alertpay was looking most promising until I came across this post. Unfortunately, since stripe is US only, so as soon as you start support more countries, we're definitely add you guys to our site too!
      • ragesh 15y ago
        Just curious -- why is PAN a problem? Is it hard to get a PAN for your business?
  • pmjordan 15y ago
    Have you looked into incorporating in the UK? It's probably quite a bit of hassle up-front but should solve this type of problem. Unlike in many (most?) European countries, incorporating a limited company in the UK is pretty cheap and straightforward in itself.
• eoghan 15y ago
  Stripe is going to be huge. Theirs is a MASSIVE market, waiting too long to be disrupted. Can't wait to use the service.
• prayag 15y ago
  Stripe is simply amazing. We've been using them for many weeks now and things just work. Setting up payments was so much easier.
• Bartlet 15y ago
  I operate in what the credit card processors consider to be a "high risk industry". It's nearly impossible for myself or my competitors to get a merchant account without a reserve. In other words, for every $1 we charge, the merchant bank holds X% in reserve (until we hit a certain threshold). Thus, if we tried to defraud customers by selling bad products and then "disappearing," the merchant bank could use the reserve to refund customers. So, with that as a preface, how will Stripe deal with chargebacks? It seems like it would be very easy to set up a scam, e.g. a merchant sells phony inventory and then "disappears" when customers complain.
  • boucher 15y ago
    Yup, dealing with risk is a hard problem that we're giving a lot and thought and effort to. We rely a lot on online info to verify identity, which gives us some advantages. But yes, we're working hard on mitigating the risks involved with fraud.
  • rhc2104 15y ago
    https://stripe.com/pricing https://stripe.com/pricing There is a $15 chargeback fee.
• clistctrl 15y ago
  Thank you. Pay pal should be obsolete now.
• deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
• mise 15y ago
  Can someone please explain to me how 2checkout couldn't do this? For example they claimed to be pushed by the card companies to become a "reseller", resulting in the fact that their checkout pages cannot be customized. What gives?
• rumpelstiltskin 15y ago
  My only concern is that Stripe will be such a hit that they'll be bought out by someone like Paypal. Which would suck since the point was to move away from Paypal to Stripe.
• snorkel 15y ago
  Question for boucher: Can stripe be used for affiliate payments, perhaps by issuing credits?
  • boucher 15y ago
    Probably best to send an email to support@stripe.com to figure out specific cases like this.
• MrMike 15y ago
  I don't have anything to contribute other than a thank you to the folks behind Stripe for trying to fix this seriously broken system.
• showkhill 15y ago
  Well done lads! Just on their customer service - really great. I'm a novice developer hacking together my first webapp and the people I dealt with at stripe were excellent, very patient and helpful. Best of luck with it.
• mcantor 15y ago
  Is this real? Am I dreaming? This sounds too good to be true. Someone pinch me, please. (Is there an app for that?)
• BSousa 15y ago
  First, I wish the folks from Stripe all the best, and the only thing I hoped was International companies support. But as anyone tried Saasy (http://saasy.com/ http://saasy.com/) ? They are the subscription service of Fastspring. They don't require a merchant account and support international vendors. While I haven't tried them yet, when I used non-subscription payments they were the best (www.fastpring.com). They are also very well regarded by indie developers so their subscription service may be quite good.
• Iv 15y ago
  Good to see an alternative to paypal, but instead of paying 3% to a transaction central, I'll still offer a 5% discount to anyone who pays me through bitcoin.
• lsh123 15y ago
  Just make sure you still do your PCI compliance audit if you use Stripe.
  • saikat 15y ago
    You actually don't need to do anything beyond what we tell you to do for PCI. Check out stripe.js. No need for an auditor.
    • deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
• seanstickle 15y ago
  Does Stripe allow delayed payments? That is, people put in their credit card details, Stripe authorizes the card but doesn't capture the amount charged, then we can approve/decline the transaction, and then Stripe can capture or void the transaction? We have a situation where we need, for legal reasons, to verify that people giving us money are allowed to do so, and we really don't want to have to reverse the charge after the fact if we find out they're not eligible to pay us. Otherwise, the system looks great, and I want to use it right now.
