3 ms·

Why switching from Stripe to Balanced has helped LaunchTrack scale

52 points by dclausen 13y ago

pvnick 13y ago
I am currently using Balanced to help a client develop a marketplace application - both to collect payments as well as to distribute payouts - and working with the service has really been a delight. The documentation is well-developed, includes clean sample code for everything I've needed (to the point of just being able to drop it in), and support is really responsive and helpful. Just today I had a question about implementing bank account verification, hopped on the IRC chat room, and within all of 30 seconds had my question answered. Great job to the Balanced team!
- eclipxe 13y ago
  I'll second this. Balanced has been pretty awesome to work with. I looked at switching away at one point, but everything "just works" and no other solution had all of the requirements met for running a legit marketplace.
mrcwinn 13y ago
Apple, meet Orange. Why are they bashing Stripe Connect, which is not comparable to Balanced? They were looking for Stripe Marketplace, which does offer a complete white-label solution. For a fairer comparison and review of Stripe's white label marketplace API, I will shamelessly plug my blog: http://blog.chriswinn.com/working-with-stripe-payouts http://blog.chriswinn.com/working-with-stripe-payouts The people at Balanced are great, but I still prefer Stripe's products any day of the week. They've written the best API and documentation I've seen in a while, and laid a lot of groundwork for others to mimic. A good thing for us developers, at least.
- dclausen 13y ago
  Stripe Connect, according to their own website (https://stripe.com/connect https://stripe.com/connect) is Stripe's marketplace offering. Stripe Connect is not a complete white label solution. The user still has to be redirected to stripe.com to complete the OAuth process. We had many issues with users being confused as to who Stripe was, and why were they asking for their personal information when creating an account.
  - cristinacordova 13y ago
    (I work at Stripe) Stripe Connect is great for a certain kind of marketplace, specifically one that does not want to be liable for chargebacks or refunds and wants to remain outside of the flow of funds. We launched the ability to send payouts with Stripe over a month ago for a different kind of marketplace (such as Lyft, SideCar and Exec), which want more control over the payout process. You can read more about it here on our site: https://stripe.com/blog/send-payouts-with-stripe https://stripe.com/blog/send-payouts-with-stripe
- jonathancordeau 13y ago
  I think you've missed the point Chris. I wasn't bashing Stripe at all; quite the contrary actually. I have a ton of respect for their founders & team. However, there are some elements which are essential to our platform and payments model, which Stripe/Connect/Marketplace cannot provide; Descriptor & Money Management, among s few other nuance things. With so many options out there today, (many VERY BAD options), I merely wanted to share our process and headaches, in the hopes of saving another entrepreneur a bunch of time.
dylandrop 13y ago
IMO, neither really are as great as they should be yet. That being said, I'm using Stripe. Switching over from Paypal, this is what I have to say: -The process to make charges from a sellers account seems to need an unnecessary amount of requests -Why can't we pay out to multiple sellers at once like Paypal can? -At least in Stripe, it seems kind of silly I have to refresh a credit card token each time I want to make a new charge
- heynk 13y ago
  You can save credit card information and use it multiple times: https://support.stripe.com/questions/can-i-save-a-card-and-charge-it-later https://support.stripe.com/questions/can-i-save-a-card-and-c...
- cristinacordova 13y ago
  (I work at Stripe) If you're looking to split payments to multiple parties, you may want to take a look at sending transfers, rather than using Connect: https://stripe.com/blog/send-payouts-with-stripe https://stripe.com/blog/send-payouts-with-stripe This only requires the sellers' bank account information in order to pay them out. Stripe provides a Customer abstraction that makes it easy to save credit card information for later and use it multiple times. Instead of charging the card immediately, you can create a new Customer object and save the card to that customer. See more here: https://stripe.com/docs/tutorials/charges#saving-credit-card-details-for-later https://stripe.com/docs/tutorials/charges#saving-credit-card...
  - dylandrop 13y ago
    Transfers still only send to one recipient at a time, no? At least, this is how the documentation reads (recipient_id is taken as a parameter as opposed to recipient_id<s>). Also, my problem is that you need to send a different request for each payout, when many times (i.e. shopping carts) you'd want to send every charge in one request.
    - cristinacordova 13y ago
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

