4 ms·

In the USA, there is a huge payment processing API industry. Stripe is a great company and it has this family of products that work great together but it has lo

In the USA, there is a huge payment processing API industry. Stripe is a great company and it has this family of products that work great together but it has lots of competitors that have better pricing and better service. I work in the industry for a payment processor. It's not a silicon valley startup (it's basically run by salespeople) but we have way better pricing and you can get someone on the phone if you have an issue. Reading HN, you might think Stripe is the only option.

codegeek 4y ago
Sure but the reason Stripe became Stripe is due to the fact that they have an excellent API and dev experience. Most old school processors are too difficult to setup and manage and have horrendous APIs.e.g: authorize.net Having said that, feel free to share your company becaise I m always open to evaluatin for our company (low 7 figures ARR)
- jrs235 4y ago
  His email is in his profile.
- nomilk 4y ago
  > the reason Stripe became Stripe is due to the fact that they have an excellent API and dev experience. That's their reputation, but it doesn't always stack up in reality. Recent example: https://twitter.com/levelsio/status/1600316372344373249 https://twitter.com/levelsio/status/1600316372344373249 Canonical HN example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30535572 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30535572 The association of Stripe with simplicity and good dev experience could be more due to Stripe's marketing/PR than the views of devs who've used Stripe APIs, at least from the few things I've read.
  - mgkimsal 4y ago
    >The association of Stripe with simplicity and good dev experience could be more due to Stripe's marketing/PR ... I don't think it's marketing/PR so much as a halo effect and reputation from years ago. My experience with stripe 5 years ago was/is simpler and easier than it is looking at it today. More products/services/options/requirements - it's more complicated than it was years ago. But looking at it for a project 5 years ago, it was certainly simpler compared to authorize.net for what my project needed. Just the UI alone to go in and manage/test things was more straightforward and pleasant, even when I hit issues and roadblocks. Authorize.net looked like it hadn't changed much since 2005 or so when I'd looked at it then. May be better now - haven't looked since 2017.
  - jobs_throwaway 4y ago
    my recent experience working with the Stripe API lines up with this. Based on the reputation I was expecting a lot less complexity and strange default behavior when it comes to subscriptions/invoicing. Still a good dev experience, but not the greatest, most straightforward API ever like its reputation. For example, Stripe applies discounts prior to proration. So if a customer applies a $100 per month discount on a $1000 subscription, and signs up halfway through the month, they're charged (1000 - 100 * 0.5), not the more intuitive ((1000 * 0.5) - 100). Nitpicky, but not what I expected.
  - acabal 4y ago
    Stripe did actually have a great API at one point, when they just appeared. Their basics of charging a card and managing subscriptions was incredibly simple and developer-friendly compared to their competition at the time, like Authorize.net or PayPal. I don't think PayPal even had a real API back then - you had to use a `<form>` element with hidden fields. Of course things change, and now Stripe's API has been rewritten to extreme complexity with scattershot documentation and unintuitive terminology. (I sell products, but in the API I have to sell prices??)
danpalmer 4y ago
A common problem with payment processors is international support. Stripe isn’t perfect by any means, but they support much more than than most of the US focused competitors. As an example, a few years ago the EU brought in Strong Customer Authentication (SCA). Stripe was one of the few companies ready for this, being ready about a year before. I used them at the time and adopted their SCA support and it worked well. We also happened to be considering alternative payment processors at the time. Braintree had some basic support for it, not fully ready, and seemingly undocumented. Other suppliers didn’t even know about SCA despite notionally taking GBP payments. Of course it’s fine to only sell to the US market, but Stripe is pretty good in many places and I suspect that’s a significant contributor to their popularity.

codegeek 4y ago

Sure but the reason Stripe became Stripe is due to the fact that they have an excellent API and dev experience. Most old school processors are too difficult to setup and manage and have horrendous APIs.e.g: authorize.net Having said that, feel free to share your company becaise I m always open to evaluatin for our company (low 7 figures ARR)

jrs235 4y ago
His email is in his profile.
nomilk 4y ago
> the reason Stripe became Stripe is due to the fact that they have an excellent API and dev experience. That's their reputation, but it doesn't always stack up in reality. Recent example: https://twitter.com/levelsio/status/1600316372344373249 https://twitter.com/levelsio/status/1600316372344373249 Canonical HN example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30535572 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30535572 The association of Stripe with simplicity and good dev experience could be more due to Stripe's marketing/PR than the views of devs who've used Stripe APIs, at least from the few things I've read.
- mgkimsal 4y ago
  >The association of Stripe with simplicity and good dev experience could be more due to Stripe's marketing/PR ... I don't think it's marketing/PR so much as a halo effect and reputation from years ago. My experience with stripe 5 years ago was/is simpler and easier than it is looking at it today. More products/services/options/requirements - it's more complicated than it was years ago. But looking at it for a project 5 years ago, it was certainly simpler compared to authorize.net for what my project needed. Just the UI alone to go in and manage/test things was more straightforward and pleasant, even when I hit issues and roadblocks. Authorize.net looked like it hadn't changed much since 2005 or so when I'd looked at it then. May be better now - haven't looked since 2017.
- jobs_throwaway 4y ago
  my recent experience working with the Stripe API lines up with this. Based on the reputation I was expecting a lot less complexity and strange default behavior when it comes to subscriptions/invoicing. Still a good dev experience, but not the greatest, most straightforward API ever like its reputation. For example, Stripe applies discounts prior to proration. So if a customer applies a $100 per month discount on a $1000 subscription, and signs up halfway through the month, they're charged (1000 - 100 * 0.5), not the more intuitive ((1000 * 0.5) - 100). Nitpicky, but not what I expected.
- acabal 4y ago
  Stripe did actually have a great API at one point, when they just appeared. Their basics of charging a card and managing subscriptions was incredibly simple and developer-friendly compared to their competition at the time, like Authorize.net or PayPal. I don't think PayPal even had a real API back then - you had to use a `<form>` element with hidden fields. Of course things change, and now Stripe's API has been rewritten to extreme complexity with scattershot documentation and unintuitive terminology. (I sell products, but in the API I have to sell prices??)

danpalmer 4y ago

A common problem with payment processors is international support. Stripe isn’t perfect by any means, but they support much more than than most of the US focused competitors. As an example, a few years ago the EU brought in Strong Customer Authentication (SCA). Stripe was one of the few companies ready for this, being ready about a year before. I used them at the time and adopted their SCA support and it worked well. We also happened to be considering alternative payment processors at the time. Braintree had some basic support for it, not fully ready, and seemingly undocumented. Other suppliers didn’t even know about SCA despite notionally taking GBP payments. Of course it’s fine to only sell to the US market, but Stripe is pretty good in many places and I suspect that’s a significant contributor to their popularity.