  • saikat 15y ago
    Sean, you should jump into our campfire (https://stripe.com/campfire https://stripe.com/campfire) or send us an email at support@stripe.com. We can try to offer a few suggestions for how to do this.
  • boucher 15y ago
    We don't support what's typically known as separate auth and capture in the payment industry (though we may in the future). Typically, we recommend just capturing the card information by attaching it to a customer object, and then making a charge later. If you're charging a really high amount, or for some reason need a 100% guarantee that the charge will succeed, then right now you'll have to make the charge and then issue a refund in your situation.
    • jtheory 15y ago
      Note, though: when you refund the charge, the fees you paid aren't refunded to you. This was the one downside of Stripe for me, vs. PayPal (though it's pretty minor -- I only have a handful of refunds a year... but I offer them all the time, and I've always liked feeling free to do that).
• Sthorpe 15y ago
  Stripe, recently saved me. I am still fighting with my merchant processor *First Data who is awful. I talked to Stripe via Sean Harper with FeeFighters and I was up and rolling in 20 minutes. Yes, Jaw drop fast. Most payment processors require at least two weeks to be setup. Their UI/UX is beautiful and simple. When I need help I get it immediately. I love this company. :)
• peanutus 15y ago
  Is there a processing volume limit? Will Stripe be verifying customer orders?
  • boucher 15y ago
    There are no volume limits. What kind of verification are you talking about? Stripe does offer address verification: if you send the address with your requests, we'll return the AVS response from the credit card network, which tells if that the billing zip codes and street number are a match.
    • peanutus 15y ago
      What about sales receipts? Are those generated by Stripe and sent to the user or is it up to the merchant to deliver them?
      • deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
      • boucher 15y ago
        We don't offer support for emailing your users right now.
        • peanutus 15y ago
          How long does it take for a refund to be re-credited to the user's card? What's the chargeback threshold before an account gets put on hold? Is there a refund threshold? Eg. 1 out of 4 of our customers are dissatisifed with our product, so we refund 25% of all transactions. Also, you've created something absolutely amazing. ISO Sales agents across the country are going to be trembling. Speaking of which, will you have a partner program?
          • saikat 15y ago
            The amount of time it takes fro the refund to be re-credited usually depends on the issuing bank. When a refund happens, we send the refund over immediately and settle it at the end of the day. There are currently no chargeback or refund thresholds, but we'll have to see how that evolves as we grow. We don't currently have any partner program, but it's definitely something we're talking about. Lots of things are in the pipeline!
• frankdenbow 15y ago
  Awesome that the payouts are now much faster. That was the one thing keeping me on the fence but will be using it right away for StartupThreads.com
• BrandonDC 15y ago
  Looks like a great service. Too bad I can't use it, since I'm a Canadian. It gets really tiring to see interesting new services launch that refuse to take my money because I live in a different country. I'm hoping that it's something non-trivial that is preventing them from operating in countries like Canada and the UK, and I look forward to using the service once they are able to offer it to me.
• BadiPod 15y ago
  This is exactly what I have been looking for. I only wish you guys had a micropayments model as well. Any future plans of that?
  • boucher 15y ago
    It's something people are asking for, so we'll be looking into it.
• pingswept 15y ago
  I mean this as a serious question: when Stripe has 10,000 customers next year, why will they be less capricious and infuriating than Paypal? Is there a fundamental difference, or does Paypal just have a ~15-year history of sucking, while Stripe doesn't?
  • anurag 15y ago
    Good question. A lot of PayPal's issues stem from the draconian fraud measures they need to employ to handle user-to-user payments. Our business and fraud problems are fundamentally different because we don't support this use case. Additionally, we've been really careful to grow slowly, and to make sure the experience for our users remains great. We've been in invite-only mode for well over a year before opening up today, and intend to monitor (and, if necessary, limit) our growth so that this doesn't happen. We'd rather be small than suck.
