4 ms·

I wish Adyen was as good at marketing and hype as Stripe was. Stripe is really good at making themselves look like a way bigger deal than they are.

by siren2026 4mo ago

Oras 4mo ago
Which part that makes them look bigger than they are? Which services are larger than stripe?
0x59 4mo ago
Stripe has a useful tool and markets it well. With that said, I'm glad there are other options.
theturtletalks 4mo ago
A big reason Stripe got big was because they got their YC cohorts to use it. Payments before that was complicated and even though PayPal existed, most people didn’t know you could process credit cards like Stripe, you don’t need a PayPal account or wallet. It’s why they bought Braintree and that added even more confusion. The lesson is, marketing to developers works. And the best way to market to them to by making their job easier.
- indymike 4mo ago
  Another reason is their competitors didn't get it the value prop because everyone had been competing on rates, and little thought given to developer experience... early on a lot of Stripe's competition's apis used fixed field text as the format for transactions.
- bostik 4mo ago
  Like with everything in business and engineering, there's a tradeoff. My previous employer used Adyen as major payment provider (for quite some time, too). Their cost structure is sensible, the payment methods they support are convenient[ß], and their functionality is reasonably solid even in the edge cases. But everyone who maintained the payment service kept cursing Adyen for their awful APIs. The python runtime powering the old system had to carry an unmaintainable and effectively abandoned library to be able to process the Adyen payment gateway messages. From what I understand, Stripe's main value proposition was: "how can we make this gnarly, confusing and complicated system an easy-to-use service that does NOT require the end-user to internalise the entire payment provider state transition universe?" That is obviously a valuable service, but is it valuable enough to charge an ongoing rake of nearly 300 basis points? ß: for some weird reason people still insisted that they absolutely must be able to pay with Paypal. 2+ years of fighting cross-corporate politics + KYB and still having to stomach insanely high commissions left a properly bad taste.
  - bmiedlar 4mo ago
    Having built on Authorize.net and a few other gateways before Stripe, I'd say yes - but the value that justifies the rake isn't the nicer API, it's what you no longer have to own. The moment you're paying out to third parties you're on the hook for KYC, identity verification, and the whole compliance/risk surface around moving other people's money. Connect absorbs that. Handing those pieces off so I stay compliant on payouts and can actually focus on the business is worth far more to me than the basis points. With other gateways I was assembling all of that myself.
  - ExoticPearTree 4mo ago
    As a Stripe customer I can attest to its simplicity: you have API that you call and that's it. You don't have to deal with any of the PCI stuff if you would do it in-house, just an SAQ once a year. The back-end is also super simple and easy to set up antifraud rules and so on.
    - nottorp 4mo ago
      Do you have 3d secure or whatever the marketing name is for it this week? Because it's my impression that either Stripe doesn't support it or it's so hard compared to the rest of their API that no one does it...
      - hrududuu 4mo ago
        https://docs.stripe.com/payments/3d-secure https://docs.stripe.com/payments/3d-secure
      - ExoticPearTree 4mo ago
        > Do you have 3d secure or whatever the marketing name is for it this week? Stripe takes care of that for cards that are enrolled into 3D Secure (I think it is a Visa thing - the naming) and other kinds of card 2FA validation (Mastercard has their own and so on).
        nottorp 4mo ago
fourseventy 4mo ago
Stripes revenue is ~$20B seems pretty big to me...
randunel 4mo ago
No point in marketing when you outright reject customers: Thank you very much for the comprehensive feedback. I have taken a look at the information you have provided and unfortunately, at this time, Adyen is only able to support businesses currently transacting more than €5M per year or businesses which are currently supported by a Plugin built by Adyen. The reason for this is so that we are able to provide the right level of support and resources to our merchants at the right stage of their company growth. If you would like to stay up to date with our payment offering please do sign up to our newsletter here. In the interim, I want to ensure that you find the right provider, so I would like to direct you about payments. They are specialists in finding the most relevant payment solutions for all business models and I have no doubt they will offer you several great options. I wish you the best of luck with your business moving forward, and hopefully we can reconnect in the future. Kind Regards, Ana Sales Specialist
- whatshisface 4mo ago
  What are these plugins? Could any business choose to use one, or are they highly specialized?
  - mcpherrinm 4mo ago
    It's the list here: https://docs.adyen.com/plugins#built-by-adyen https://docs.adyen.com/plugins#built-by-adyen
- Calvin02 4mo ago
  At some point you realize that your smallest customers generate the least value but require the most support. Shedding low value users to others makes you stronger and them weaker.
  - naniwaduni 4mo ago
    You can't just actually shed all your low value users and then poach the high value users, because then you're only competing for customers who are already large and have already long since integrated one of your competitors. This is often a somewhat harder problem than taking a lot of low and even slightly negative value accounts and hoping some of them become high value.
notpushkin 4mo ago
There’s a huge difference for small business owners. Stripe has a Get started button. You click it, fill out a form, get your site approved in maybe a day, and start making money. Adyen has a Talk to our team button. You close the tab and never think about it again until you’re making serious money. --- Edit: that is, of course, by design. Adyen doesn’t want small businesses. From the sibling comment: > only able to support businesses currently transacting more than €5M per year
- rahkiin 4mo ago
  Adyen has resellers. Mollie is one example, they do have. Get Started and no lower limit. These smaller parties rely on the bank license of Adyen
  - tims33 4mo ago
    Are you sure about that? From Mollie's webiste: Mollie B.V. is licensed and registered as an electronic money institution with the Dutch Central Bank (relationship number: F0038). Mollie UK Ltd is licensed and registered with the Financial Conduct Authority as a payment institution in the UK (FRN: 977968).
  - andrewshadura 4mo ago
    Mollie also doesn't want small businesses, unfortunately. (We were rejected as too small.)
    - notpushkin 4mo ago
      Matches my experience. They didn’t state any reason in my case, though.
    - vanviegen 4mo ago
      Really? Must be a recent thing then..? I've used them for all sorts of small (and not so small) things.
  - angulardragon03 4mo ago
fastball 4mo ago
Stripe processes like $2T in txns per year – how do they look bigger than that?
- jbverschoor 4mo ago
  Adyen is used by Microsoft, Meta, Netflix, Booking, etc Stripe only outpaced after last year 34% vs 8% growth. Volume 1.9T vs 1.6T
amelius 4mo ago
Really? I thought Stripe was a company that sells CSS stylesheets.
aleqs 4mo ago
Marketing is really Stripe's main competency and focus.
ergocoder 4mo ago
Adyen isn't self-serve, so it's difficult for common people to be hyped with it. More importantly, Adyen doesn't have a messiah-like founder. Patrick is like the second coming of Jesus.
deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]

