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(I work at Balanced) Balanced (https://balancedpayments.com https://balancedpayments.com) provides a payouts solution for marketplaces like redditgifts, Crowdt

by zende 13y ago

(I work at Balanced) Balanced (https://balancedpayments.com https://balancedpayments.com) provides a payouts solution for marketplaces like redditgifts, Crowdtilt, Fancy, Artsy, Visual.ly, and many others. The differences with Stripe include the money being available for payout immediately (instead of 5 days), and the recipient will receive the money the next business day. Balanced has also performed a lot of work to verify merchants with as little information as possible — name, dob, and address. Instead of SSN for an individual you only need to pass in the last four.

pc 13y ago
Stripe actually requires substantially less information -- just the recipient's name. Still, this isn't about Stripe vs Balanced -- we just built the API many of our users wanted. Hope you guys continue to do well!
- zende 13y ago
  Balanced requires name, DOB, and address only to underwrite the recipient as a merchant to avoid the marketplace becoming an aggregator. It is still possible to make a next-day payout directly to a recipient without this information: curl https://api.balancedpayments.com/v1/credits \ -u f97912a2cd8a11e2a411026ba7cd33d0: \ -d "amount=10000" \ -d "bank_account[name]=Johann Bernoulli" \ -d "bank_account[routing_number]=121000358" \ -d "bank_account[type]=checking" \ -d "bank_account[account_number]=9900000001" In that case you can also use Balanced only for payouts by funding your escrow with your own bank account. Stripe would require you to charge your own credit card to perform this service. As you said, the main difference is about focus. Balanced has focused on supporting marketplaces from the beginning and continues to do so.
  - jordanmessina 13y ago
    That focus also allows Balanced to build great tools to solve problems that are bigger issues in marketplaces. They've caught a number of fraud incidents for me which has been incredibly helpful (and obviously saves me money).
- spoiledtechie 13y ago
  Its nice to see that Stripe wishes competitors well when all Balanced tried to do was promote their brand.
  - shaathman 13y ago
    This statement fully captures the stark difference between Stripe and Balanced. Stripe is led by engineers who want to improve the payments infrastructure. Balanced is led by businesspeople who want to hit it big. Stripe just so happens to be a business as well. Nothing wrong with either, but that should point you toward which company has the developer's true interests at heart :) Hint: It's Stripe.
    - steveklabnik 13y ago
      Bias alert: I have a Stripe account, but not a Balanced account. I think it's disingenuous to not suggest that Balanced doesn't 'have the developer's true interests at heart.' They've been really pushing the hypermedia API stuff, which is technologically exciting, as well as doing the whole 'open company' thing, which is taking the concept open source to interesting places.
    - corin_ 13y ago
      I don't know anyone who works at either company so maybe one of them is full of nasty people who hate their customers and one is full of lovely people who don't care about making profit - but that's very unlikely. Much more likely is that they both want to maximise their profits, they both understand that offering a good service to their customers is the way to do this, and both approach this in different ways. And frankly the fact that a Stripe employee said a nice thing about them as opposed to "fuck them use Stripe" doesn't give any clue on the subject, it just says this person is a.) polite and b.) not an idiot.
    - sjtgraham 13y ago
      Why do you have such a simplistic binary view of the world (hint: the world isn't like that), and why the sock puppet account? (hint: you're a shill)
- meritt 13y ago
  You're posting on HN though. You cannot have a payment solutions post on HN without Balanced showing up and waving their arms all over the damn place. I understand this is a YC site but it's really annoying and distracting.
  - simonk 13y ago
    Stripe is YC too.
    - austengary 13y ago
      Err... but... anti-establishment... err... fuck PG... err grumble... grumble.
- brackin 13y ago
  Stripe is also starting to grow internationally which is one reason why I'd choose stripe.
yesimahuman 13y ago
Interesting to see Balanced and Stripe competing. Is this going to be a growing trend in YC? I'm sure it's a hard problem to avoid.
- seiji 13y ago
  Balanced has always inhabited a nebulous void of blatant-copying-with-one-novel-new-feature territory for me. It's clear they just copied (with permission? consent?) the public interface of Stripe. They tried to copy the documentation format (layout, style, presentation) too, but it came off kinda poorly (margins, people. margins). They have public test cards/accounts, but they fail to test correctly because they get "used" and can't have multiple actions performed against them. Then, there's the whole ID thing. Why the fuzzy heck would you use ugly, long, probably-going-to-run-off-my-screen URIs as IDs instead of short IDs? They advise you to never construct your own API endpoint URIs from shorter IDs, except that's exactly what they do all throughout their documentation. But, Balanced lets you pay out next day and Stripe holds your funds for 7 days before allowing payment. So, Balanced wins on time-to-pay speed (and they have same-day transfers to Wells Fargo). Though, with Stripe I assume you could eventually have enough of a float in your account to pay out next-day under your own prior funds. From my complete outsider point of view it feels like Balanced is full of slightly subpar copy ninjas. (obviously just on their API, documentation, and front-end presentation. Their backend could be amazing or it could be meter high jenga code.) Disclaimer/Validator: I've written a tiny unofficial client for each each product/company. https://github.com/mattsta/stripe-erlang https://github.com/mattsta/stripe-erlang and https://github.com/mattsta/balanced-erlang https://github.com/mattsta/balanced-erlang
  - ajsharp 13y ago
    I've been working with Balanced's API since they were Poundpay. I think most of your comments about copying are very misguided. The style of their documentation format is completely irrelevant to the quality of the product (and wrong IMO), which in my > two years of experience, has been superb. Your comments about test cards are just wholly incorrect, and the style of their website and how they present their products is as homogeneous as anyone else offerring a developer product. Re: UUID's, Jeff Atwood has a good post explaining their pros and cons: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/03/primary-keys-ids-versus-guids.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/03/primary-keys-ids-ve.... > From my complete outsider point of view it feels like Balanced is full of slightly subpar copy ninjas. I couldn't disagree more. Over the past couple of years, I've come to trust and admire the product as much as any other, including Stripe. These guys know what they're doing.
tpurves 13y ago
As with all money transfer products, the technology to transfer funds to an individual is generally the fun/easy part. Wait until you find out about America's (and most other countries) wonderful anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing compliance laws that can land you in less-fun places like federal prison if you don't use this sort of webservice very, very carefully.
- legutierr 13y ago
  Former licensed money transmitter executive here. As far as I am aware, as long as you are not "structuring" transfers (which means breaking payments up with the intent to hide their common origin and/or destination) and are not attempting to actually launder money, the real risk of federal prison time is born by the operator of an unlicensed money transmitter, not the user of such a service. In the US, operating an unlicensed money transmitter is an offense that carries, if I recall properly, up to five years of federal prison time per count[1]. That is to say, if you create a service by which one party is able to send money to another third party, and operate that service without a license where one is required (and under that license adhere to capital, bonding and procedural compliance requirements), you are subject to federal criminal prosecution. I'd be curious as to Stripe's and Balanced's interpretation of their obligations under these laws vis-a-vis their payout services. [1] http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1960 http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1960
bpatrianakos 13y ago
Balanced is now being heavily discussed. Mission accomplished I suppose.
trollmachine 13y ago
Hey Zende, Cool! You work at Balanced. You should really be proud of your UI that you copied from Stripe but made it uglier. You should also be proud of the Fanwood Font you use in the front page. I'm hoping you can raise some funds and hire a real designer because your inconsistent use of font sizes/type on the front page makes your product look unpolished and unprofessional. Next time, try to innovate rather than copy like Zynga. Best, TrollMachine
nhangen 13y ago
How does this comment not get flagged for removal? Might as well talk about how your best friend gets paid 5k/month working from home for only a few hours/week.

