6 ms·

This is great! This is one of the things we looked at when choosing a credit card provider. (We did not end up choosing Stripe, but this certainly sweetens the

by memset 13y ago

This is great! This is one of the things we looked at when choosing a credit card provider. (We did not end up choosing Stripe, but this certainly sweetens the deal. Always looking for a better rate!) Does this mean that we could have multiple accounts, with different soft descriptors, merged together? Would we also be able to see, in a single report, the transactions for all of the accounts (rather than having to log in separately to download sales data?) Can't wait to see more of your de-annoying features!

pc 13y ago
I'd love to hear why you didn't choose Stripe -- feel free to drop me a line. I'm patrick@stripe.com.
- nicarus1984 13y ago
  I have to say that not only do you have a very good product/service, but I am constantly impressed by your engagement in it and apparent commitment to your customer base.
  - pc 13y ago
    thanks!
- rbritton 13y ago
  I'm not the OP, but I opted for Balanced over Stripe due to the delay in getting paid. Aside from that I prefer Stripe's API and overall experience more.
  - steveklabnik 13y ago
    Balanced employee here: if anyone's wondering, we do next day deposits for all accounts and same-day deposits for Wells Fargo accounts. Some people even just use is solely for payouts. And rbritton, as the guy in charge of the API these days, I'd love to hear how I can make it better.
    - steven2012 13y ago
      Next day deposits? Does this mean Balanced has no reserve policy?
      - steveklabnik 13y ago
        Yup, we don't mandate reserves. Marketplaces are liable for things like chargebacks, so many people do keep reserves and use our escrow functionality.
    - rbritton 13y ago
      I use Balanced for a non-marketplace ordering system as well as in an in-person ordering app. The Balanced dashboard is used for any account management and refunds. I found the process of actually taking and charging a card to be a bit cumbersome with having to tokenize the card (wait for response), create the customer record (wait for response), associate the card token (wait for response), and finally create the debit (wait for response). The tokenizing I'm absolutely fine with since it offloads the bulk of PCI compliance to Balanced, but the last three steps seemed a bit much when all I wanted to do was debit the card. I don't have any need to save a permanent customer and card record. This is a process Stripe doesn't have as far as I can tell, but I was ultimately willing to deal with it for the faster payouts. I also like Stripe's two-factor authentication support. And, on another note, I was a bit disappointed with both Balanced and Stripe's iOS libraries. They only support tokenizing a card. Though this is likely going to be the bulk of use by many people it meant creating everything else from scratch.
      - ewang1 13y ago
        If you don't have any need to save the customer and card for subsequent charges, then I believe (on Stripe) you can simply pass the token to the payment object API, eliminating 2 of your 4 steps.
        rbritton 13y ago
        That was my understanding, yes. On Balanced you have to have a customer record with an associated card to do a debit.
- Axsuul 13y ago
  Is Stripe planning on offering next-day/same-day deposits anytime soon (for all accounts)? This is becoming a big problem for us and we're considering switching to Balanced because of it.
  - pc 13y ago
    Yes. Could you drop me a line? patrick@stripe.com.
  - jareau 13y ago
    Balanced employee here. Axsuul, thanks for checking out Balanced! Let me know if I can answer any questions.
jareau 13y ago
@memset who did you end up using for payments?
- memset 13y ago
  Braintree. Being able to change soft descriptors was useful to us, because we sell merchandise (eyewear) on behalf of different brands. I believe they gave us a better rate. (interchange + basis points, rather than percentage + basis points.) Because we have these different brands for which we do eyewewar, we found that they had slightly better dashboard and reporting tools. There were also differences in being able to do do "authorizations" separately from "settlements" but I think both now support that process fairly well. It was also nice that Braintree was able to boast of many established companies, which we already use and trust, for payments. One thing I've learned is to always ask for references! Between the two, both have a great API. Things have probably changed with Stripe in the intervening year too. Stripe was certainly hungrier - they did a better job returning our calls, understanding our business, etc - but the former ended up having a better rate and the feature set we needed at the time. But I'm always re-evaluating (fortunately - or maybe unfortunately - if another processor is better for some reason, then given our volume, it is usually worth it for us to switch.) So this is why these kinds of features are exciting to me!
- memset 13y ago
  Oh, I just noticed that you are a co-founder of Balanced! I will say this - and I mean this in the most respectful way possible: it is unlikely I would encourage us to switch to you folks until (frustratingly!) you all are more established! [Also, I don't mean to single you out specifically: I'm talking about any company who wants to be an integral part of our infrastructure, but the topic at hand happens to be payments.] I have personally been burned by choosing a neato new startup for critical parts of our infrastructure. Burned in the sense that these startups change their model and pivot quickly, and since we have made them an integral part of our infrastructure, it is frustrating and difficult to change. (Dotcloud, for example, got rid of their free sandboxed tier this past year. This was a great move on their part, but also left a sour taste in my mouth and unexpectedly increased our expenses.) We also get burned when a new company has bugs - because while I personally might understand, our customers are the ones who are affected. It also called into question my ability to evaluate different solutions, and forced me to realize that, for non-personal projects, it is important to use something established. This is somewhat ironic, since we ourselves are a startup - so I feel the pain of finding customers (or even developers!) every day!