I wish Adyen was as good at marketing and hype as Stripe was. Stripe is really good at making themselves look like a way bigger deal than they are.

Oras 4mo ago

Which part that makes them look bigger than they are? Which services are larger than stripe?

0x59 4mo ago

Stripe has a useful tool and markets it well. With that said, I'm glad there are other options.

theturtletalks 4mo ago

A big reason Stripe got big was because they got their YC cohorts to use it. Payments before that was complicated and even though PayPal existed, most people didn’t know you could process credit cards like Stripe, you don’t need a PayPal account or wallet. It’s why they bought Braintree and that added even more confusion. The lesson is, marketing to developers works. And the best way to market to them to by making their job easier.

indymike 4mo ago
Another reason is their competitors didn't get it the value prop because everyone had been competing on rates, and little thought given to developer experience... early on a lot of Stripe's competition's apis used fixed field text as the format for transactions.
bostik 4mo ago
Like with everything in business and engineering, there's a tradeoff. My previous employer used Adyen as major payment provider (for quite some time, too). Their cost structure is sensible, the payment methods they support are convenient[ß], and their functionality is reasonably solid even in the edge cases. But everyone who maintained the payment service kept cursing Adyen for their awful APIs. The python runtime powering the old system had to carry an unmaintainable and effectively abandoned library to be able to process the Adyen payment gateway messages. From what I understand, Stripe's main value proposition was: "how can we make this gnarly, confusing and complicated system an easy-to-use service that does NOT require the end-user to internalise the entire payment provider state transition universe?" That is obviously a valuable service, but is it valuable enough to charge an ongoing rake of nearly 300 basis points? ß: for some weird reason people still insisted that they absolutely must be able to pay with Paypal. 2+ years of fighting cross-corporate politics + KYB and still having to stomach insanely high commissions left a properly bad taste.
- bmiedlar 4mo ago
  Having built on Authorize.net and a few other gateways before Stripe, I'd say yes - but the value that justifies the rake isn't the nicer API, it's what you no longer have to own. The moment you're paying out to third parties you're on the hook for KYC, identity verification, and the whole compliance/risk surface around moving other people's money. Connect absorbs that. Handing those pieces off so I stay compliant on payouts and can actually focus on the business is worth far more to me than the basis points. With other gateways I was assembling all of that myself.
- ExoticPearTree 4mo ago
  As a Stripe customer I can attest to its simplicity: you have API that you call and that's it. You don't have to deal with any of the PCI stuff if you would do it in-house, just an SAQ once a year. The back-end is also super simple and easy to set up antifraud rules and so on.
  - nottorp 4mo ago
    Do you have 3d secure or whatever the marketing name is for it this week? Because it's my impression that either Stripe doesn't support it or it's so hard compared to the rest of their API that no one does it...
    - hrududuu 4mo ago
      https://docs.stripe.com/payments/3d-secure https://docs.stripe.com/payments/3d-secure
    - ExoticPearTree 4mo ago
      > Do you have 3d secure or whatever the marketing name is for it this week? Stripe takes care of that for cards that are enrolled into 3D Secure (I think it is a Visa thing - the naming) and other kinds of card 2FA validation (Mastercard has their own and so on).
      - nottorp 4mo ago