by zende 13y ago

pc 13y ago

Stripe actually requires substantially less information -- just the recipient's name. Still, this isn't about Stripe vs Balanced -- we just built the API many of our users wanted. Hope you guys continue to do well!

zende 13y ago
Balanced requires name, DOB, and address only to underwrite the recipient as a merchant to avoid the marketplace becoming an aggregator. It is still possible to make a next-day payout directly to a recipient without this information: curl https://api.balancedpayments.com/v1/credits \ -u f97912a2cd8a11e2a411026ba7cd33d0: \ -d "amount=10000" \ -d "bank_account[name]=Johann Bernoulli" \ -d "bank_account[routing_number]=121000358" \ -d "bank_account[type]=checking" \ -d "bank_account[account_number]=9900000001" In that case you can also use Balanced only for payouts by funding your escrow with your own bank account. Stripe would require you to charge your own credit card to perform this service. As you said, the main difference is about focus. Balanced has focused on supporting marketplaces from the beginning and continues to do so.
- jordanmessina 13y ago
  That focus also allows Balanced to build great tools to solve problems that are bigger issues in marketplaces. They've caught a number of fraud incidents for me which has been incredibly helpful (and obviously saves me money).
spoiledtechie 13y ago
Its nice to see that Stripe wishes competitors well when all Balanced tried to do was promote their brand.
- shaathman 13y ago
  This statement fully captures the stark difference between Stripe and Balanced. Stripe is led by engineers who want to improve the payments infrastructure. Balanced is led by businesspeople who want to hit it big. Stripe just so happens to be a business as well. Nothing wrong with either, but that should point you toward which company has the developer's true interests at heart :) Hint: It's Stripe.
  - steveklabnik 13y ago
    Bias alert: I have a Stripe account, but not a Balanced account. I think it's disingenuous to not suggest that Balanced doesn't 'have the developer's true interests at heart.' They've been really pushing the hypermedia API stuff, which is technologically exciting, as well as doing the whole 'open company' thing, which is taking the concept open source to interesting places.
  - corin_ 13y ago
    I don't know anyone who works at either company so maybe one of them is full of nasty people who hate their customers and one is full of lovely people who don't care about making profit - but that's very unlikely. Much more likely is that they both want to maximise their profits, they both understand that offering a good service to their customers is the way to do this, and both approach this in different ways. And frankly the fact that a Stripe employee said a nice thing about them as opposed to "fuck them use Stripe" doesn't give any clue on the subject, it just says this person is a.) polite and b.) not an idiot.
  - sjtgraham 13y ago
    Why do you have such a simplistic binary view of the world (hint: the world isn't like that), and why the sock puppet account? (hint: you're a shill)
meritt 13y ago
You're posting on HN though. You cannot have a payment solutions post on HN without Balanced showing up and waving their arms all over the damn place. I understand this is a YC site but it's really annoying and distracting.
- simonk 13y ago
  Stripe is YC too.
  - austengary 13y ago
    Err... but... anti-establishment... err... fuck PG... err grumble... grumble.
brackin 13y ago
Stripe is also starting to grow internationally which is one reason why I'd choose stripe.

