Stripe raises $600M at nearly $36B valuation(axios.com)
axios.com
Stripe raises $600M at nearly $36B valuation
https://www.axios.com/stripe-fundraising-600-million-1f1f38b6-fde6-4316-b111-2f3b0e868ab7.html
460 comments
My top issues running my business on Stripe:
1) Many countries still only allow depositing a single currency (i.e. Aus/AUD), doubling the cost of transaction due to the currency conversion, even tripling when we have to convert it back to pay our bills. I always get told either "soon", or "not possible due to the law", despite competitors doing it.
2) If we were an EU company, we'd get charged 1.4%+25c on transactions in the EU, where most of our customers are. Instead, because we're selling from Australia, we get charged 2.9% for some arbitrary reason. This coupled with 1) puts our all-in transaction fees at 5%+ :(
3) I think billing the vendor for refund fees is a really retrograde step - it increases friction in the decision for us when a customer asks for a refund, and industry wide is going to cause less happy customers and less card users online. It's already hard enough convincing Dutch/German customers to use a credit card online.
If any non-EU companies know a cheaper way to process transactions in the EU, I'm all ears...
1) Many countries still only allow depositing a single currency (i.e. Aus/AUD), doubling the cost of transaction due to the currency conversion, even tripling when we have to convert it back to pay our bills. I always get told either "soon", or "not possible due to the law", despite competitors doing it.
2) If we were an EU company, we'd get charged 1.4%+25c on transactions in the EU, where most of our customers are. Instead, because we're selling from Australia, we get charged 2.9% for some arbitrary reason. This coupled with 1) puts our all-in transaction fees at 5%+ :(
3) I think billing the vendor for refund fees is a really retrograde step - it increases friction in the decision for us when a customer asks for a refund, and industry wide is going to cause less happy customers and less card users online. It's already hard enough convincing Dutch/German customers to use a credit card online.
If any non-EU companies know a cheaper way to process transactions in the EU, I'm all ears...
Great feedback... thank you. In case it's useful, some context on them:
On (1), we started an FX team this year. (There are a lot of legal complexities here around how the funds move, who has title to what at which moment, and so on.) But we're investing significantly in improving it and it should get better soon. On (2), the core issue is card network pricing rules -- by design, they discriminate on the basis of where the business is located. We happily extend EU fees to all EU legal entities, however, and would be happy to work with you to set that up. On (3), refunds aren't free for Stripe, and we were previously in a position where businesses with a lot of refunds were being subsidized by those who didn't. We want to give this margin away more sensibly.
Still, all the issues you bring up are real and I'd like us to find better solutions.
On (1), we started an FX team this year. (There are a lot of legal complexities here around how the funds move, who has title to what at which moment, and so on.) But we're investing significantly in improving it and it should get better soon. On (2), the core issue is card network pricing rules -- by design, they discriminate on the basis of where the business is located. We happily extend EU fees to all EU legal entities, however, and would be happy to work with you to set that up. On (3), refunds aren't free for Stripe, and we were previously in a position where businesses with a lot of refunds were being subsidized by those who didn't. We want to give this margin away more sensibly.
Still, all the issues you bring up are real and I'd like us to find better solutions.
Just want to say thanks for being so transparent with your answers in this thread, really appreciated. As a fly on the wall to most of this -- I don't have a business myself, yet ;) -- I'm learning a lot so far.
Ditto. I don't know how he finds the time, and always touches his email in to make himself available to customers. It's customer service done right and it's great to see.
Isn't FX a done deal based on how TransferWise is able to do it. Maybe you guys can collaborate with them and make payouts in any currency possible atleast in countries where there are no Forex restrictions like Hong Kong.
I love transferwise and use their service for several currencies but it shows how hard it is to get right. E.g. EU customers in the US get a bank account on the name of Transferwise with you as the beneficiary. Even larger invoicing systems in the US can struggle with this as the person is not a US resident, has sole access to the funds and yet the account holder is a US entity.
Customer Service, UX and speed are amazing. But it took me a while to convince US companies to accept this structure.
Customer Service, UX and speed are amazing. But it took me a while to convince US companies to accept this structure.
Please no. TransferWise is terrible at customer support and internet is full of horror stories of people founds being frozen. The are the new incarnation of good ole’ paypal. You will get your account frozen the moment you wire more than$1,500 as per my own experience with 3 different businesses giving them a chance.
I hope Stripe which is amazing will never have anything to do with TransferFraud.
I hope Stripe which is amazing will never have anything to do with TransferFraud.
Not affiliated with TransferWise in any way but just want to say that this is totally the opposite of my experience and that of pretty much everyone I know who uses TransferWise.
We've moved hundreds of thousands of dollars through them over the last couple of years with no problems on their end (we've had problems with banks failing to transfer correctly though..)
We've moved hundreds of thousands of dollars through them over the last couple of years with no problems on their end (we've had problems with banks failing to transfer correctly though..)
Not affiliated and no issues. These are sweeping generalisations and wholly unhelpful.
TW is not an ideal solution.
I am biased, but IMHO using a service like Routefusion solves all of these problems. Companies like Elliot use our API's to settle CC transactions that are in different countries. You hook your Stripe account in and then they re-patriate the money to wherever it needs to go.
Check us out! developer.routefusion.co
I am biased, but IMHO using a service like Routefusion solves all of these problems. Companies like Elliot use our API's to settle CC transactions that are in different countries. You hook your Stripe account in and then they re-patriate the money to wherever it needs to go.
Check us out! developer.routefusion.co
-4 points. Maybe this reads as too self-promoting. Apologies to the HN'ers reading this :)
>(3), refunds aren't free for Stripe, and we were previously in a position where businesses with a lot of refunds were being subsidized by those who didn't. We want to give this margin away more sensibly.
I understand they're not free, but I also understand Stripe does get a considerable portion back that they are no longer passing on?
Couldn't this just have been applied to the problematic businesses then rather than all?
I understand they're not free, but I also understand Stripe does get a considerable portion back that they are no longer passing on?
Couldn't this just have been applied to the problematic businesses then rather than all?
It varies based on the card type, country, and other things. We could expose all of that more directly but the trade-off there is obviously pricing complexity, which we'd like to avoid.
In our analysis in making this change, we saw that this simply makes little difference for the vast majority of businesses. For example, if you're processing $100k/year and refund 5% of your payments (which would be on the high end of normal), it works out to about $12/month.
While refund rate of course is not definitively coupled to the quality of a business, we do see across our portfolio that it is strongly correlated. Given a basket of possible fees (for example, higher fees on Amex, which most other providers have), we prefer the fees that, on the margin, are least consequential for the businesses that are doing the best job of serving their customers.
Having said all of that, none of our pricing is cast in stone, and we always genuinely appreciate feedback, including contrary views.
In our analysis in making this change, we saw that this simply makes little difference for the vast majority of businesses. For example, if you're processing $100k/year and refund 5% of your payments (which would be on the high end of normal), it works out to about $12/month.
While refund rate of course is not definitively coupled to the quality of a business, we do see across our portfolio that it is strongly correlated. Given a basket of possible fees (for example, higher fees on Amex, which most other providers have), we prefer the fees that, on the margin, are least consequential for the businesses that are doing the best job of serving their customers.
Having said all of that, none of our pricing is cast in stone, and we always genuinely appreciate feedback, including contrary views.
Refund rates that fall substantially above 5% are almost always tied to business quality - and those business SHOULD pay. Seriously, if you are refunding 20% of your business you need to look carefully at how you acquire business - stripe is not driving folks away from doing stuff online - you may be.
Stripe has made the right call here - though the silent and vast majority won't have anything to complain about so won't be on here posting.
Stripe has made the right call here - though the silent and vast majority won't have anything to complain about so won't be on here posting.
>Refund rates that fall substantially above 5% are almost always tied to business quality - and those business SHOULD pay. Seriously, if you are refunding 20% of your business you need to look carefully at how you acquire business - stripe is not driving folks away from doing stuff online - you may be.
Do you know how often I have people buy something and then call me only to let me know they may have bought the wrong thing?
If you ISL6258AHRTZ & ISL6259AHRTZ, your refunds are likely not due to "business quality."
If you sell NXP610A3B and NXP1608, your refunds likely don't "business quality."
They reflect reality in a world where most people aren't savants with random long strings of seemingly meaningless letters/numbers that make up product codes for chipsets.
I used to employ a competitor in this field. We have taken different approaches to obtaining customers, and in setting up our respective online stores to be as simple as possible - to try and inform people what fits what even if they don't know what they are doing.
But lots of people don't read, then they buy things by mistake anyway.
>While refund rate of course is not definitively coupled to the quality of a business, we do see across our portfolio that it is strongly correlated. Given a basket of possible fees (for example, higher fees on Amex, which most other providers have), we prefer the fees that, on the margin, are least consequential for the businesses that are doing the best job of serving their customers.
What metrics are being used here to judge the quality of a business? How is whether a business is "quality" or not being judged by a credit card processing provider? What information is obtained to make judgments according to these metrics?
I've been in different online and in-person businesses. Some businesses have low refund rate with poor quality, others high refund rate with fine quality. I can say with certainty 100% of the refunds I gave when people sent back a product that was not the product I sent them(or even a product I sell) after they filed a chargeback had nothing to do with the quality of our business - the only thing the merchant would have access to is a he-said-she-said list of jpg files and ranting paragraphs. Hardly fitting information to judge the quality of a business on.
Honestly, I've looked as Stripe's offerings - I pay 2.15% right now with 40/60 online card not present/in-store card present and refunds are free. How is it with a 2.9% fee that people who rarely refund their customers have to pay the fee for those customers for the model to make sense? I'm not asking Stripe to match the fee of a large bank - but can we not charge an additional .7 percent and then say "it has to be done so we don't lose when people refund?"
This is outside the greater implications of this policy - if more merchant services take this on, we will be left with a world where only Amazon, eBay, and Walmart can offer "cancel" buttons on their site. Who will want to do business with small businesses if even something as basic as hitting the cancel button incurs fees?
If I buy a TV, or an ultrasonic cleaner, or a stereo, or some furniture from a small business vs amazon and I mess up something in my order, I have to pay a $45 fee - but when I buy it from amazon, I don't? Screw them, I'll use amazon.
If this is adopted by every single business, it will be just one of many factors that pushes customers in the direction of using Amazon over small businesses. It's hard enough competing with trillion dollar companies as is without erroneous fees being added in that were outside the overton window of business discussion 10 years ago.
To be clear, I have no problem with people choosing to make purchases from Amazon. I do have an issue with the industry slowly adding barriers to small businesses having the ability to compete on a level playing field. I'm all for them earning a good reputation, but we shouldn't be working to put sour tastes in the mouths of every customer who f'd up and made an order in error with someone that they will not have with a larger company.
Do you know how often I have people buy something and then call me only to let me know they may have bought the wrong thing?