• chexton 15y ago
  Awesome. I have been waiting to have a better look at Stripe, it sounds so great. I have a question for someone who might know: how can Stripe operate without requiring it's users to sign up for a merchant account? Do they hold what is known as a 'master merchant account'? I am just curious as these sound notoriously difficult to get and might explain why it's US only for now, not to mention the AML considerations of letting users sign up and accept payments so simply. This all just makes what they are doing even more impressive :).
  • saikat 15y ago
    We basically are trying to abstract away all the pain of creating merchant accounts and setting up with separate payment gateways. On the backend, we are partnering with Wells Fargo and First Data to set up whatever accounts are necessary to both get you started immediately while making sure you get all the benefits of a full-fledged merchant account.
    • chexton 15y ago
      Cool. I'm not a US citizen but it's great that you can do this and that Wells Fargo is on board as this is a killer feature in my opinion :).
• theseanstewart 15y ago
  I'm all over this as soon as Freshbooks supports it.
• BadiPod 15y ago
  Are you guys looking for investors?
• andrewingram 15y ago
  Even though the credit card details never hits the webserver of the host site, does the fact that the fields are on the site rather than in a secure iframe not mean that there's still a PCI issue? Namely that if a malicious party manages to find a way to inject javascript into the page they can read any form field they want, regardless of whether it's being submitted elsewhere. This was true of Braintree (the form posts to a remote url rather than to a server run by the site), how does Stripe alleviate this issue?
  • boucher 15y ago
    If someone injects javascript into your page, nothing you do will matter -- you are compromised. This is why your site has to be served over SSL (to prevent MITM attacks), and why you should be careful about what third party content you embed in your site. In particular, you should never embed a non SSL resource on an SSL page (also known as the mixed content warning in most browsers).
    • andrewingram 15y ago
      But say you have a untrustworthy employees (it happens), as long as they have the ability to deploy code, they can compromise your site. So my question is, to what extent can a solution like Slice (or Braintree) truly alleviate the PCI burden, surely you'd still need a record of who has the ability to deploy code, audit trail for deploys etc. Obviously you should be doing all this stuff anyway. I guess the point I'm making is that solutions like this make great claims about their ability to solve all your PCI woes, and I'm wondering about the extent to which this is actually true. PCI compliance is (normally) quite expensive to achieve, so your solution is obviously very attractive. But is it enough?
      • boucher 15y ago
        No third party could completely protect you from an untrustworthy employee, but that doesn't automatically subject you to every theoretical PCI requirement. If you have a malicious employee, you'll be liable for the damage that employee causes, yes. But using something like Stripe.js reduces even that risk, because it reduces the potential surface area of an internal attack as much as it reduces the possibility of external attacks.
• phatbyte 15y ago
  Stripe was like love at first sight, it was exactly what I was looking for a loooong time, but I can't use it for now apparently :( Two questions: My company is an LLC and I have a valid SSN, however my bank account is in Portugal, can I still apply for stripe ? If not, do you have plan to support EU countries like Portugal ? thanks
  • boucher 15y ago
    You should email support@stripe.com for specific things like this.
• jules 15y ago
  This is awesome. The big question is: how are you going to deal with fraud? Fraud policies false positives is largely what makes people hate PayPal.
  • boucher 15y ago
    I think the difference is customer service, not fraud per se. Customer service will always be our highest priority -- and that means when we do end up in situations where fraud is a concern, we'll work with our users to resolve things quickly.
• arisey 15y ago
  Will strip offer hosted page in the near future? We are currently using Spreedly's hosted page for customer to input their credit card info so that we don't have to worry about SSL and other security issues?
  • boucher 15y ago
    We may at some point in the future, but it's unlikely to be one of our short term priorities. Stripe.js does make things easier for you, but you'll still need SSL.
• DistortedRhymes 15y ago
  Please come to Australia! We need you!