by memset 13y ago

pc 13y ago

I'd love to hear why you didn't choose Stripe -- feel free to drop me a line. I'm patrick@stripe.com.

nicarus1984 13y ago
I have to say that not only do you have a very good product/service, but I am constantly impressed by your engagement in it and apparent commitment to your customer base.
- pc 13y ago
  thanks!
rbritton 13y ago
I'm not the OP, but I opted for Balanced over Stripe due to the delay in getting paid. Aside from that I prefer Stripe's API and overall experience more.
- steveklabnik 13y ago
  Balanced employee here: if anyone's wondering, we do next day deposits for all accounts and same-day deposits for Wells Fargo accounts. Some people even just use is solely for payouts. And rbritton, as the guy in charge of the API these days, I'd love to hear how I can make it better.
  - steven2012 13y ago
    Next day deposits? Does this mean Balanced has no reserve policy?
    - steveklabnik 13y ago
      Yup, we don't mandate reserves. Marketplaces are liable for things like chargebacks, so many people do keep reserves and use our escrow functionality.
  - rbritton 13y ago
    I use Balanced for a non-marketplace ordering system as well as in an in-person ordering app. The Balanced dashboard is used for any account management and refunds. I found the process of actually taking and charging a card to be a bit cumbersome with having to tokenize the card (wait for response), create the customer record (wait for response), associate the card token (wait for response), and finally create the debit (wait for response). The tokenizing I'm absolutely fine with since it offloads the bulk of PCI compliance to Balanced, but the last three steps seemed a bit much when all I wanted to do was debit the card. I don't have any need to save a permanent customer and card record. This is a process Stripe doesn't have as far as I can tell, but I was ultimately willing to deal with it for the faster payouts. I also like Stripe's two-factor authentication support. And, on another note, I was a bit disappointed with both Balanced and Stripe's iOS libraries. They only support tokenizing a card. Though this is likely going to be the bulk of use by many people it meant creating everything else from scratch.
    - ewang1 13y ago
      If you don't have any need to save the customer and card for subsequent charges, then I believe (on Stripe) you can simply pass the token to the payment object API, eliminating 2 of your 4 steps.
      - rbritton 13y ago
        That was my understanding, yes. On Balanced you have to have a customer record with an associated card to do a debit.
Axsuul 13y ago
Is Stripe planning on offering next-day/same-day deposits anytime soon (for all accounts)? This is becoming a big problem for us and we're considering switching to Balanced because of it.
- pc 13y ago
  Yes. Could you drop me a line? patrick@stripe.com.
- jareau 13y ago
  Balanced employee here. Axsuul, thanks for checking out Balanced! Let me know if I can answer any questions.

jareau 13y ago

@memset who did you end up using for payments?

memset 13y ago
Braintree. Being able to change soft descriptors was useful to us, because we sell merchandise (eyewear) on behalf of different brands. I believe they gave us a better rate. (interchange + basis points, rather than percentage + basis points.) Because we have these different brands for which we do eyewewar, we found that they had slightly better dashboard and reporting tools. There were also differences in being able to do do "authorizations" separately from "settlements" but I think both now support that process fairly well. It was also nice that Braintree was able to boast of many established companies, which we already use and trust, for payments. One thing I've learned is to always ask for references! Between the two, both have a great API. Things have probably changed with Stripe in the intervening year too. Stripe was certainly hungrier - they did a better job returning our calls, understanding our business, etc - but the former ended up having a better rate and the feature set we needed at the time. But I'm always re-evaluating (fortunately - or maybe unfortunately - if another processor is better for some reason, then given our volume, it is usually worth it for us to switch.) So this is why these kinds of features are exciting to me!
memset 13y ago
Oh, I just noticed that you are a co-founder of Balanced! I will say this - and I mean this in the most respectful way possible: it is unlikely I would encourage us to switch to you folks until (frustratingly!) you all are more established! [Also, I don't mean to single you out specifically: I'm talking about any company who wants to be an integral part of our infrastructure, but the topic at hand happens to be payments.] I have personally been burned by choosing a neato new startup for critical parts of our infrastructure. Burned in the sense that these startups change their model and pivot quickly, and since we have made them an integral part of our infrastructure, it is frustrating and difficult to change. (Dotcloud, for example, got rid of their free sandboxed tier this past year. This was a great move on their part, but also left a sour taste in my mouth and unexpectedly increased our expenses.) We also get burned when a new company has bugs - because while I personally might understand, our customers are the ones who are affected. It also called into question my ability to evaluate different solutions, and forced me to realize that, for non-personal projects, it is important to use something established. This is somewhat ironic, since we ourselves are a startup - so I feel the pain of finding customers (or even developers!) every day!