If you ISL6258AHRTZ & ISL6259AHRTZ, your refunds are likely not due to "business quality."
If you sell NXP610A3B and NXP1608, your refunds likely don't "business quality."
They reflect reality in a world where most people aren't savants with random long strings of seemingly meaningless letters/numbers that make up product codes for chipsets.
I used to employ a competitor in this field. We have taken different approaches to obtaining customers, and in setting up our respective online stores to be as simple as possible - to try and inform people what fits what even if they don't know what they are doing.
But lots of people don't read, then they buy things by mistake anyway.
>While refund rate of course is not definitively coupled to the quality of a business, we do see across our portfolio that it is strongly correlated. Given a basket of possible fees (for example, higher fees on Amex, which most other providers have), we prefer the fees that, on the margin, are least consequential for the businesses that are doing the best job of serving their customers.
What metrics are being used here to judge the quality of a business? How is whether a business is "quality" or not being judged by a credit card processing provider? What information is obtained to make judgments according to these metrics?
I've been in different online and in-person businesses. Some businesses have low refund rate with poor quality, others high refund rate with fine quality. I can say with certainty 100% of the refunds I gave when people sent back a product that was not the product I sent them(or even a product I sell) after they filed a chargeback had nothing to do with the quality of our business - the only thing the merchant would have access to is a he-said-she-said list of jpg files and ranting paragraphs. Hardly fitting information to judge the quality of a business on.
Honestly, I've looked as Stripe's offerings - I pay 2.15% right now with 40/60 online card not present/in-store card present and refunds are free. How is it with a 2.9% fee that people who rarely refund their customers have to pay the fee for those customers for the model to make sense? I'm not asking Stripe to match the fee of a large bank - but can we not charge an additional .7 percent and then say "it has to be done so we don't lose when people refund?"
This is outside the greater implications of this policy - if more merchant services take this on, we will be left with a world where only Amazon, eBay, and Walmart can offer "cancel" buttons on their site. Who will want to do business with small businesses if even something as basic as hitting the cancel button incurs fees?
If I buy a TV, or an ultrasonic cleaner, or a stereo, or some furniture from a small business vs amazon and I mess up something in my order, I have to pay a $45 fee - but when I buy it from amazon, I don't? Screw them, I'll use amazon.
If this is adopted by every single business, it will be just one of many factors that pushes customers in the direction of using Amazon over small businesses. It's hard enough competing with trillion dollar companies as is without erroneous fees being added in that were outside the overton window of business discussion 10 years ago.
To be clear, I have no problem with people choosing to make purchases from Amazon. I do have an issue with the industry slowly adding barriers to small businesses having the ability to compete on a level playing field. I'm all for them earning a good reputation, but we shouldn't be working to put sour tastes in the mouths of every customer who f'd up and made an order in error with someone that they will not have with a larger company.
> If you ISL6258AHRTZ & ISL6259AHRTZ, your refunds are likely not due to "business quality."
> They reflect reality in a world where most people aren't savants with random long strings of seemingly meaningless letters/numbers that make up product codes for chipsets.
If you're selling products to people who aren't intimate enough with the product to tell them apart, and not doing a good enough job of guiding them before they put down their hard earned money, you're failing your customers. So it is very tied to business quality.
You should have warnings, or clear break downs of product descriptions they can use to confirm.
-
A refund is not free for the user either, now they have to go and get a refund, hope they caught it quick enough for shipping, maybe ship it back.
So there is, almost by definition, no situation where you have a high refund rate, and aren't making your customers suffer, and that's not how a quality business is run
> They reflect reality in a world where most people aren't savants with random long strings of seemingly meaningless letters/numbers that make up product codes for chipsets.
If you're selling products to people who aren't intimate enough with the product to tell them apart, and not doing a good enough job of guiding them before they put down their hard earned money, you're failing your customers. So it is very tied to business quality.
You should have warnings, or clear break downs of product descriptions they can use to confirm.
-
A refund is not free for the user either, now they have to go and get a refund, hope they caught it quick enough for shipping, maybe ship it back.
So there is, almost by definition, no situation where you have a high refund rate, and aren't making your customers suffer, and that's not how a quality business is run
"For example, if you're processing $100k/year and refund 5% of your payments (which would be on the high end of normal), it works out to about $12/month".
Patrick, please don't do that. It's scummy maths and unworthy of you. Either "if you're doing $8k/month it work out to about $12/month" or "if you're doing $100k/year it would work out to about $145/year" would be better. Using different units for the two different figures to make them look further apart is the kind of thing done by people trying to mislead with data.
Patrick, please don't do that. It's scummy maths and unworthy of you. Either "if you're doing $8k/month it work out to about $12/month" or "if you're doing $100k/year it would work out to about $145/year" would be better. Using different units for the two different figures to make them look further apart is the kind of thing done by people trying to mislead with data.
I don't think it's scummy. Revenues are usually measured on an annual basis, fees for many subscriptions come monthly. I believe this gives a good idea on monthly expenses for a business of a certain size.
Everything you say is true and yet - it also makes the amount look lower than it is (about .15%), which is still pretty small but it's O(100) vs O(100k) rather than O(10) vs O(100k).
Yeah but why are you saying "It's scummy maths and unworthy of you?" such an overreaction
Most people think of those kinds of expenses in monthly terms, maybe you're not aware of that. This isn't a press release, it's someone's comment off the top of their head.
Most people think of those kinds of expenses in monthly terms, maybe you're not aware of that. This isn't a press release, it's someone's comment off the top of their head.
I was caught off by this sleight of hand; I agree that it is scummy.
Are those fees also present for transactions that are refunded immediately before they batch (i.e. testing). Let's say a stripe IP wasn't whitelisted on the server and started being denied coming back, causing transactions to fail. If I want to do a quick live environment test on this it now costs my client money, which is not ideal.
You can do that using Stripe test environment and test cards without any fees. Refunds can take over a week to get processed by some banks, so testing on live data doesn't sound like a great idea. But even if you have to do a couple of live transactions I don't see how the cost of refunds could be significant.
Yes live tests are useful for integration issues or as a final verification before going live. But I only do it once or twice with a 99% off coupon or similar so the cost is a matter of cents plus fees. Easy to ignore.
What volume and dollar value are you testing at? I ask because assuming your time is billed back fully loaded to the client at $200/hr - and you spend 4 hours doing some sort of testing your time is $800... what are the fees relative to this?
[deleted]
A solution, it seems, might be to allow users to get free refunds for up to 5% transactions in current month. Anything above that is paid.
This way regular members are not penalized by big refunders...
This way regular members are not penalized by big refunders...
You should consider chatting with us @routefusion :)
developer.routefusion.co
we will solve all of those nasty FX problems your customers are having. Already doing it for a few other e-comm platforms that link into Stripe.
developer.routefusion.co
we will solve all of those nasty FX problems your customers are having. Already doing it for a few other e-comm platforms that link into Stripe.
German checking in. One of the reasons why it’s hard to get us to use a CC is that many of us don’t have credit cards. And why would we? (Except for online payments and other fringe cases.)
However, Stripe offers SEPA direct debit, which is usable with any European bank account and may work better for you.
EDIT: This seems to have sparked some confusion. I'm not saying Germans don't do card payments, I was only speaking of credit cards. We do all have and use debit cards, however, those are of a national scheme with wonderfully low fees, but no online usability.
However, Stripe offers SEPA direct debit, which is usable with any European bank account and may work better for you.
EDIT: This seems to have sparked some confusion. I'm not saying Germans don't do card payments, I was only speaking of credit cards. We do all have and use debit cards, however, those are of a national scheme with wonderfully low fees, but no online usability.
I used to live in Poland (so just across the border from Germany) and now I'm a UK resident, and your question is really baffling, since in both of these countries people use (contactless) card payments for pretty much everything. Germany is definitely an outlier and your comment doesn't really explain why. Is this a cultural thing, regulatory issue, or maybe banks colluding to protect their interests?
It's true Germany uses cash a lot more than other countries, but I wasn't trying to say we don't do card payments. I just said we don't use credit cards, we use debit cards instead which come by default with any standard bank account. However, these cards are neither MasterCard nor Visa and therefore do not work in online payment scenarios.
I have a credit card, but it is paid in full at the end of the month automatically, so for all intents and purposes it's essentially another debit card. Everyone I know in Germany who has a credit card uses it this way. In fact, my bank didn't even ask me if I wanted it set up any differently, so I have to imagine it's not just my social circle handling it this way.
I have a credit card, but it is paid in full at the end of the month automatically, so for all intents and purposes it's essentially another debit card. Everyone I know in Germany who has a credit card uses it this way. In fact, my bank didn't even ask me if I wanted it set up any differently, so I have to imagine it's not just my social circle handling it this way.
For anyone confused about the debit card comment: A German debit card isn’t the same as any other. It doesn’t have Visa or MasterCard co-branding like other countries’ debit card, nor a 16 digit number, so it can’t be used online. I would rather have translated Girokarte to bank card, because there are actual debit cards with Visa/MC co-branding which are available in Germany, but less common than other kinds
Are debit card only German retailers supporting Visa / MasterCard debit cards now?
Many UK banks used to issue Switch/Maestro cards which interoperated with the German bank card system so were accepted in German supermarkets, but these got phased out for Visa / MasterCard debit around 10 years ago meaning I had to start using cash everywhere.
Many UK banks used to issue Switch/Maestro cards which interoperated with the German bank card system so were accepted in German supermarkets, but these got phased out for Visa / MasterCard debit around 10 years ago meaning I had to start using cash everywhere.
I've never heard of Switch, but to my knowledge there is nothing about Maestro that integrates specifically with the German banking system. It just so happens that German debit cards are typically co-branded as Maestro (and nowadays sometimes V-Pay), which is why it was commonly accepted. The fact that fees were lower than credit cards probably played a significant role in that.
When the EU capped the interchange fees in 2015, many retailers started accepting MasterCard and Visa here. AMEX is exempt from the regulation since it's a three-party system and less commonly accepted. I'm not aware of any retailers that accept MC/Visa debit, but not credit cards or vice versa.
When the EU capped the interchange fees in 2015, many retailers started accepting MasterCard and Visa here. AMEX is exempt from the regulation since it's a three-party system and less commonly accepted. I'm not aware of any retailers that accept MC/Visa debit, but not credit cards or vice versa.
I live in Poland. I do (contactless) card payments every day, I rarely even have cash in my wallet. But I don't have a credit card and most of my peers / family doesn't have one either. Our debit cards will usually not work for on-line payments (the type that requires card number + cvv).
We do, however, have a widely adopted system called Blik[1], which is instant mobile payments (incl. POS payments, the terminals are adopted to process it, and many ATMs support cash withdrawals via Blik). I think it would be hard for any payments processor to get significant market share here without support for this, for many it's the default, then I think wire tranfer is the 2nd option, shopping elsewhere the third one, card payment maaaybe the 4th choice.