• rick888 15y ago
  I have a problem with using merchant startups. If they go out of business, what happens to my clients? If I have thousands of clients, I would not want to be forced to get all of their credit card info again (since I wouldn't be storing any of that info). Although I hate using the big guys, at least I know they will be around in 5+ years.
  • pc 15y ago
    We'll happily export your card data to another provider if you ever want to move away.
    • rick888 15y ago
      Are you legally allowed to even do that? Do you store card data yourself?
      • anurag 15y ago
        Yes and yes. We are a PCI Level 1 Service Provider. More information on our security practices: https://stripe.com/security https://stripe.com/security
• BryanB55 15y ago
  Anyone here use WHMCS? (Whmcs.com) I'm curious if Stripe will work with it since it doesn't send the CC# through the server.
• mschen 15y ago
  Not to take away from the product, which I think is pretty awesome, but I do foresee a rather sticky issue should the company blow up somewhere down the line; the logo is rather reminiscent of that of my former employer Deutsche Bank's, and I wouldn't put it past the multinational financial behemoth to take notice, with potential financial consequences, especially as Stripe pushes its product internationally. For reference: http://www.oraclefusionnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/deutsche-bank.jpeg http://www.oraclefusionnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/d...
  • boucher 15y ago
    Stripe does not currently have a logo, other than the word Stripe.
    • mschen 15y ago
      Sorry about that, I was basing my comment off the Crunchbase profile (http://www.crunchbase.com/company/stripe http://www.crunchbase.com/company/stripe) and assumed that was the logo.
• thepumpkin1979 15y ago
  off-topic: Stripe looks really nice and I wish I could use it but sadly I'm outside USA. Does anyone knows a service like this that doesn't require a bank account? Let's say I want to charge people in USA but I don't have a bank account in USA, then I would transfer the money to Paypal or something. Any thoughts?
  • kalleboo 15y ago
    If you're transferring the money into Paypal anyway (and exposing yourself to "the paypal risk"), why not just use Paypal Website Payments Pro?
• DanBlake 15y ago
  Does Stripe let us take our data with us if we want to leave for another processor? If I build a recurring revenue business on Stripe, am I screwed if they hike up their fees by not being able to move the credit card #'s elsewhere?
  • boucher 15y ago
    Yup, we do. Checkout my other answers in these comments.
  • deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
• neovive 15y ago
  Stripe looks great and is definitely at the top of my list. Does anyone know what name shows up on the customers statement? Is it customizable to something that includes your company nane (e.g. Stripeyour_name_here)?
  • collision 15y ago
    It's entirely up to you: there's no mention of Stripe. Most of our customers simply put their domain on the statement.
• neovive 15y ago
  Stripe looks great and is definitely at the top of my list. Does anyone know what name shows up on the customers statement? Is it customizable to something that includes your company name (e.g. Stripeyour_name_here)?
  • boucher 15y ago
    Stripe doesn't appear at all. You have full control over what appears on the statement.
    • ericd 15y ago
      These little touches are awesome. With Auth.net it seems I ran into a character limit with my (not very long) company name, and the beginning was truncated - TopHat became Phat... I tried to get it changed once upon a time, but I gave up due to the pain. The old 1 month payout schedule was one of the few things holding me back from switching, but now that's it's more frequent, count me in! One question, can one charge from multiple URLs with a single account?
      • saikat 15y ago
        You can charge from multiple URLs, but all your data will show up together as if it were for one account. If you want to have multiple accounts for different websites, your best bet currently is to just sign up multiple times (we're working on having subaccounts).
        • ericd 15y ago
          Great, that's fine for my purposes. Thanks!
    • neovive 15y ago
      That sounds great! Can't wait to get started. I've been dreading building out the recurring payments portion of our website, but reading about Stripe is easing the stress. The docs and are excellent and the approach is very sensible.
• kaushalc 15y ago
  Looks like the site is down??