52 points by dclausen 13y ago

I am currently using Balanced to help a client develop a marketplace application - both to collect payments as well as to distribute payouts - and working with the service has really been a delight. The documentation is well-developed, includes clean sample code for everything I've needed (to the point of just being able to drop it in), and support is really responsive and helpful. Just today I had a question about implementing bank account verification, hopped on the IRC chat room, and within all of 30 seconds had my question answered. Great job to the Balanced team!

eclipxe 13y ago
I'll second this. Balanced has been pretty awesome to work with. I looked at switching away at one point, but everything "just works" and no other solution had all of the requirements met for running a legit marketplace.

mrcwinn 13y ago

Apple, meet Orange. Why are they bashing Stripe Connect, which is not comparable to Balanced? They were looking for Stripe Marketplace, which does offer a complete white-label solution. For a fairer comparison and review of Stripe's white label marketplace API, I will shamelessly plug my blog: http://blog.chriswinn.com/working-with-stripe-payouts http://blog.chriswinn.com/working-with-stripe-payouts The people at Balanced are great, but I still prefer Stripe's products any day of the week. They've written the best API and documentation I've seen in a while, and laid a lot of groundwork for others to mimic. A good thing for us developers, at least.

dclausen 13y ago
Stripe Connect, according to their own website (https://stripe.com/connect https://stripe.com/connect) is Stripe's marketplace offering. Stripe Connect is not a complete white label solution. The user still has to be redirected to stripe.com to complete the OAuth process. We had many issues with users being confused as to who Stripe was, and why were they asking for their personal information when creating an account.
- cristinacordova 13y ago
  (I work at Stripe) Stripe Connect is great for a certain kind of marketplace, specifically one that does not want to be liable for chargebacks or refunds and wants to remain outside of the flow of funds. We launched the ability to send payouts with Stripe over a month ago for a different kind of marketplace (such as Lyft, SideCar and Exec), which want more control over the payout process. You can read more about it here on our site: https://stripe.com/blog/send-payouts-with-stripe https://stripe.com/blog/send-payouts-with-stripe
jonathancordeau 13y ago
I think you've missed the point Chris. I wasn't bashing Stripe at all; quite the contrary actually. I have a ton of respect for their founders & team. However, there are some elements which are essential to our platform and payments model, which Stripe/Connect/Marketplace cannot provide; Descriptor & Money Management, among s few other nuance things. With so many options out there today, (many VERY BAD options), I merely wanted to share our process and headaches, in the hopes of saving another entrepreneur a bunch of time.

dylandrop 13y ago

IMO, neither really are as great as they should be yet. That being said, I'm using Stripe. Switching over from Paypal, this is what I have to say: -The process to make charges from a sellers account seems to need an unnecessary amount of requests -Why can't we pay out to multiple sellers at once like Paypal can? -At least in Stripe, it seems kind of silly I have to refresh a credit card token each time I want to make a new charge

heynk 13y ago
You can save credit card information and use it multiple times: https://support.stripe.com/questions/can-i-save-a-card-and-charge-it-later https://support.stripe.com/questions/can-i-save-a-card-and-c...
cristinacordova 13y ago
(I work at Stripe) If you're looking to split payments to multiple parties, you may want to take a look at sending transfers, rather than using Connect: https://stripe.com/blog/send-payouts-with-stripe https://stripe.com/blog/send-payouts-with-stripe This only requires the sellers' bank account information in order to pay them out. Stripe provides a Customer abstraction that makes it easy to save credit card information for later and use it multiple times. Instead of charging the card immediately, you can create a new Customer object and save the card to that customer. See more here: https://stripe.com/docs/tutorials/charges#saving-credit-card-details-for-later https://stripe.com/docs/tutorials/charges#saving-credit-card...
- dylandrop 13y ago
  Transfers still only send to one recipient at a time, no? At least, this is how the documentation reads (recipient_id is taken as a parameter as opposed to recipient_id<s>). Also, my problem is that you need to send a different request for each payout, when many times (i.e. shopping carts) you'd want to send every charge in one request.
  - cristinacordova 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]