[1] https://polskistandardplatnosci.pl/en/
[1] https://polskistandardplatnosci.pl/en/
Most debit cards in Poland are standard Visa or Mastercard and definitely work online, sometimes you just need to activate them before the first payment for security reasons, but you're right that Blik seems to be getting more and more traction recently.
Yes, PayPass seems to be the go-to method in the physical world, even more so now (they have doubled the limit for non-PIN payments due to COVID-19 recently, so people don't use cash and don't touch the terminals as often), and Blik is winning on-line payments.
The cards reportedly do work on-line, but I have never bothered to activate them. I have a Revolut card now for the odd CC payments with US-based companies, but I hardly ever use it for this purpose. I don't get the security model of CC, to me it's like: "here are all the details you will ever need to charge me an arbitrary amount until the card expires in X years". Any other method I have ever used was 2FA: I had to authorize the transfer of funds from my account to the recipient by some means.
Swede here. Really baffling for me too. My kids have pretty much never even seen cash. I use the nationwide app Swish to send money to people using their phone number (almost every Swede is connected since it's pushed by all big banks) and only use contactless credit card.
How come Germany is so cash positive? Personally I think Sweden has gone a bit far, where some old people have been put in a weird spot where they can't pay because they're technologically illiterate.
How come Germany is so cash positive? Personally I think Sweden has gone a bit far, where some old people have been put in a weird spot where they can't pay because they're technologically illiterate.
Other people have replied to your message already and pointed out that we do use cards, just not credit cards. I figured that was clear in my comment, but apparently it wasn't, so I'll go ahead and edit that.
As for why we're so cash positive: one of the factors is privacy. If you pay for everything electronically both your bank and merchants are in the position to build a profile on you. If you use a non-local scheme (e.g. MC or Visa), they can too.
As for why we're so cash positive: one of the factors is privacy. If you pay for everything electronically both your bank and merchants are in the position to build a profile on you. If you use a non-local scheme (e.g. MC or Visa), they can too.
> we do use cards, just not credit cards. I figured that was clear in my comment,
I think the confusing part of your comment was where you consider non-credit cards (debit, prepaid etc.) to be distinct from VISA/Mastercard. That is not the case in most countries. It used to be the case in Germany, but is slowly changing as more and more debit cards are VISA/Mastercard cobranded.
I think the confusing part of your comment was where you consider non-credit cards (debit, prepaid etc.) to be distinct from VISA/Mastercard. That is not the case in most countries. It used to be the case in Germany, but is slowly changing as more and more debit cards are VISA/Mastercard cobranded.
Germans tend to take on very low levels of debt (speaking broadly). There are lots of hypotheses about the psychology behind it: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-31369185
I like the quit romantic explanation best, that debt in Germany has a moral component. "Debt" and "guilt" are nearly the same word, so taking on debt is a topic of moral philosophy: It's a sin ;-)
Another German. We use "cards" all the time. But these are just cashless and tied to our SEPA accounts (so not a credit card).
>But these are just cashless and tied to our SEPA accounts (so not a credit card).
which wouldn't be a problem for shopping online if they had a Visa or MasterCard cobrand, as these can be debit and tied to your bank account as well.
It's only slowly changing with some Sparkassen issuing MasterCard debit cobranded cards in late fall (https://www.f-i.de/News/ITmagazin/Archiv/2020/Einfach-mobil-...)
which wouldn't be a problem for shopping online if they had a Visa or MasterCard cobrand, as these can be debit and tied to your bank account as well.
It's only slowly changing with some Sparkassen issuing MasterCard debit cobranded cards in late fall (https://www.f-i.de/News/ITmagazin/Archiv/2020/Einfach-mobil-...)
Interestingly online payments with Maestro (what cards are commonly co-branded with right now) are possible as well with quite a few sites, but the Maestro card number is not exposed and even if you manage to get it, I believe the cards are typically not enabled for that.
That's a peculiar choice, but I assume the decision was made to appeal to the typically skeptical German market. I do wonder why it wasn't made opt-in, though.
That's a peculiar choice, but I assume the decision was made to appeal to the typically skeptical German market. I do wonder why it wasn't made opt-in, though.
As a Canadian (where most people use debit/credit) my first time in Germany as a tourist I once had to leave my passport as collateral at a restaurant to go find an ATM to pay for our meal as I didn't have €80ish in cash. It flummoxed me almost as much as seeing Germans eat a hamburger with a knife and fork! ;-)
When asking around I got several answers. Everything from a cultural aversion to debt (and spending via cash makes it easier to track your spending), not wanting to be tracked where you shop due to not wanting the government to know (comes from Nazi/East German past), and just being culturally conservative and not really liking change all that much.
I didn't like it as being a tourist meant I was eating out a lot, etc. I had to carry a lot of cash around that I'd only have to pay a fee to convert back if I had any left.
When asking around I got several answers. Everything from a cultural aversion to debt (and spending via cash makes it easier to track your spending), not wanting to be tracked where you shop due to not wanting the government to know (comes from Nazi/East German past), and just being culturally conservative and not really liking change all that much.
I didn't like it as being a tourist meant I was eating out a lot, etc. I had to carry a lot of cash around that I'd only have to pay a fee to convert back if I had any left.
Having many currency crashes going back to post ww1 probably is one of the causes - and maybe a more healthy if cynical view of government.
Currency crashes favor debtors, don't they?
I mean complete replacement of a currency and its German savers that have the fear that their savings will become worthless
Probably a cultural thing.
Debit card means you're responsible and take money out of low/zero interest checking account at the principal bank where we Germans hoard our money.
Credit card means you're on shaky financial ground, deal with credit card companies with their fine print, risk punitive overdraft charges, and have probably no idea if you have any money left.
Sadly, things are changing and many people seem to take on irresponsible loans (i.e. for anything except real estate).
Debit card means you're responsible and take money out of low/zero interest checking account at the principal bank where we Germans hoard our money.
Credit card means you're on shaky financial ground, deal with credit card companies with their fine print, risk punitive overdraft charges, and have probably no idea if you have any money left.
Sadly, things are changing and many people seem to take on irresponsible loans (i.e. for anything except real estate).
>Probably a cultural thing.
Associating Mastercard and Visa to credit and not debit as well.
Associating Mastercard and Visa to credit and not debit as well.
>or maybe banks colluding to protect their interests?
Mostly banks and retailers colluding together to use a cheap domestic-only POS-only scheme (think Przelewy24, but offline or LINK but at POS).
Mostly banks and retailers colluding together to use a cheap domestic-only POS-only scheme (think Przelewy24, but offline or LINK but at POS).
Hardly "collusion" that most nations have some form of debit payment system that is independent of the Visa/MC networks.
Yes, but in most countries, such debit cards are co-branded with Visa or Mastercard to make them usable abroad or online.
In Germany, most banks still see these use cases as an opportunity to upsell their loyal customers on their expensive credit card products (not in terms of interest really, but rather because of high monthly and foreign use fees).
In Germany, most banks still see these use cases as an opportunity to upsell their loyal customers on their expensive credit card products (not in terms of interest really, but rather because of high monthly and foreign use fees).
Living in Germany and my company is based here. We tried SEPA but it’s a PITA to charge customers with it. Especially B2C which we are. Customers can arbitrarily chargeback even after several days. Not only that, they can ask for a refund, get the refund and then charge back. So we end up paying them! And there’s no way to prevent it. At least that’s the way it was a few years ago when stripe sepa was still beta.
The interesting thing however, we A/B tested with and without SEPA and basically saw no difference. Only German people used it, but when it wasn’t available they managed to find a credit card or use PayPal.
I’d love it if banks were making instant payments simple and verifiable, but SEPA feels like something from the 70s to me.
The interesting thing however, we A/B tested with and without SEPA and basically saw no difference. Only German people used it, but when it wasn’t available they managed to find a credit card or use PayPal.
I’d love it if banks were making instant payments simple and verifiable, but SEPA feels like something from the 70s to me.
Minor terminology nitpicking: SEPA is just "Single Euro Payments Area", you're speaking about SEPA direct debit specifically.
These concerns still apply to direct debits, unfortunately. The reason being that there's barely any authorization for direct debits, you just need the bank account number and name. Isn't the situation somewhat similar to CC transactions without 3D Secure/whatever it's called? I seems to recall reading in my bank's terms that I can chargeback transactions for something crazy like a year. You always need a "mandate" to debit an account and if you get that properly signed by the customer, you should be able to get the bank to reverse the reversal, but I can appreciate the bureaucratic overhead.
I was only offering it as a potential solution if getting people to sign up is genuinely difficult.
The thing with PayPal is: they offer direct debit to customers and I'm assuming that's how most people who would've otherwise used direct debit directly with you ended up paying. It is my understanding that PayPal is also aware of the risks associated with this and offers merchants the option not to accept payments through it. I can't seem to find an article just now, but I remember instances where PayPal told me something along the lines of "this merchant does not accept payments via direct debit, please use a credit card instead". I can only assume this is because they at least partially pass on the risk.
These concerns still apply to direct debits, unfortunately. The reason being that there's barely any authorization for direct debits, you just need the bank account number and name. Isn't the situation somewhat similar to CC transactions without 3D Secure/whatever it's called? I seems to recall reading in my bank's terms that I can chargeback transactions for something crazy like a year. You always need a "mandate" to debit an account and if you get that properly signed by the customer, you should be able to get the bank to reverse the reversal, but I can appreciate the bureaucratic overhead.
I was only offering it as a potential solution if getting people to sign up is genuinely difficult.
The thing with PayPal is: they offer direct debit to customers and I'm assuming that's how most people who would've otherwise used direct debit directly with you ended up paying. It is my understanding that PayPal is also aware of the risks associated with this and offers merchants the option not to accept payments through it. I can't seem to find an article just now, but I remember instances where PayPal told me something along the lines of "this merchant does not accept payments via direct debit, please use a credit card instead". I can only assume this is because they at least partially pass on the risk.
> You always need a "mandate" to debit an account and if you get that properly signed by the customer, you should be able to get the bank to reverse the reversal
That's unfortunately not true. There is no recourse to direct debit returns; there is no dispute resolution process or anything like that. The presence or absence of a mandate only impacts the timeframe for returns to be files, as far as I understand.
That's unfortunately not true. There is no recourse to direct debit returns; there is no dispute resolution process or anything like that. The presence or absence of a mandate only impacts the timeframe for returns to be files, as far as I understand.
> Customers can arbitrarily chargeback even after several days.
You are aware that this is possible with credit cards as well, right?
You are aware that this is possible with credit cards as well, right?
Credit card chargebacks have an appeals / dispute resolution process. SEPA does not.
The process for SEPA is called "sue them"/"press fraud charges".
Against who? An email and an IBAN number? For our B2C with relatively small charges it definitely wasn’t worth it. Even CC chargebacks we don’t bother to dispute because the process is painful and virtually impossible to win (banks side with their own customers typically)
The latter, mostly. And I was more referring to the existence of the dispute resolution process, not the viability for random low-value transactions.