• sabalaba 15y ago
  I saw this on the front page and had to upvote-- I've been using Stripe since early June and can say that it is the best payment platform to develop on, period. It's just lightyears ahead in terms of development time, PCI compliance issues, and overhead. Not only that, but the guys at Stripe are extremely responsive to customer service questions and issues. These guys are trustworthy professionals and gentlemen.
• rshm 15y ago
  2.9% and 7 days. if you are still using it, you are infant in this entire thing.
• deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
• geek777 15y ago
  Amazing product, just curious about which font was used in the stripe logo?
• robflynn 15y ago
  Congratulations on your official launch. I've been using Stripe for a while now and have chatted with several of you in the campfire room. You have always been extremely helpful, no matter what wildass time of the night I may decide to poke my head into the room. I have nothing but good things to say about your service. Thank you.
• kentf 15y ago
  CANADA!!
• damir 15y ago
  I really wish I could use this in EU.
• lvh 15y ago
  We're incorporated in Hong Kong. I'm beginning to think we should launch a US subsidiary just to take credit cards...
• mariust 15y ago
  Hope you go international as soon as possible there is a lot of good potential around this. I just hate the way paypal has recurring billing setup, the documentation is not 100% completed in paypal and I had to loose a couple of hours to ge around an error that was saying basically: " there are 1000 things that could go wrong ", the problem is that I was missing a field that I had to submit to them, the docs war not saying anything about it, but with the help of good old Google. Go stripe
• avree 15y ago
  Stripe looks awesome for small scale business. At large scale, Braintree still has cheaper pricing (http://www.braintreepayments.com/pricing http://www.braintreepayments.com/pricing) and the monthly cost is negligible.
  • boucher 15y ago
    Pricing is pretty hard to compare directly between something like Stripe and Braintree. In particular, there is no one clear answer, because it depends on your own mixture of AMEX cards, international cards, rewards cards, etc. We have some medium sized businesses on Stripe who have run the numbers and come out cheaper with us, but that won't be true for every merchant. Part of what we believe to be valuable here is the simplicity of knowing exactly what your fees will be on every transaction, and in aggregate. There aren't any surprises.
• bherms 15y ago
  Quick suggestion... I tried to share on Facebook and didn't get an image. Set this in your <head> so it looks better when shared: <link rel="image_src" type="image/png" href="PATH TO IMAGE" /> <link rel="image_src" type="image/jpg" href="PATH TO IMAGE" />
• llch 15y ago
  Having the sample code right there on the landing page is the most compelling thing for developers, when the customers are developers.
• PedroCandeias 15y ago
  I know this has already been stated and it doesn't add much to the discussion. However, I feel it's important to add my little two cents just so the Stripe team (and others in the same space) can hear it (again): Please, please, PLEASE make a payments solution like this available outside the US. Europe, for instance, still lives in the dark ages as far as online payments are concerned and has plenty of startups who would jump at the opportunity to use Stripe.
• robjohnson 15y ago
  Goodbye recurly and chargify. You're no longer the prettiest girls at the dance.
• brandong 15y ago
  I see the Getting Started developers intro, but I'm having trouble visualizing what this can look like purely from the customers side. Do you have any live implementations you can link to as an example of a Stripe integration?
  • boucher 15y ago
    Stripe doesn't communicate directly with your users, so there is no standard look from a customer's perspective. We're providing the tools to build your own payment forms hosted on your own website. Perhaps in the future we'll look into helping by communicating more directly to customers.
• csallen 15y ago
  Been using Stripe for Taskforce for a few months now. Stellar API, stellar service.
• tonio09 15y ago
  Bitcoin charges 0.01% @:)
• old-gregg 15y ago
  Awesome company, we're at Mailgun have been using them for a long time and couldn't be happier.
• kilink 15y ago
  Any plans for supporting a DBA (doing business as) field as part of the API? Having only one identity associated with the Stripe account wouldn't cut it for us.
  • boucher 15y ago
    For now, we recommend just setting up multiple Stripe accounts; it's a feature I'm sure we'll add in the future.
