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Are there any real alternatives to Stripe? Obviously Adyen if you're in EU, PayPal/Braintree, etc, but Stripe is really the big kahuna. What about building yo

Are there any real alternatives to Stripe? Obviously Adyen if you're in EU, PayPal/Braintree, etc, but Stripe is really the big kahuna. What about building your own with Authorize.net? Are there any old-school gateways like that left out there that are still independent? (can one do payments in the 10-100$ USD range on the blockchain? What if you don't want to go through an exchange?)

stijnveken 4y ago
The is also Mollie [0] if you're in Europe. It's more comparable to Stripe than Adyen if you're just accepting payments in my experience. [0] https://mollie.com https://mollie.com
tpxl 4y ago
> What if you don't want to go through an exchange? You don't need an exchange to take payments, but you will need to trade the currency into fiat at one point, either through an exchange or an OTC trade.
no_wizard 4y ago
Adyen can be used beyond the EU[0] and they’re quite reasonable as well. Covers the majority of commerce areas globally [0]: https://www.adyen.com/knowledge-hub#pago_local https://www.adyen.com/knowledge-hub#pago_local
netman21 4y ago
Not sure why Square is never mentioned. I use them for my book sales. They work with Woocommerce and my fulfillment warehouse scrapes the orders three times a day. While my experience with Stripe for my SaaS product has been great I don't like that they hold on to funds for ten days. Square transfers the money the same or the next day.
Semaphor 4y ago
> Obviously Adyen if you're in EU Though they have "call us" so I’m thinking it’s only for big businesses. > one do payments in the 10-100$ USD range on the blockchain Yes, depending on the chain that results in expensive fees, and then there’s the whole wait for validations which makes it not so instant. > What if you don't want to go through an exchange? If you want to convert it to a proper currency, you’ll either have to do that, or something like localbitcoin.
bornfreddy 4y ago
> (can one do payments in the 10-100$ USD range on the blockchain? What if you don't want to go through an exchange?) Yes, there are quite a few of them. For smaller sums KYC is usually not needed. No exchange needed either - as a customer you just send crypto to the payment address they give you, and as a merchant you receive your funds (minus some fee) in either fiat or crypto. No exchange needed in either case. As a merchant you obviously need to do KYC regardless of the amount received. I know of Bitpay and ForumPay, but there are others too. EDIT: depending on the currency the blockchain fees can be very low (or very high), so it pays to do your homework.
- arcticbull 4y ago
  > (can one do payments in the 10-100$ USD range on the blockchain? What if you don't want to go through an exchange?) No, you can't because there's no dollars on the blockchain, only varying degrees of unregistered and unregulated money market fund ranging from something fairly reasonable (USDC) to the Reserve Primary Fund that broke the buck in 2008 (USDT, UST). To send dollars you have to go through an exchange - well two, actually. BitPay is an exchange. They just sell crypto on behalf of the merchant and send them the actual money. This is the point where you'd run into AML/KYC/etc issues. Getting money on and off exposes you to massive counterparty risk that could just leave you a creditor in the Bahamas. You have to combine blockchain fees, exchange fees, forex risk, counter-party risk and legal/compliance risk - plus all blockchain transactions have to be reported with their cost basis on your taxes. If you're trying to do it 'right' you will pay wildly more for anything on the blockchain because decentralization is significantly less efficient.
  - bornfreddy 4y ago
    Actually the payment is made in crypto (BTC, ETH, also USDT if you so desire) and the fiat is paid out to the merchant. Obviously there is some exchange somewhere in the back, but neither merchant nor custumer are interacting with it. EDIT: I won't be dragged into discussion about crypto. GGP asked about option, I gave one. Do your homework and don't believe random HN posters (which goes for both of us). Over and out.
intrasight 4y ago
I've been using Authorize.net for years. Can't imaging using some service that can hold my money hostage. While Authorize.net is "old-school", it is flexible and you are in control. Remind me again why people use Stripe?
- throwawayapples 4y ago
  It's now owned by VISA. :(
  - intrasight 4y ago
    Is unfortunate - but doesn't change my positive points
flopriore 4y ago
Revolut
quesera 4y ago
There are literally hundreds of payment gateways/processors available in the US. Stripe is like the Heroku of payment gateways -- great to start up quickly, great business, very profitable... but customers need to be very wary of various lock in strategies, and generally plan to have multiple providers as the business scales.
johneth 4y ago
> Are there any real alternatives to Stripe? Paddle. More expensive than some, but they become the Merchant of Record and handle sales taxes / VAT / GST / etc. in many countries for you.
yamtaddle 4y ago
There are alternatives, but you will find support horror stories about all of them. Unless they're very new, maybe. Certainly PayPal/Braintree is no refuge from this sort of madness.