>However, Stripe offers SEPA direct debit, which is usable with any European bank account and may work better for you.
1) SEPA has an 8-week no-questions no-appeal refund model, which is fundamentally incompatible with a SaaS business
2) Stripe doesn't support SEPA on Checkout
3) Stripe doesn't support SEPA on non-EU/US accounts
1) SEPA has an 8-week no-questions no-appeal refund model, which is fundamentally incompatible with a SaaS business
2) Stripe doesn't support SEPA on Checkout
3) Stripe doesn't support SEPA on non-EU/US accounts
From experience, (1) isn't really a problem. If payments bounce they do so within a few days due to insufficient funds or fraudulent use. After that, refunds are extremely rare. Esp. since most European countries have easy systems for small claims which allow you to claim the money back.
Regarding points 2) and 3), I wasn't aware of those limitations. I admit to never having tried to use SEPA direct debit with Stripe, I just saw it in their docs.
Regarding 1): is it? Credit card payments can also be charged back, often for a period longer than 8 weeks. And both "aaS" products as well as certain retailers selling and shipping physical goods, do offer direct debit. I can't quote any fraud rates, but it certainly seems possible to do it.
Regarding 1): is it? Credit card payments can also be charged back, often for a period longer than 8 weeks. And both "aaS" products as well as certain retailers selling and shipping physical goods, do offer direct debit. I can't quote any fraud rates, but it certainly seems possible to do it.
Credit card payments have an appeals/dispute resolution process.
SEPA doesn't. You have to sue your customer if you want the money back.
https://www.williamfry.com/newsandinsights/news-article/2013...
SEPA doesn't. You have to sue your customer if you want the money back.
https://www.williamfry.com/newsandinsights/news-article/2013...
Why does that affect SaaS businesses specifically? I would think that's at least as much a problem (if not worse!) for businesses that do non-recurring sales and also for businesses that sell physical goods or non-scalable services. It sounds like if I pay for a steak or a haircut with SEPA, I can get a full refund eight weeks later and make it the restaurant or barber's problem to chase after me for the money, right?
That's why you can't pay for a steak or a haircut with SEPA I guess.
Actually you can. A few years ago, when paying with a German bank card, very often the transaction was turned into a direct debit transaction, because they used to be cheaper.
This used to be very common in supermarkets. Every time you had to sign the receipt this was happening. It's not as common nowadays as the fees are now more or less the same.
This used to be very common in supermarkets. Every time you had to sign the receipt this was happening. It's not as common nowadays as the fees are now more or less the same.
That was a decade ago. Esp with more traveling (car rentals and many hotels abroad require credit cards), penetration of CC in Germany is very high now. Usage isn't, many like to use their debit card or cash. But even older folks I know all have a credit card they get out a few times a year if no other payment method is available.
Completely agree on #3. Felt like a big blow to have Stripe do this.
A lot of subscription based businesses were built around "no-hassle refunds" as a core feature enabled by Stripe and will now need to rethink this.
A lot of subscription based businesses were built around "no-hassle refunds" as a core feature enabled by Stripe and will now need to rethink this.
Stripe isn’t being transparent on refunds. The issuing bank returns interchange on a refund. The true cost to stipe is a fraction of a penny to put the request on to the network. Other processors will refund interchange, this is unique to stripe. I am
sure stripe is refunding interchange for their larger merchants that are on interchange plus billing. There is no way target is eating interchange on refunds. They are squeezing their smaller merchants for more money.
This is actually what prompted us to start looking at interchange plus processors, plus the issue that our negotiated deal in Canada (where we're based) doesn't apply to our US clients. We went with Stripe for "simple" pricing knowing there were better deals out there, but it's no longer that simple for us at least.
This is the position we're in (our 'legacy' pricing will go away this year). We've decided to just eat it.
I agree with all this and it may be the reason I leave stripe soon.
I deal a lot in USD as an Australian company but stripe won’t allow us to charge in USD and settle into our USD bank accounts. But others will.
Also the refund issue is crazy, no other provider we use does it.
I deal a lot in USD as an Australian company but stripe won’t allow us to charge in USD and settle into our USD bank accounts. But others will.
Also the refund issue is crazy, no other provider we use does it.
IANAL, but couldn't you incorporate a wholly-owned US subsidiary using something like Stripe Atlas to handle USD payments and reduce your fees?
By the way, my company has the opposite problem. Our Stripe account is registered in the UK and even though we process payments for Australian customers in AUD their local banks still charge them an extortionate "foreign transaction fee". This means that we had to open a separate Stripe account registered in Australia just to avoid that.
By the way, my company has the opposite problem. Our Stripe account is registered in the UK and even though we process payments for Australian customers in AUD their local banks still charge them an extortionate "foreign transaction fee". This means that we had to open a separate Stripe account registered in Australia just to avoid that.
i dont want to open a US business just to process US payments. the cost and time would be to high. and taxes.
did you open a australian stripe account without an australian business?
We had to incorporate in Australia anyway, so I guess you're in a different situation.
Hi there! I'm a product manager on our payment methods team at Stripe. We're working on a beta to bring EU payment methods to Australian-domiciled customers. They're both cheaper than cards, and have significant conversion uplift. Mind emailing me at [email protected]?
Absolutely agree with #1. I've had a similar experience - I run a business with Stripe, also in Australia.
We charge in USD because we serve primarily US customers.
I pay for the business expenses in USD.
I've opened a US/USD bank account with Transferwise.
But I can't use it with Stripe [1]. Their only choice is to have them convert our USD earnings to AUD and pay out to an AUD bank account.
So when I pay those business expenses, I'm either:
a) paying on an Australian debit or credit card, which charge us another 3% for every international transaction (3% seems to be the standard rate across all of our banks here), or
b) carefully managing our cash flow to transfer AUD to our Transferwise account, use TW to exchange to USD, and then pay with our TW card.
We did (a) for a while, now trying (b), but I'd love to see (c): Stripe pays our USD earnings to our USD bank account.
[1] Funnily/strangely enough, I can actually ADD the USD bank account to our Stripe account. It just sits there, lonely, with a 0.00 USD balance. It took reading through the docs to realise that USD payouts are not supported for Australian Stripe accounts.
We charge in USD because we serve primarily US customers.
I pay for the business expenses in USD.
I've opened a US/USD bank account with Transferwise.
But I can't use it with Stripe [1]. Their only choice is to have them convert our USD earnings to AUD and pay out to an AUD bank account.
So when I pay those business expenses, I'm either:
a) paying on an Australian debit or credit card, which charge us another 3% for every international transaction (3% seems to be the standard rate across all of our banks here), or
b) carefully managing our cash flow to transfer AUD to our Transferwise account, use TW to exchange to USD, and then pay with our TW card.
We did (a) for a while, now trying (b), but I'd love to see (c): Stripe pays our USD earnings to our USD bank account.
[1] Funnily/strangely enough, I can actually ADD the USD bank account to our Stripe account. It just sits there, lonely, with a 0.00 USD balance. It took reading through the docs to realise that USD payouts are not supported for Australian Stripe accounts.
Here to second this. We have a USD account in Australia and can receive USD payments directly as USD from Pin, but from Stripe we have to receive the payment as AUD. Really looking forward to the option of avoiding multiple currency conversions.
How is it arbitrary that you get charged a rate for a service based on where you are?
> If any non-EU companies know a cheaper way to process transactions in the EU, I'm all ears...
Depending on your volume, it's really not expensive to setup a legal entity in the UK. Since UK is leaving (unsure if EU financial access will continue) Ireland is a good alternative. A UK company costs < £100/yr to maintain. Depending on your volume, it may be worth exploring with your lawyer/accountant.
Perhaps there's merchant-of-record services too, that are incorporated in the EU and I believe legally act as an agent to sell your product.
Depending on your volume, it's really not expensive to setup a legal entity in the UK. Since UK is leaving (unsure if EU financial access will continue) Ireland is a good alternative. A UK company costs < £100/yr to maintain. Depending on your volume, it may be worth exploring with your lawyer/accountant.
Perhaps there's merchant-of-record services too, that are incorporated in the EU and I believe legally act as an agent to sell your product.
In pretty much every country you need a director or similar who's a resident of that country. There are agencies doing that for you but that's not cheap and not without risk. Running a company without residence is usually not worth it for small companies.
A UK company costs < £100/yr to maintain
No. But you don't necessarily need an accountant in the UK.
Off the top of my head, the Companies House filing fee of around £15/yr, an address for the company (around £50/yr) are all you require to hold a UK company.
For a tech company that uses Xero and feeds in invoices programmatically filing the statutory returns by an accountant might cost £1000/yr (or 0 if you wish to DIY, the UK's HMRC makes self-filing easy unlike the IRS). Plus £360/yr for Xero (free accounting software probably won't cut it).
VAT returns and PAYE returns are pretty easy to self-file; Xero does them automatically and HMRC provides free software for it. The annual statutory accounts are more difficult, and you probably want an accountant.
Rough figures: if you want to be cheap, use Xero discounts and DIY, it's around £500/yr. With an accountant, but you still doing some of the work, perhaps £1500/yr.
Off the top of my head, the Companies House filing fee of around £15/yr, an address for the company (around £50/yr) are all you require to hold a UK company.
For a tech company that uses Xero and feeds in invoices programmatically filing the statutory returns by an accountant might cost £1000/yr (or 0 if you wish to DIY, the UK's HMRC makes self-filing easy unlike the IRS). Plus £360/yr for Xero (free accounting software probably won't cut it).
VAT returns and PAYE returns are pretty easy to self-file; Xero does them automatically and HMRC provides free software for it. The annual statutory accounts are more difficult, and you probably want an accountant.
Rough figures: if you want to be cheap, use Xero discounts and DIY, it's around £500/yr. With an accountant, but you still doing some of the work, perhaps £1500/yr.
4) It's just way too expensive, in general, nowadays. Stripe's market leader position should allow it to negotiate lower fees, but for some reason doesn't seem to be part of the business plan.
Hey there - would love to have a chat with you about some of the issues you're facing and make sure we're tracking accordingly.
Care flicking me an email at [email protected] or DMing @StripeAustralia?
Care flicking me an email at [email protected] or DMing @StripeAustralia?
Can you get an EU subsidiary or something like a TransferWise account where you can receive any currency? Not sure how well it interacts with Stripe but it should work.
As a Stripe customer incorporated in Australia, I have the exact same feedback. Not being able to get paid out in USD and incurring double FX costs is real problem.
ad3:
I think it's the opposite youre saying. As a customer I can always use chargeback if you have any 'friction' about fulfilling my refund. chargeback works with my bank, no matter what stripe or vendor thinks.
Hi,
I couldn't agree more with your concerns. I am working on a solution to solve this.
Please reach out to me via email on my profile.