fourseventy 4mo ago

Stripes revenue is ~$20B seems pretty big to me...

randunel 4mo ago

No point in marketing when you outright reject customers: Thank you very much for the comprehensive feedback. I have taken a look at the information you have provided and unfortunately, at this time, Adyen is only able to support businesses currently transacting more than €5M per year or businesses which are currently supported by a Plugin built by Adyen. The reason for this is so that we are able to provide the right level of support and resources to our merchants at the right stage of their company growth. If you would like to stay up to date with our payment offering please do sign up to our newsletter here. In the interim, I want to ensure that you find the right provider, so I would like to direct you about payments. They are specialists in finding the most relevant payment solutions for all business models and I have no doubt they will offer you several great options. I wish you the best of luck with your business moving forward, and hopefully we can reconnect in the future. Kind Regards, Ana Sales Specialist

whatshisface 4mo ago
What are these plugins? Could any business choose to use one, or are they highly specialized?
- mcpherrinm 4mo ago
  It's the list here: https://docs.adyen.com/plugins#built-by-adyen https://docs.adyen.com/plugins#built-by-adyen
Calvin02 4mo ago
At some point you realize that your smallest customers generate the least value but require the most support. Shedding low value users to others makes you stronger and them weaker.
- naniwaduni 4mo ago
  You can't just actually shed all your low value users and then poach the high value users, because then you're only competing for customers who are already large and have already long since integrated one of your competitors. This is often a somewhat harder problem than taking a lot of low and even slightly negative value accounts and hoping some of them become high value.

notpushkin 4mo ago

There’s a huge difference for small business owners. Stripe has a Get started button. You click it, fill out a form, get your site approved in maybe a day, and start making money. Adyen has a Talk to our team button. You close the tab and never think about it again until you’re making serious money. --- Edit: that is, of course, by design. Adyen doesn’t want small businesses. From the sibling comment: > only able to support businesses currently transacting more than €5M per year

rahkiin 4mo ago
Adyen has resellers. Mollie is one example, they do have. Get Started and no lower limit. These smaller parties rely on the bank license of Adyen
- tims33 4mo ago
  Are you sure about that? From Mollie's webiste: Mollie B.V. is licensed and registered as an electronic money institution with the Dutch Central Bank (relationship number: F0038). Mollie UK Ltd is licensed and registered with the Financial Conduct Authority as a payment institution in the UK (FRN: 977968).
- andrewshadura 4mo ago
  Mollie also doesn't want small businesses, unfortunately. (We were rejected as too small.)
  - notpushkin 4mo ago
    Matches my experience. They didn’t state any reason in my case, though.
  - vanviegen 4mo ago
    Really? Must be a recent thing then..? I've used them for all sorts of small (and not so small) things.
- angulardragon03 4mo ago

fastball 4mo ago

Stripe processes like $2T in txns per year – how do they look bigger than that?

jbverschoor 4mo ago
Adyen is used by Microsoft, Meta, Netflix, Booking, etc Stripe only outpaced after last year 34% vs 8% growth. Volume 1.9T vs 1.6T

amelius 4mo ago

Really? I thought Stripe was a company that sells CSS stylesheets.

aleqs 4mo ago

Marketing is really Stripe's main competency and focus.

ergocoder 4mo ago

Adyen isn't self-serve, so it's difficult for common people to be hyped with it. More importantly, Adyen doesn't have a messiah-like founder. Patrick is like the second coming of Jesus.

deleted 4mo ago

[deleted]