    • kilink 15y ago
      In our particular case we would need somewhere between 50 or more accounts, so it's just not feasible. Having it as part of the charge API would be ideal. Glad to hear you're considering adding it as a feature.
• ThaddeusQuay2 15y ago
  It seems great, until you read the fine print, which I did, in its entirety, and what I saw is quite chilling, in terms of fees, fines, and other undefined costs incurred when things go horribly wrong. "When a Chargeback is issued, you are immediately liable to Stripe for the full amount of payment of the Chargeback plus any associated Fees, fines, expenses or penalties (including those assessed by the Networks or our payment processors). You agree that Stripe may recover these amounts by debiting by means of ACH debit of your Bank Account associated with your Stripe Service Account, debiting your Reserve Account, or setting off any amounts owed to you by us. If we are unable to recover funds related to a Chargeback for which you are liable, you will pay us the full amount of the Chargeback immediately upon demand. You agree to pay all costs and expenses, including without limitation attorneys’ fees and other legal expenses, incurred by or on behalf of us in connection with the collection of any unpaid Chargebacks unpaid by you." https://stripe.com/tos https://stripe.com/tos I >do< like the positives of Stripe, but I'd feel more comfortable if I knew how Stripe would handle specific extremes, such as the one about which I had recently asked. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3039782 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3039782
  • boucher 15y ago
    As you noted in your post, these terms are standard (and, essentially, required of us) in this industry. And as people suggested, chargebacks are not a big deal. They are far less common than people think, and usually they are resolved quite easily; all it takes is good communication.
    • ThaddeusQuay2 15y ago
      I appreciate the answers given to my question from several days ago. I appreciate that all of the loopholes need to be covered, using >standard< legalese, most of which will never be needed, but when it is, the situation will be resolved entirely in Stripe's favor, not mine. I appreciate that chargebacks are >usually< not a big deal. My concern is about extremes, particularly those which come out of malicious intent, perpetrated against me, through no fault of my own. With the way that these "one-sided" agreements are structured, it appears to be quite easy for me to launch an attack against a small startup's credit processing account, with the likely result being termination of said account, mostly due to the perception of risk which I will have created in the minds of the people who implement the TOS to which the startup agreed. If I can do this to someone's startup, then someone can do it to mine, and I can't be the only person who has thought of this kind of stuff.
• jpadilla 15y ago
  Over at Blimp(http://getblimp.com http://getblimp.com) we decided to go with Stripe for our billing. We asked them nicely for a private beta so we could go ahead and start working. We have already implemented them into our app, very simple, never got in the way, and we are launching on October 10, on time, thanks to them. Stripe is pretty awesome! I've had to deal with all these issues of Merchant accounts, business bank accounts and what not, and it sucks! Its time consuming, expensive, and a pain in the ass. I've used Recurly for another project I recently launched, and I kinda liked them, thats of course before using Stripe! What sold Stripe to me was their pricing scheme, very simple, no monthly crap. I'm pretty sure startups struggle at first with monthly fees...
• Hisoka 15y ago
  Just wanted to say you guys were one of the few "startups" I actually gave my email to in the beta page when you announced it. I could care less about the next social app, or next reminder app but as soon as I saw your value proposition, I KNEW I had to be notified when it was out. Thanks for making something that actually solves a crucial problems. This is much much needed, and you guys are definitely on your way to success
• smilliken 15y ago
  We've been using Stripe at MixRank, and refreshing how easy it was to set up. This is how easy accepting payments _should_ be. The team is excellent too; they've been extremely helpful so far.
• becomevocal 15y ago
  Thank you Stripe. We will become good friends.
• seanmccann 15y ago
  I got this awesome handwritten letter in the mail today from Stripe. https://p.twimg.com/AaoSX5BCQAAx4T9.jpg https://p.twimg.com/AaoSX5BCQAAx4T9.jpg
• blckcld 15y ago
  this looks amazing but i cant use this until you support european/canadian/australian payments. both of the e-commerce stores i run get international orders every week.