Thanks
Those arent issues, they are the reasons for the valuation.
we are working on a blockchain based card processing solution which depends on your volumes. Ping me
Patrick, we switched away from Stripe because your risk management systems kept declining valid cards in certain low-GDP countries, and there was no way to override.
We are one of the larger SaaS companies and as a personal lover of Stripe, it was surprising to me that you couldn’t customise these systems, esp at our volume.
We switched to Ayden and saw very significant revenue increases in those countries; because valid cards stopped getting declined.
We are one of the larger SaaS companies and as a personal lover of Stripe, it was surprising to me that you couldn’t customise these systems, esp at our volume.
We switched to Ayden and saw very significant revenue increases in those countries; because valid cards stopped getting declined.
That sounds concerning -- could you email [email protected] with more details?
Hi dannyw,
I'm a PM on the team that works on acceptance rates and fraud at Stripe. Would you be open to chatting more about your experience? I'd really appreciate it so that we could look into this and improve it. My email is: [email protected]
In the last few months, I put together a tiny static website for my SO to sell her photographs to clients, and I budgeted a lot of time for integrating a payments solution. Like many others will say, I was pleasantly surprised how little time the integration step took.
I used the "beta" react hooks integration, and the UX of getting it all set up was basically flawless. I found the documentation (especially the quickstarts/tutorials) to be incredibly helpful.
Four pieces of constructive feedback:
- There seemed to be 3 or so quickstarts/tutorials for the same developer flow, at varying levels of detail (good), but they all had similar names and were difficult to distinguish from each other. My impression was that they were built on top of each other (i.e. one was X years old, another one X-2, etc.), but the old ones weren't removed? Unsure.
- I found the API documentation to be very good on big screens, but relatively painful on smaller screens.
- On my personal laptop (an older thinkpad), scrolling through the docs was unresponsive at times. In general, I'm a fan of the "everything-on-one-page" approach, because it makes grepping the docs easier. But I think that the quantity of dynamic elements in the API interferes with this approach :/
- I don't appreciate applications that hijack ctrl+f. I appreciate that you can double click to get native browser search, and that this is explained in the modal, but I really wonder if this helps people navigate more efficiently. I appreciate that the work that's gone into this feature must be very impressive, but I'd prefer a search bar with a different hotkey than ctrl+f. Might be worth AB testing.
Ending on a note of praise, the dashboard experience is incredible. Huge kudos on how far it's come, and how easy it is for nontechnical people to use and discover.
I used the "beta" react hooks integration, and the UX of getting it all set up was basically flawless. I found the documentation (especially the quickstarts/tutorials) to be incredibly helpful.
Four pieces of constructive feedback:
- There seemed to be 3 or so quickstarts/tutorials for the same developer flow, at varying levels of detail (good), but they all had similar names and were difficult to distinguish from each other. My impression was that they were built on top of each other (i.e. one was X years old, another one X-2, etc.), but the old ones weren't removed? Unsure.
- I found the API documentation to be very good on big screens, but relatively painful on smaller screens.
- On my personal laptop (an older thinkpad), scrolling through the docs was unresponsive at times. In general, I'm a fan of the "everything-on-one-page" approach, because it makes grepping the docs easier. But I think that the quantity of dynamic elements in the API interferes with this approach :/
- I don't appreciate applications that hijack ctrl+f. I appreciate that you can double click to get native browser search, and that this is explained in the modal, but I really wonder if this helps people navigate more efficiently. I appreciate that the work that's gone into this feature must be very impressive, but I'd prefer a search bar with a different hotkey than ctrl+f. Might be worth AB testing.
Ending on a note of praise, the dashboard experience is incredible. Huge kudos on how far it's come, and how easy it is for nontechnical people to use and discover.
> - There seemed to be 3 or so quickstarts/tutorials for the same developer flow, at varying levels of detail (good), but they all had similar names and were difficult to distinguish from each other. My impression was that they were built on top of each other (i.e. one was X years old, another one X-2, etc.), but the old ones weren't removed? Unsure.
Second this. Stripe's documentation is generally great, but when looking for recipes/tutorials you run into a lot of seemingly duplicative content which makes it confusing to figure out which is right for you. I had this issue trying to create Connected Payments, specifically.
Second this. Stripe's documentation is generally great, but when looking for recipes/tutorials you run into a lot of seemingly duplicative content which makes it confusing to figure out which is right for you. I had this issue trying to create Connected Payments, specifically.
I want to third this, this last week I've been integrating payments and I'll soon be adding in Connect as well. It took me quite a bit of back and forth on whether to use Checkout or Elements and I then ended up with 2 different recipes which resulted in the same thing but both highlighted different "important information".
Eventually I just picked one and it seemd to work out really well though. I've also recently been working with the slack docs and they're the total extreme, 8 different guides with similar names and various different deprecation notices around.
On the upside I felt like having both recipes was really useful to get a good overview of the options and possibilities. I'm really happy with my implementation now and I don't think slotting in Connect should be too tricky. Using the stipe docs was a breath of freshair compared to the Slack api docs which I've been using recently and have been an abysmal experience filled with hundreds of open browser tabs.
Eventually I just picked one and it seemd to work out really well though. I've also recently been working with the slack docs and they're the total extreme, 8 different guides with similar names and various different deprecation notices around.
On the upside I felt like having both recipes was really useful to get a good overview of the options and possibilities. I'm really happy with my implementation now and I don't think slotting in Connect should be too tricky. Using the stipe docs was a breath of freshair compared to the Slack api docs which I've been using recently and have been an abysmal experience filled with hundreds of open browser tabs.
We just revamped our Connect docs... would love to hear any thoughts you have on the revised version. (Feel free to email me directly -- [email protected] -- and I'll forward your thoughts to the team.)
Oh hey, just saw your response =)
Not something I'm likely to be looking at in the nearish future, but the next time I need to do some refactoring/rolling out a new Stripe feature, I'll definitely drop you a line with my thoughts. Thanks for the heads up!
Not something I'm likely to be looking at in the nearish future, but the next time I need to do some refactoring/rolling out a new Stripe feature, I'll definitely drop you a line with my thoughts. Thanks for the heads up!
Thanks! Very helpful on all counts. (And thank you for the kind words on the Dashboard... the team has made a lot of progress there.)
I've been using Stripe for several years and love it. Switching to payment intents this year was seamless.
One thing I'd love you guys to do is create your own QuickBooks connection app. Most companies offer their own - yours is through Sush.io with your logo and bad ratings. I can't get it to work and I'm not the only one.
One thing I'd love you guys to do is create your own QuickBooks connection app. Most companies offer their own - yours is through Sush.io with your logo and bad ratings. I can't get it to work and I'm not the only one.
Good feedback -- thank you. We'll take a look.
And while you're here, have you read Joseph Tainter's "Collapse of Complex Societies"? He is a very underrated thinker in the lack-of-progress area you've shown interest in.
I'm not at Stripe but would be keen to work on this as a side-project. Would you be willing to be user #1? If so, please ping me (email in profile). Thanks!
Congratulations. We've recently decided to go with Paypal Pro for better rates on micropayments. Do you guys plan to have a similar program soon?
Yeah, we don't like the current situation, and this is a topic of ongoing discussion. Credit card network fees make it tricky to do it well but we really want to find a way to make it work.
Can you elaborate like I'm 5? Just very high level for those of us who only know "they charge a flat fee and a percent which makes microtransactions hard".
What are the strategies/thoughts in the industry? Holding and batching payments on a per-user basis? Trying to get agreements so you can batch payments on a per-processor or per-network agreement? Hourly? Daily? Weekly?
What are the strategies/thoughts in the industry? Holding and batching payments on a per-user basis? Trying to get agreements so you can batch payments on a per-processor or per-network agreement? Hourly? Daily? Weekly?
> Just very high level for those of us who only know "they charge a flat fee and a percent which makes microtransactions hard".
That's pretty much the story :-). And so the questions are then whether we subsidize the transactions, batch them (as you say, though that makes refunds and statement descriptors tricky), get card networks to change their policies, or somehow shift how the payments are made (e.g. encouraging cheaper payment methods).
That's pretty much the story :-). And so the questions are then whether we subsidize the transactions, batch them (as you say, though that makes refunds and statement descriptors tricky), get card networks to change their policies, or somehow shift how the payments are made (e.g. encouraging cheaper payment methods).
I'm honestly a bit surprised credit card companies haven't been more open to the option of lowering the cost of microtransactions, since that seems to be what the Internet's moving towards as a whole.
They'll drag their feet until they can't. It's a go first bunch-up. Eventually someone will do it as a competitive advantage attempt and the rest will fast-follow (you see this happen frequently in such markets, as with the $0 stock trading bunch-up & fast-follow that happened recently).
The various US credit card & processing companies have an extraordinary thing going for themselves. Visa and Mastercard have cartel-like margins (Visa's operating income margin for 4Q19 was 66%, you don't see that outside of maybe illicit drug operations or Facebook's monopoly in its earlier thinner incarnation pre-Russiagate). They're super sensitive to giving any ground on their fee levels, out of fear (correctly so) that they'll never get them back.
Before the market drop, Visa was worth more than all publicly traded banks in Europe combined (frankly that may still be true post market drop, as Visa hasn't declined all that much).
The various US credit card & processing companies have an extraordinary thing going for themselves. Visa and Mastercard have cartel-like margins (Visa's operating income margin for 4Q19 was 66%, you don't see that outside of maybe illicit drug operations or Facebook's monopoly in its earlier thinner incarnation pre-Russiagate). They're super sensitive to giving any ground on their fee levels, out of fear (correctly so) that they'll never get them back.
Before the market drop, Visa was worth more than all publicly traded banks in Europe combined (frankly that may still be true post market drop, as Visa hasn't declined all that much).
The EU had to legislate to get the fees low enough that microtransactions might possibly be reasonable.
Visa etc are now only allowed to charge a percentage, 0.2-0.3%, but the intermediate (Stripe etc) can still add a flat-rate fee.
Visa etc are now only allowed to charge a percentage, 0.2-0.3%, but the intermediate (Stripe etc) can still add a flat-rate fee.
Makes you wonder how much those companies really compete.
I recall thinking a few years ago that offering batching as a business built atop stripe sounded like a neat business -- effectively letting users choose a batching solution if they desired, but after closely reading the Stripe Terms of Service, I think it appeared to be disallowed.
If Stripe were willing to allow third parties to act as a batching passthrough (or if I was wrong and you do!), this seems like a low-cost way to let the market decide what an acceptable refund/statement descriptor regime should look like.
If Stripe were willing to allow third parties to act as a batching passthrough (or if I was wrong and you do!), this seems like a low-cost way to let the market decide what an acceptable refund/statement descriptor regime should look like.
> batch them (as you say, though that makes refunds and statement descriptors tricky)
Maybe batch them per user per website, that will solve statement descriptors a bit
Maybe batch them per user per website, that will solve statement descriptors a bit
At a very high level the batching-with-refunds issue sounds like the kind of problem that the Lightning network on bitcoin tries to solve, or bilateral netting in other financial contexts.
