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Accepting my first credit card payment without PayPal, part 1/2

52 points by bemmu 14y ago

luxpir 14y ago
Nicely done. Keen to get a decent solution for Europe too. What a gap in the market. Will be keeping an eye out for part 2.
- bemmu 14y ago
  Now that I just finished the process Braintree announced their Finland support. Well, they just missed me:)
  - rmoriz 14y ago
    the fixed base fee of Braintree (with vault + recurring option) is ~30% higher than the Recurly + WireCard fees. If Braintree will have the same pricing for intl as they currently have for US...
narad 14y ago
Can you name that German company? Curious to know.
- bemmu 14y ago
  I'm not sure how happy they would be that I'm blogging about the details of the application process, but you can find it in the Recurly additional providers list.
  - rmoriz 14y ago
    Why not? They get paying customers, I'm sure they like it.
- rmoriz 14y ago
  I guess it is WireCard? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3057008 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3057008
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
mojaam 14y ago
Interesting read. I didn't realize how lucky I am to be in the U.S. when it comes to payment services. PayPal got such a huge clout!
- bemmu 14y ago
  I'm happy in the end we managed to a good gateway, but you definitely have more choice being US-based.
kreitje 14y ago
I understand why you prefer to move away from Paypal, however, why don't you show Paypal on the subscribe page? There is just that 1 small blurb on the front page.
- bemmu 14y ago
  Thanks, I'm still going to revamp the signup flow to include gifting, so I'll think about adding that then.
bbayer 14y ago
congrats. How about refunds and bank transfer fees? Do they have stripe like integration? Is it necessary to have a SSL certificate?
- bemmu 14y ago
  Thanks, I just started to so not totally sure of all the fees to the cent yet. Seems like there is a refund button in Recurly.
freshnote 14y ago
If this switch works for me, and I can finally be free of my PayPal taskmasters, I'll be subscribing to your candy service!
BenjaminDyer 14y ago
Payments is a really exciting space at the moment, its being disrupted at an impressive rate and it seems a new provider pops up almost every day. While its great to read this story I believe to a certain extent at the moment its better the devil you know, especially if you are an established business. I always recommend PayPal to our merchants, not only is it the quickest way to send and receive money online its also backed up by one of the largest payment networks in the world. Also lots of people have money in paypal accounts they would like to spend, not everyone links it back to their bank account. For E-Commerce sites you can expect to loose about 10% of sales by not offering PayPal. However, I appreciate its not for everyone. For alternatives, here I think it really depends on the size and type of your business. If you are doing any type of volume the only serious way to receive payments online is via a Payment Service Provider (PSP), and there are millions of them. You can seriously reduce your transaction costs and often you get some pretty weapons grade anti fraud protection thrown in. Unfortunately setting up a PSP isn't as simple as it sounds, its a two stage process starting with a Merchant Account. This space is pretty dominated by the traditional banks so get ready for a little red tape. Once you have your Merchant Account the PSP slice is normally fairly painless. With regards to Stripe, I'd personally give any startup in this space some time to debug and increase transactions before you trust them with your business. Nice read.
StephenFalken 14y ago
In recent years, it's been interesting to watch the rise of Dwolla (https://www.dwolla.com/ https://www.dwolla.com/) as an alternative payment network. It charges nothing for under $10 transactions, and only $0.25 for any transaction over $10, no matter how large it is. The only drawback is that, for now, it only works in the US.
diasks2 14y ago
At first I was excited as I thought you were based in Japan and you were going to give insight about payments in the Japanese market. Great post, nonetheless. Does anyone have any good info on payment options in Japan outside of PayPal. I'm aware of E-context, SBI, and Digital Check. I would greatly appreciate any anecdotes, horror stories, or recommendations of other payment options in Japan.

52 points by bemmu 14y ago

Nicely done. Keen to get a decent solution for Europe too. What a gap in the market. Will be keeping an eye out for part 2.

bemmu 14y ago
Now that I just finished the process Braintree announced their Finland support. Well, they just missed me:)
- rmoriz 14y ago
  the fixed base fee of Braintree (with vault + recurring option) is ~30% higher than the Recurly + WireCard fees. If Braintree will have the same pricing for intl as they currently have for US...

narad 14y ago

Can you name that German company? Curious to know.

bemmu 14y ago
I'm not sure how happy they would be that I'm blogging about the details of the application process, but you can find it in the Recurly additional providers list.
- rmoriz 14y ago
  Why not? They get paying customers, I'm sure they like it.
rmoriz 14y ago
I guess it is WireCard? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3057008 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3057008

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

mojaam 14y ago

Interesting read. I didn't realize how lucky I am to be in the U.S. when it comes to payment services. PayPal got such a huge clout!

bemmu 14y ago
I'm happy in the end we managed to a good gateway, but you definitely have more choice being US-based.

kreitje 14y ago

I understand why you prefer to move away from Paypal, however, why don't you show Paypal on the subscribe page? There is just that 1 small blurb on the front page.

bemmu 14y ago
Thanks, I'm still going to revamp the signup flow to include gifting, so I'll think about adding that then.

bbayer 14y ago

congrats. How about refunds and bank transfer fees? Do they have stripe like integration? Is it necessary to have a SSL certificate?

bemmu 14y ago
Thanks, I just started to so not totally sure of all the fees to the cent yet. Seems like there is a refund button in Recurly.

freshnote 14y ago

If this switch works for me, and I can finally be free of my PayPal taskmasters, I'll be subscribing to your candy service!

BenjaminDyer 14y ago

Payments is a really exciting space at the moment, its being disrupted at an impressive rate and it seems a new provider pops up almost every day. While its great to read this story I believe to a certain extent at the moment its better the devil you know, especially if you are an established business. I always recommend PayPal to our merchants, not only is it the quickest way to send and receive money online its also backed up by one of the largest payment networks in the world. Also lots of people have money in paypal accounts they would like to spend, not everyone links it back to their bank account. For E-Commerce sites you can expect to loose about 10% of sales by not offering PayPal. However, I appreciate its not for everyone. For alternatives, here I think it really depends on the size and type of your business. If you are doing any type of volume the only serious way to receive payments online is via a Payment Service Provider (PSP), and there are millions of them. You can seriously reduce your transaction costs and often you get some pretty weapons grade anti fraud protection thrown in. Unfortunately setting up a PSP isn't as simple as it sounds, its a two stage process starting with a Merchant Account. This space is pretty dominated by the traditional banks so get ready for a little red tape. Once you have your Merchant Account the PSP slice is normally fairly painless. With regards to Stripe, I'd personally give any startup in this space some time to debug and increase transactions before you trust them with your business. Nice read.

StephenFalken 14y ago

In recent years, it's been interesting to watch the rise of Dwolla (https://www.dwolla.com/ https://www.dwolla.com/) as an alternative payment network. It charges nothing for under $10 transactions, and only $0.25 for any transaction over $10, no matter how large it is. The only drawback is that, for now, it only works in the US.

diasks2 14y ago

At first I was excited as I thought you were based in Japan and you were going to give insight about payments in the Japanese market. Great post, nonetheless. Does anyone have any good info on payment options in Japan outside of PayPal. I'm aware of E-context, SBI, and Digital Check. I would greatly appreciate any anecdotes, horror stories, or recommendations of other payment options in Japan.