stijnveken 4y ago

The is also Mollie [0] if you're in Europe. It's more comparable to Stripe than Adyen if you're just accepting payments in my experience. [0] https://mollie.com https://mollie.com

tpxl 4y ago

> What if you don't want to go through an exchange? You don't need an exchange to take payments, but you will need to trade the currency into fiat at one point, either through an exchange or an OTC trade.

no_wizard 4y ago

Adyen can be used beyond the EU[0] and they’re quite reasonable as well. Covers the majority of commerce areas globally [0]: https://www.adyen.com/knowledge-hub#pago_local https://www.adyen.com/knowledge-hub#pago_local

netman21 4y ago

Not sure why Square is never mentioned. I use them for my book sales. They work with Woocommerce and my fulfillment warehouse scrapes the orders three times a day. While my experience with Stripe for my SaaS product has been great I don't like that they hold on to funds for ten days. Square transfers the money the same or the next day.

Semaphor 4y ago

> Obviously Adyen if you're in EU Though they have "call us" so I’m thinking it’s only for big businesses. > one do payments in the 10-100$ USD range on the blockchain Yes, depending on the chain that results in expensive fees, and then there’s the whole wait for validations which makes it not so instant. > What if you don't want to go through an exchange? If you want to convert it to a proper currency, you’ll either have to do that, or something like localbitcoin.

bornfreddy 4y ago

> (can one do payments in the 10-100$ USD range on the blockchain? What if you don't want to go through an exchange?) Yes, there are quite a few of them. For smaller sums KYC is usually not needed. No exchange needed either - as a customer you just send crypto to the payment address they give you, and as a merchant you receive your funds (minus some fee) in either fiat or crypto. No exchange needed in either case. As a merchant you obviously need to do KYC regardless of the amount received. I know of Bitpay and ForumPay, but there are others too. EDIT: depending on the currency the blockchain fees can be very low (or very high), so it pays to do your homework.

arcticbull 4y ago
> (can one do payments in the 10-100$ USD range on the blockchain? What if you don't want to go through an exchange?) No, you can't because there's no dollars on the blockchain, only varying degrees of unregistered and unregulated money market fund ranging from something fairly reasonable (USDC) to the Reserve Primary Fund that broke the buck in 2008 (USDT, UST). To send dollars you have to go through an exchange - well two, actually. BitPay is an exchange. They just sell crypto on behalf of the merchant and send them the actual money. This is the point where you'd run into AML/KYC/etc issues. Getting money on and off exposes you to massive counterparty risk that could just leave you a creditor in the Bahamas. You have to combine blockchain fees, exchange fees, forex risk, counter-party risk and legal/compliance risk - plus all blockchain transactions have to be reported with their cost basis on your taxes. If you're trying to do it 'right' you will pay wildly more for anything on the blockchain because decentralization is significantly less efficient.
- bornfreddy 4y ago
  Actually the payment is made in crypto (BTC, ETH, also USDT if you so desire) and the fiat is paid out to the merchant. Obviously there is some exchange somewhere in the back, but neither merchant nor custumer are interacting with it. EDIT: I won't be dragged into discussion about crypto. GGP asked about option, I gave one. Do your homework and don't believe random HN posters (which goes for both of us). Over and out.

intrasight 4y ago

I've been using Authorize.net for years. Can't imaging using some service that can hold my money hostage. While Authorize.net is "old-school", it is flexible and you are in control. Remind me again why people use Stripe?

throwawayapples 4y ago
It's now owned by VISA. :(
- intrasight 4y ago
  Is unfortunate - but doesn't change my positive points

flopriore 4y ago

Revolut

quesera 4y ago

There are literally hundreds of payment gateways/processors available in the US. Stripe is like the Heroku of payment gateways -- great to start up quickly, great business, very profitable... but customers need to be very wary of various lock in strategies, and generally plan to have multiple providers as the business scales.

johneth 4y ago

> Are there any real alternatives to Stripe? Paddle. More expensive than some, but they become the Merchant of Record and handle sales taxes / VAT / GST / etc. in many countries for you.

yamtaddle 4y ago

There are alternatives, but you will find support horror stories about all of them. Unless they're very new, maybe. Certainly PayPal/Braintree is no refuge from this sort of madness.