In the public transport space, batching is absolutely required, usually there's a mechanism of "preauth on first tap" and rapid distribution of deny lists.
Payment requests are accumulated and batched, combined with "capping" of travel costs (eg max/day, weekly discounts etc).
Payment requests are accumulated and batched, combined with "capping" of travel costs (eg max/day, weekly discounts etc).
Wish you could disintermediate credit card fees. I'm sort of hopeful that credit card surcharging might grow (https://www.cardx.com/) and start competition on those costs.
I don't have strong feelings either way on having consumers pay CC processing fees, but encouraging them to use debit cards online seems irresponsible given the non-existent fraud protections on debit cards. Of course it's technically consumers' responsibility to know and trade off that risk versus the savings, but at least in the US the sad reality is that personal finance education is woefully lacking or non-existent for most people and they don't know the difference.
Yeah. I'm optimistic that the the relentless long-term competitive march to improved customer experience will include better fraud protections on debit cards. Reduced expenses as technology helps us identify fraud will also help.
I haven't used a debit card in years to maximize benefits (altho I sometimes use cash when required by small businesses), but the Capital One debit card advertises $0 Fraud Liability https://www.capitalone.com/bank/debit-card/.
I haven't used a debit card in years to maximize benefits (altho I sometimes use cash when required by small businesses), but the Capital One debit card advertises $0 Fraud Liability https://www.capitalone.com/bank/debit-card/.
Generally in the US, debit card fraud liability is limited to $500 if the card owner reports it within 60 days.
My strategy is to have less than $100 available in the account connected with my debit card. If I need more for some reason I can just transfer on the spot.
This also makes me more aware of my spending, since I need to manually keep topping up the account.
This also makes me more aware of my spending, since I need to manually keep topping up the account.
Seconded! We do micropayments in the $2-3 range and $0.30/transaction is a huge cut of our already slim margins. We're also in the process of migrating the bulk of our transactions to Paypal, but would love to switch back to primarily Stripe at some point as we have had terrible experiences with Paypal in the past.
Related: Have people contacted Stripe's sales team for custom pricing for micro payments (its what they ask you to do on their pricing page, iirc)
I'm late, so you probably won't see this (might shoot you an email with this same thought.), but I want to echo a piece of feedback I sent to you last year (and the year before I think):
Faster checkout. And improved trust (somehow).
I hear you folks acquired fast.co which seems to be a step in this direction. Entering card details on every site is problematic. Some customers are still worried about it and prefer to use PayPal. Indeed, when I offer both as an option, and make clear Stripe payments go via Stripe and we don't see details, about 80% of people choose to pay with PayPal.
Stripe Checkout, being on your platform and not our sites, seems to be a step in the right direction. I'd also like to see faster payments. My opinion: checkout takes too long. Sites making people create accounts, go through 4 pages and then enter card is bad.
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I think, honestly, integrating fast.co into Stripe and making it highly encouraged is the future. Go a step further and encourage sites to stop making users create accounts. SSO-style system, perhaps, but easy to integrate. Authentication is a pain for me as a customer on sites - I have too many accounts and it drains a lot of time combined. I really think your company has the power to make a difference to this problem.
Faster checkout. And improved trust (somehow).
I hear you folks acquired fast.co which seems to be a step in this direction. Entering card details on every site is problematic. Some customers are still worried about it and prefer to use PayPal. Indeed, when I offer both as an option, and make clear Stripe payments go via Stripe and we don't see details, about 80% of people choose to pay with PayPal.
Stripe Checkout, being on your platform and not our sites, seems to be a step in the right direction. I'd also like to see faster payments. My opinion: checkout takes too long. Sites making people create accounts, go through 4 pages and then enter card is bad.
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I think, honestly, integrating fast.co into Stripe and making it highly encouraged is the future. Go a step further and encourage sites to stop making users create accounts. SSO-style system, perhaps, but easy to integrate. Authentication is a pain for me as a customer on sites - I have too many accounts and it drains a lot of time combined. I really think your company has the power to make a difference to this problem.
My biggest two issues:
1) Stripe docs are inaccurate. They frequently don't work exactly as they describe for given subscription workflows. Sometimes an API call is entirely wrong, sometimes it doesn't return the data the docs indicate, and sometimes the arguments it describes just doesn't exist. (Yes, I've ensured I'm using the latest API version in use).
2) The docs have no changelog. There's an API changelog that indicates when API's change, there's nothing indicating when entire chunks of the documentation change on the website, along with the recommended way to integrate. The most obvious example of this is that the subscription workflow docs got a huge makeover in the past year (sometime), with some really great flowchart diagrams. But back to point #1, some of the API calls listed here are not actually valid. If I've just missed the changelog for the website docs, please point me in the right direction. :)
For reference, I'm using Node at the moment, but I've also integrated with Python, and there were breaker bugs in those docs as well. I eventually end up reading the HTTP API docs, then going through the SDK's to see where they went wrong, or the docs went wrong.
1) Stripe docs are inaccurate. They frequently don't work exactly as they describe for given subscription workflows. Sometimes an API call is entirely wrong, sometimes it doesn't return the data the docs indicate, and sometimes the arguments it describes just doesn't exist. (Yes, I've ensured I'm using the latest API version in use).
2) The docs have no changelog. There's an API changelog that indicates when API's change, there's nothing indicating when entire chunks of the documentation change on the website, along with the recommended way to integrate. The most obvious example of this is that the subscription workflow docs got a huge makeover in the past year (sometime), with some really great flowchart diagrams. But back to point #1, some of the API calls listed here are not actually valid. If I've just missed the changelog for the website docs, please point me in the right direction. :)
For reference, I'm using Node at the moment, but I've also integrated with Python, and there were breaker bugs in those docs as well. I eventually end up reading the HTTP API docs, then going through the SDK's to see where they went wrong, or the docs went wrong.
For E2E testing, a mocked Stripe with some state would be a boon. Because calling your test servers takes a lot of time (and some call results differ between test and prod mode). And using Wiremock is a bitch when creating on-the-fly random fixtures.
Hey Patrick,
It would be great if Stripe Checkout included VAT-related features:
* Detect country and - if needed - add appropriate VAT
* Allow customer to add a valid VAT number, so that when appropriate tax is not charged
* Offer clear reporting on what VAT has been collected for each jurisdiction
I realise this is a big, big can of worms. But that’s why we use Stripe, right? For help handling that big can of worms that is international payment collections. :)
It would be great if Stripe Checkout included VAT-related features:
* Detect country and - if needed - add appropriate VAT
* Allow customer to add a valid VAT number, so that when appropriate tax is not charged
* Offer clear reporting on what VAT has been collected for each jurisdiction
I realise this is a big, big can of worms. But that’s why we use Stripe, right? For help handling that big can of worms that is international payment collections. :)
My company uses Chargebee as the subscription management layer (between stripe and our systems; they perform charging, billing and dunning for us, and also offer us a slick interface to hand out rebates and the like); they are able to at least determine the correct VAT amount for European customers (based on IP/asking the user). It's not free though, but I'm happy we are able to focus on our product instead of those things.
Josh here from the Stripe Checkout team. We're actively thinking about VAT-related features for Checkout. We'd love to chat; drop me a note at [email protected]
Josh, I appreciate you being receptive.
But I've been asking Stripe for this since 2015. I don't know what info I can possibly offer you that you surely haven't heard from tons of customers over the years.
But I've been asking Stripe for this since 2015. I don't know what info I can possibly offer you that you surely haven't heard from tons of customers over the years.
Probably not news to Stripe and not a priority, but just thought I'd mention it:
The only reason we are not using Stripe is the lack of support for Finnish payment methods - around 70% of our retail website customers pay using the local "bank buttons" and 10% use local mobile payments (MobilePay, Pivo).
The only reason we are not using Stripe is the lack of support for Finnish payment methods - around 70% of our retail website customers pay using the local "bank buttons" and 10% use local mobile payments (MobilePay, Pivo).
We had to move off of Stripe because Stripe doesn't handle tax collection and remittance. We've moved to Paddle which takes care of that for us. Recommend!
Hi! Thanks for this feedback. I work at Stripe on improving our tax reporting product. May you elaborate on what was missing exactly?
Sure, we wanted Stripe to handle the taxes like Paddle does. Instead, Stripe just asks you to figure that out yourself or contract with another company through a complicated integration.
As far as I'm aware, Stripe has no tax product comparable to what a merchant of record like Paddle offers. Has this changed?
Hey! I'm another Stripe working on tax compliance pain points. Would be keen to chat about your experience with Paddle and specifically what type of solution you are looking for w/r/t tax and/or product fulfillment. If you're up to chat, email me at [email protected].
Either way, thanks for the feedback!
Either way, thanks for the feedback!
Just so I'm not misleading anyone, we're not actually using Paddle ourselves. I elaborated on why we ruled it out in another comment[1].
To explain where we're coming from here, I personally learned a classic first-time entrepreneur lesson the hard way some years ago: if we're not a payments business then we should focus on what we are, not on payment mechanics.
The first time I started a B2C, I naively thought I could do better, and to be fair, I really did implement a simple, robust, flexible system that fit our needs well. But over time, even the better payment services started breaking APIs and neglecting documentation and dropping customer service standards and increasing prices, and maintaining those integrations became painful. Governments started changing their regulations and tax rules, and updating our systems to keep up with the ever-changing compliance and tax obligations become painful too. We also found that fraud and chargebacks weren't a significant problem for us, but surprisingly, churn due to unreliable card charges was unbelievably bad and could turn an otherwise healthy growth rate negative all on its own, which was not a good combination with the aforementioned drop in standards at the payment services.
What we're now looking for, in a nutshell, is a service to which we can outsource payment processing, subscription management, and all of the sales tax collection, reporting and remittance obligations. I don't want to use APIs or webhooks any more than I absolutely have to. I want to fill in correct, context-aware, all-inclusive prices on our pricing page with ideally one line of code. I want to hand our customers off smoothly to a well-designed, batteries-included sign-up flow with ideally one line of code. I want a simple notification to reach my server when a customer has paid us so we can have our systems respond accordingly, and I want simple notifications if anything has gone wrong so we can contact our customer or payment service and deal with it.
I do not want to know what the current sales tax rates are in Western Nowhere, Somecountry, and I certainly do not want to have to sign up for a government programme and file reports and remit taxes there because once upon a time we had one customer who signed up for one month and we collected 1.50 Nowheredollars in sales tax.
I do not want to have any UI on my site and therefore any code behind it for upgrading, downgrading, cancelling, refunding, retrying failed charges or sending flowers on my customer's birthday, except to the extent that we provide a simple way for a customer to indicate they want to do something and we can then hand off the mechanics to the payment service if we agree, again ideally with one line of code.
I do want a simple, effective dashboard facility on the payment service that lets me see and control all of those things (well, maybe not the flowers) and any other relevant settings if I want to, and I want it to be somebody else's problem to implement and maintain that facility.