yesimahuman 13y ago

Interesting to see Balanced and Stripe competing. Is this going to be a growing trend in YC? I'm sure it's a hard problem to avoid.

seiji 13y ago
Balanced has always inhabited a nebulous void of blatant-copying-with-one-novel-new-feature territory for me. It's clear they just copied (with permission? consent?) the public interface of Stripe. They tried to copy the documentation format (layout, style, presentation) too, but it came off kinda poorly (margins, people. margins). They have public test cards/accounts, but they fail to test correctly because they get "used" and can't have multiple actions performed against them. Then, there's the whole ID thing. Why the fuzzy heck would you use ugly, long, probably-going-to-run-off-my-screen URIs as IDs instead of short IDs? They advise you to never construct your own API endpoint URIs from shorter IDs, except that's exactly what they do all throughout their documentation. But, Balanced lets you pay out next day and Stripe holds your funds for 7 days before allowing payment. So, Balanced wins on time-to-pay speed (and they have same-day transfers to Wells Fargo). Though, with Stripe I assume you could eventually have enough of a float in your account to pay out next-day under your own prior funds. From my complete outsider point of view it feels like Balanced is full of slightly subpar copy ninjas. (obviously just on their API, documentation, and front-end presentation. Their backend could be amazing or it could be meter high jenga code.) Disclaimer/Validator: I've written a tiny unofficial client for each each product/company. https://github.com/mattsta/stripe-erlang https://github.com/mattsta/stripe-erlang and https://github.com/mattsta/balanced-erlang https://github.com/mattsta/balanced-erlang
- ajsharp 13y ago
  I've been working with Balanced's API since they were Poundpay. I think most of your comments about copying are very misguided. The style of their documentation format is completely irrelevant to the quality of the product (and wrong IMO), which in my > two years of experience, has been superb. Your comments about test cards are just wholly incorrect, and the style of their website and how they present their products is as homogeneous as anyone else offerring a developer product. Re: UUID's, Jeff Atwood has a good post explaining their pros and cons: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/03/primary-keys-ids-versus-guids.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/03/primary-keys-ids-ve.... > From my complete outsider point of view it feels like Balanced is full of slightly subpar copy ninjas. I couldn't disagree more. Over the past couple of years, I've come to trust and admire the product as much as any other, including Stripe. These guys know what they're doing.

tpurves 13y ago

As with all money transfer products, the technology to transfer funds to an individual is generally the fun/easy part. Wait until you find out about America's (and most other countries) wonderful anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing compliance laws that can land you in less-fun places like federal prison if you don't use this sort of webservice very, very carefully.

legutierr 13y ago
Former licensed money transmitter executive here. As far as I am aware, as long as you are not "structuring" transfers (which means breaking payments up with the intent to hide their common origin and/or destination) and are not attempting to actually launder money, the real risk of federal prison time is born by the operator of an unlicensed money transmitter, not the user of such a service. In the US, operating an unlicensed money transmitter is an offense that carries, if I recall properly, up to five years of federal prison time per count[1]. That is to say, if you create a service by which one party is able to send money to another third party, and operate that service without a license where one is required (and under that license adhere to capital, bonding and procedural compliance requirements), you are subject to federal criminal prosecution. I'd be curious as to Stripe's and Balanced's interpretation of their obligations under these laws vis-a-vis their payout services. [1] http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1960 http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1960

bpatrianakos 13y ago

Balanced is now being heavily discussed. Mission accomplished I suppose.

trollmachine 13y ago

Hey Zende, Cool! You work at Balanced. You should really be proud of your UI that you copied from Stripe but made it uglier. You should also be proud of the Fanwood Font you use in the front page. I'm hoping you can raise some funds and hire a real designer because your inconsistent use of font sizes/type on the front page makes your product look unpolished and unprofessional. Next time, try to innovate rather than copy like Zynga. Best, TrollMachine

nhangen 13y ago

How does this comment not get flagged for removal? Might as well talk about how your best friend gets paid 5k/month working from home for only a few hours/week.