I don't know what proportion of our revenues we'd be willing to give up for a service like that, but it would be far higher than anything we pay to any payment service today.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22896600
To explain where we're coming from here, I personally learned a classic first-time entrepreneur lesson the hard way some years ago: if we're not a payments business then we should focus on what we are, not on payment mechanics.
The first time I started a B2C, I naively thought I could do better, and to be fair, I really did implement a simple, robust, flexible system that fit our needs well. But over time, even the better payment services started breaking APIs and neglecting documentation and dropping customer service standards and increasing prices, and maintaining those integrations became painful. Governments started changing their regulations and tax rules, and updating our systems to keep up with the ever-changing compliance and tax obligations become painful too. We also found that fraud and chargebacks weren't a significant problem for us, but surprisingly, churn due to unreliable card charges was unbelievably bad and could turn an otherwise healthy growth rate negative all on its own, which was not a good combination with the aforementioned drop in standards at the payment services.
What we're now looking for, in a nutshell, is a service to which we can outsource payment processing, subscription management, and all of the sales tax collection, reporting and remittance obligations. I don't want to use APIs or webhooks any more than I absolutely have to. I want to fill in correct, context-aware, all-inclusive prices on our pricing page with ideally one line of code. I want to hand our customers off smoothly to a well-designed, batteries-included sign-up flow with ideally one line of code. I want a simple notification to reach my server when a customer has paid us so we can have our systems respond accordingly, and I want simple notifications if anything has gone wrong so we can contact our customer or payment service and deal with it.
I do not want to know what the current sales tax rates are in Western Nowhere, Somecountry, and I certainly do not want to have to sign up for a government programme and file reports and remit taxes there because once upon a time we had one customer who signed up for one month and we collected 1.50 Nowheredollars in sales tax.
I do not want to have any UI on my site and therefore any code behind it for upgrading, downgrading, cancelling, refunding, retrying failed charges or sending flowers on my customer's birthday, except to the extent that we provide a simple way for a customer to indicate they want to do something and we can then hand off the mechanics to the payment service if we agree, again ideally with one line of code.
I do want a simple, effective dashboard facility on the payment service that lets me see and control all of those things (well, maybe not the flowers) and any other relevant settings if I want to, and I want it to be somebody else's problem to implement and maintain that facility.
I don't know what proportion of our revenues we'd be willing to give up for a service like that, but it would be far higher than anything we pay to any payment service today.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22896600
We looked into Paddle recently as a possible way of handling the payment mechanics and the tax and compliance issues for a new business. It looked quite promising on both of those fronts.
Then we read their legal terms, found about half a dozen obvious deal-breakers, and lost all interest.
Then we read their legal terms, found about half a dozen obvious deal-breakers, and lost all interest.
I'm not familiar with Paddle versus Stripe, what are (some of) the dealbreakers? And does Stripe not have these same dealbreakers?
Among other things, it appears that Paddle
1. reserves the right to unilaterally vary the contract in any way, with immediate effect and without actively notifying the merchant
2. ensures that if anything goes wrong, any legal action against it by its merchants would have to be taken in another country and under another legal system, even if Paddle operates in the merchant's own country
3. takes extensive control of the product or service they are selling on their merchant's behalf, to the extent that they can sell it to whoever they want, sell it at whatever price they want, give demos to whoever they want, etc.
4. requires that any software it is selling on behalf of its merchants be bug-free, and that the merchants accept liability for anything bad that happens if it isn't.
It's hard to take any service seriously when it has terms like that in its standard agreement. Unless these kinds of terms are unenforceable where you are (or where Paddle is, given the above?) and you have a legal opinion telling you so that you trust enough to bet your entire business on it, it seems like you'd have to be crazy to accept them.
I've seen some very one-sided terms from other payment services before, but I take them at their word that those terms are typically required by the giants behind the systems like the card networks and banking groups. I think some of those should be also be unenforceable by law, but right now that seems to be the price of admission. I've never seen anyone else seriously suggesting the kinds of terms that Paddle is, though.
Edit: Changed to present tense, after checking Paddle's legal terms of use at the time of writing at https://paddle.com/legal/ to confirm that these criticisms are still current. The first two points above are in the preamble at the start of the document. The third is under 4.2 and 6.1. The fourth is under 13.1(ii) and 13.2(ii).
1. reserves the right to unilaterally vary the contract in any way, with immediate effect and without actively notifying the merchant
2. ensures that if anything goes wrong, any legal action against it by its merchants would have to be taken in another country and under another legal system, even if Paddle operates in the merchant's own country
3. takes extensive control of the product or service they are selling on their merchant's behalf, to the extent that they can sell it to whoever they want, sell it at whatever price they want, give demos to whoever they want, etc.
4. requires that any software it is selling on behalf of its merchants be bug-free, and that the merchants accept liability for anything bad that happens if it isn't.
It's hard to take any service seriously when it has terms like that in its standard agreement. Unless these kinds of terms are unenforceable where you are (or where Paddle is, given the above?) and you have a legal opinion telling you so that you trust enough to bet your entire business on it, it seems like you'd have to be crazy to accept them.
I've seen some very one-sided terms from other payment services before, but I take them at their word that those terms are typically required by the giants behind the systems like the card networks and banking groups. I think some of those should be also be unenforceable by law, but right now that seems to be the price of admission. I've never seen anyone else seriously suggesting the kinds of terms that Paddle is, though.
Edit: Changed to present tense, after checking Paddle's legal terms of use at the time of writing at https://paddle.com/legal/ to confirm that these criticisms are still current. The first two points above are in the preamble at the start of the document. The third is under 4.2 and 6.1. The fourth is under 13.1(ii) and 13.2(ii).
I've taken a look at the terms, and it seems to me like they are more for when Paddle acts as your ecommerce store rather than just your payment gateway. This is where the right to demo and sell the product shows up, because without that, you wouldn't be able to use Paddle to sell your product. Again, this is not the same as what Stripe is offering, it's more akin to Gumroad, Podia, and the like. Also, while I understand appeal to authority to not be the most trusting of options, it seems like many other well-known companies use Paddle, and I assume their legal teams have scoured through Paddle's terms of use, so it looks good enough for me.
I've taken a look at the terms, and it seems to me like they are more for when Paddle acts as your ecommerce store rather than just your payment gateway.
That might have been the intent, but I see nothing in the terms that restricts the scope of those I mentioned to that situation.
And the general "we can change anything we like and you can't easily sue us ever" would be inappropriate even in that situation.
I assume their legal teams have scoured through Paddle's terms of use
I respectfully suggest that this is an extremely dangerous assumption when you're talking about a binding legal agreement and the future of your business.
I've occasionally had a real lawyer look at the terms for some very popular online services that we were considering using, particularly when I thought they looked risky, and received formal advice along the lines of, "Run away. Don't walk. Run."
That might have been the intent, but I see nothing in the terms that restricts the scope of those I mentioned to that situation.
And the general "we can change anything we like and you can't easily sue us ever" would be inappropriate even in that situation.
I assume their legal teams have scoured through Paddle's terms of use
I respectfully suggest that this is an extremely dangerous assumption when you're talking about a binding legal agreement and the future of your business.
I've occasionally had a real lawyer look at the terms for some very popular online services that we were considering using, particularly when I thought they looked risky, and received formal advice along the lines of, "Run away. Don't walk. Run."
> We had to move off of Stripe because Stripe doesn't handle tax collection and remittance.
Chargebee does this on top of Stripe.
Chargebee does this on top of Stripe.
They only work for subscriptions though - one-off payments (e.g. e-commerce sites) can't use them.
(There are hacky workarounds - but likely not worth the effort)
(There are hacky workarounds - but likely not worth the effort)
I did an online shop for my in-laws due to the shutdown and it's working really great with Stripe and Woocommerce. So massive thanks for that.
We had one hick-up, which was the fault of a wrong PHP setting and we got several duplicate orders as a result. In the stripe dashboard I could clearly see failed webhooks in the post mortem. So if there were some kind of email alarm if an error threshold is exceeded that would be nice. I did not find any such feature, if I should have missed it please point me towards the right direction. Cheers.
We had one hick-up, which was the fault of a wrong PHP setting and we got several duplicate orders as a result. In the stripe dashboard I could clearly see failed webhooks in the post mortem. So if there were some kind of email alarm if an error threshold is exceeded that would be nice. I did not find any such feature, if I should have missed it please point me towards the right direction. Cheers.
I'll send an email later as well, but I just wanted to raise that we are very concerned about our ability to continue integrating with Stripe. We've loved using Stripe for years, but given all of the uncertainty surrounding the tipsi-stripe project and the lack of an official stripe solution for React-Native, we're questioning how wise it is to be dependant on Stripe. I've seen others speaking to your staff on twitter and github about this, so I don't think we're alone.
There must be hundreds (thousands?) of apps using this integration and all of them have been stuck in limbo for many months now. We would like to enable SCA, but the beta version of this project doesn't seem to have documentation beyond a few comments in github issues here and there, and the discord is almost solely populated by people asking how to use the beta and no one can answer them.
I think whichever of the major payment platforms extends a hand out to the React-Native community first, with a confident, well documented official project, will be celebrated and would cement themselves as THE payment platform for people using React-Native.
There must be hundreds (thousands?) of apps using this integration and all of them have been stuck in limbo for many months now. We would like to enable SCA, but the beta version of this project doesn't seem to have documentation beyond a few comments in github issues here and there, and the discord is almost solely populated by people asking how to use the beta and no one can answer them.
I think whichever of the major payment platforms extends a hand out to the React-Native community first, with a confident, well documented official project, will be celebrated and would cement themselves as THE payment platform for people using React-Native.
@pendingHN
@chris_trag from Stripe here. The React Native situation is very much top-of-mind and we're working on the right lasting solution for your business and the RN community.
When we had submitted the PRs to provide 3D Secure / SCA support, we had not anticipated the work would be left on an experimental branch for this amount of time.
This spring we've been able to connect with the previous maintainers and understand the business situation behind this community repo. With all things open source, we want to be mindful of projects that are run by the community while determining which key libraries not in active development/maintenance.
All this to say, peace of mind and clarity on how React Native devs can implement Stripe with ease is a priority and I apologize for the limbo you've been in.
Thank you so much for your patience as we pull the remediation together.
Happy to chat directly as well -> trag at stripe dot com
@chris_trag from Stripe here. The React Native situation is very much top-of-mind and we're working on the right lasting solution for your business and the RN community.
When we had submitted the PRs to provide 3D Secure / SCA support, we had not anticipated the work would be left on an experimental branch for this amount of time.
This spring we've been able to connect with the previous maintainers and understand the business situation behind this community repo. With all things open source, we want to be mindful of projects that are run by the community while determining which key libraries not in active development/maintenance.
All this to say, peace of mind and clarity on how React Native devs can implement Stripe with ease is a priority and I apologize for the limbo you've been in.
Thank you so much for your patience as we pull the remediation together.
Happy to chat directly as well -> trag at stripe dot com
love stripe, but you have a death spiral in your process. I tried to reactivate my account. no longer have the old domain. so I can't contact support because I can't log in. it takes WEEKS to get paid with a new account. after more than five years [on and off] with you, I would have hoped for a better process. #justSayin since you asked.
p.s. i emailed this too.
Hm, sorry about this. Could you forward that email to me at [email protected] and I see what's going on?
i'm asking in a very unofficial position.
The company I work for is in the travel industry and we've received a large number of charge backs compared to normal. Our agents are working as best as they can, but our tools were never really designed for 5000+ tickets to be active at 1 time, so it's slow going for them as they contact the guest, then contact the provider, then talk to the guest, etc.
Are you going to offer some lenience to companies who have gotten a huge spike in charge backs just due to an increase time in support tickets?
We are trying to find ways to just refund the guest where we know the hotel has closed, but there's no master list of that so we can't just blindly refund everybody
The company I work for is in the travel industry and we've received a large number of charge backs compared to normal. Our agents are working as best as they can, but our tools were never really designed for 5000+ tickets to be active at 1 time, so it's slow going for them as they contact the guest, then contact the provider, then talk to the guest, etc.
Are you going to offer some lenience to companies who have gotten a huge spike in charge backs just due to an increase time in support tickets?
We are trying to find ways to just refund the guest where we know the hotel has closed, but there's no master list of that so we can't just blindly refund everybody
I work at Stripe.
Many companies in travel (and similarly affected industries) are having challenges shaped similarly to yours. There is a very active conversation in the industry about what we can do about the standard process for chargebacks to support this better. (Chargebacks were never designed to be a massively high-volume simultaneous event.)
Concretely you could imagine some specific consequences of chargebacks. I don’t have anything specific that I can share as of this exact minute with respect to each of those concrete consequences, but we’re working on this very actively. A lot of this work requires coordination with other firms. Chargebacks are broadly adjudicated by banks with reference to the rules established by the card networks, so we have limited control over per-chargeback decisions, but the industry is moving quickly on trying to decide what to do about this sort of chargeback given the circumstances.
As always, we’re in the corner of companies trying to do the right thing. As you get through this, if there’s specific things we can help on, please flag them to us; we can’t promise saying yes to every request but we can promise you’ll have our attention.
Many companies in travel (and similarly affected industries) are having challenges shaped similarly to yours. There is a very active conversation in the industry about what we can do about the standard process for chargebacks to support this better. (Chargebacks were never designed to be a massively high-volume simultaneous event.)
Concretely you could imagine some specific consequences of chargebacks. I don’t have anything specific that I can share as of this exact minute with respect to each of those concrete consequences, but we’re working on this very actively. A lot of this work requires coordination with other firms. Chargebacks are broadly adjudicated by banks with reference to the rules established by the card networks, so we have limited control over per-chargeback decisions, but the industry is moving quickly on trying to decide what to do about this sort of chargeback given the circumstances.
As always, we’re in the corner of companies trying to do the right thing. As you get through this, if there’s specific things we can help on, please flag them to us; we can’t promise saying yes to every request but we can promise you’ll have our attention.
Thanks for your response. We are more just concerned about being dropped over the large number of charge backs in a small period.
So much so that we are actively implementing a new provider as backup so we aren’t stranded if we get cut off.
So much so that we are actively implementing a new provider as backup so we aren’t stranded if we get cut off.
It's probably wishful thinking, but times like these would be super valuable and helpful if Stripe showed their daily processing volume and perhaps general aggregate statistics and graphs (per country). I know it's probably intellectual property and secret sauce, but imagine:
"Since US Covid shutdown (as of March 13th) Stripe US processing volume is up X% or $Y billion."
This general information would provide great context to the health of the US economy and e-commerce. I know other companies such as payroll processing (ADP) release numbers and the stock market uses those as an input to the health of the economy.
"Since US Covid shutdown (as of March 13th) Stripe US processing volume is up X% or $Y billion."
This general information would provide great context to the health of the US economy and e-commerce. I know other companies such as payroll processing (ADP) release numbers and the stock market uses those as an input to the health of the economy.
Using Stripe Checkout (where you create a stripe session on ur server and redirect the client to stripe to complete payment and then listen for a Webhook that says the checkout session was completed) was so amazingly easy to setup and use. My app that uses it will up and running soon, Stripe has been a pleasure to use so far!
Find it really cool that the cofounder is directly reaching out to the developer community. Keep up the great work :)
I found some difficulty with the documentation around submitting dictionary values since the "curl" documentation didn't include any examples. Example being address which wasn't obvious needed to be sent as address[city]=value instead of address.city=value
I've been making lots of little business apps and integrating them with Stripe. My main handicap has been the need to create a different Stripe account each time. It would be nice if I could have multiple sets of api keys under one account for each of my businesses
We added that last year! (Or maybe the year before...)
Thanks for reaching out. You have a giant feature gap, but also an org problem I think and I would like to explain because I have been trying to get the giant feature gap filled for about 3 years and people there seem to do whatever the opposite of caring is. It relates to being able to test production environments safely, which in our opinion is something every company should do extensive production testing.
Based on many support conversations with me trying to get a feature built here over the last year, Stripe's "official position" appears to be "never test your production application." Sometimes they say "do it but only for $1 every other month", which is functionally the same as saying "don't ever test production." if you don't have any products or services for $1 and do regular deployments.
I understand the reasons why you don't want people using live credit cards to test in production (e.g. factoring), but that isn't what I think most users want to do (it is not what we want to use). We don't want to use real cards at all but we want to test production.
The best answer to customers who want to test in production is to give them the ability to safety test live cards. Please see the attached specification I pulled together which would solve this problem for Stripe, card networks, and your customers. If Stripe cannot implement some feature like "Safe Live Testing", then we will ultimately be forced to migrate away from Stripe. This is a critical feature for us, and I am sure many customers.
https://tidy-static-websites.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Stri...
We thought our integration with stripe was down in production last week, and we could not run any checks to tell if that was actually the case. This would have fixed it for us.
I think there is also a cultural issue here because I believe any mention of "production testing" is currently falling in the compliance camp of Stripe. Which means their job is to prevent fraud, but nobody seems to say "its ok to want this. The response every time from support and compliance teams is basically "you are bad to test in production, never do it." But they instead should say "I totally understand why you would want to test your production site. This is a gap on our side, and we should fix it." If there is an issue with Visa/Mastercard agreements or something, then they should say "I totally understand why you would want to test your production site. We are completely unable to support it because Visa has this rule that says X, we are working with them to change it. Here is how you can contact Visa to express your support for the rule change, we are spearheading a campaign to ensure customers can do this."
I hope this feedback is helpful, and while the "spec" is not very good, I did put substantial effort into thinking through a solution here, so I hope you review it and get it to the right team. I will also email, thanks!
Based on many support conversations with me trying to get a feature built here over the last year, Stripe's "official position" appears to be "never test your production application." Sometimes they say "do it but only for $1 every other month", which is functionally the same as saying "don't ever test production." if you don't have any products or services for $1 and do regular deployments.
I understand the reasons why you don't want people using live credit cards to test in production (e.g. factoring), but that isn't what I think most users want to do (it is not what we want to use). We don't want to use real cards at all but we want to test production.
The best answer to customers who want to test in production is to give them the ability to safety test live cards. Please see the attached specification I pulled together which would solve this problem for Stripe, card networks, and your customers. If Stripe cannot implement some feature like "Safe Live Testing", then we will ultimately be forced to migrate away from Stripe. This is a critical feature for us, and I am sure many customers.
https://tidy-static-websites.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Stri...
We thought our integration with stripe was down in production last week, and we could not run any checks to tell if that was actually the case. This would have fixed it for us.
I think there is also a cultural issue here because I believe any mention of "production testing" is currently falling in the compliance camp of Stripe. Which means their job is to prevent fraud, but nobody seems to say "its ok to want this. The response every time from support and compliance teams is basically "you are bad to test in production, never do it." But they instead should say "I totally understand why you would want to test your production site. This is a gap on our side, and we should fix it." If there is an issue with Visa/Mastercard agreements or something, then they should say "I totally understand why you would want to test your production site. We are completely unable to support it because Visa has this rule that says X, we are working with them to change it. Here is how you can contact Visa to express your support for the rule change, we are spearheading a campaign to ensure customers can do this."
I hope this feedback is helpful, and while the "spec" is not very good, I did put substantial effort into thinking through a solution here, so I hope you review it and get it to the right team. I will also email, thanks!
Would love Stripe to handle bank transfers as a payment method!
Many of our customers prefer this method over card payments. Then Stripe would fully cover our payment use-case; I'd love to use Stripe alone for payment, analytics and security. Right now we can't :(
Many of our customers prefer this method over card payments. Then Stripe would fully cover our payment use-case; I'd love to use Stripe alone for payment, analytics and security. Right now we can't :(
From sw development perspective how do you create the public documentation and internal system process documentation? Tools, process and responbilities would be interesting for me for such complex business modell. Hopefully someone can shine a light..
Hey Patrick, understood that this is an extension of a previous round, but do you have any comments on the timing of this capital raise /w covid?
I imagine, with the huge spike in ecommerce, your platforms are crushing it, but curious to hear your take.
I imagine, with the huge spike in ecommerce, your platforms are crushing it, but curious to hear your take.
We've noticed a few things --
- Enterprises pivoting -- brands going direct-to-consumer, malls pivoting to online business models (seriously), and other things like that.
- SMBs going online: see this thread[0] from a French fruit seller, for example, or this thread[1] from a bar in Milwaukee. The restaurant down the street from where I used to live is now running a rapidly-growing online wine club.
- Totally new startups are getting started in response to new needs.
[0] https://twitter.com/FlorentSchmahl/status/125028359535832678...
[1] https://twitter.com/danimalnelson/status/1240004111669460992
- Enterprises pivoting -- brands going direct-to-consumer, malls pivoting to online business models (seriously), and other things like that.
- SMBs going online: see this thread[0] from a French fruit seller, for example, or this thread[1] from a bar in Milwaukee. The restaurant down the street from where I used to live is now running a rapidly-growing online wine club.
- Totally new startups are getting started in response to new needs.
[0] https://twitter.com/FlorentSchmahl/status/125028359535832678...
[1] https://twitter.com/danimalnelson/status/1240004111669460992
We started https://do.delivery/ to offer an online ordering option to locked down businesses, using Stripe Connect. Now all I can think about is other ways to use Connect. Many established businesses have broader e-commerce needs but I’ve seen farmers offer vege boxes and meal packs to great local support. Many smaller businesses are wary of investing much to start.
What did you build the landing page with? Looks very nice.
Thanks. Just custom. We built the original core in 36 hours and the landing page looked a bit different then, intending to be simple and barebones. My mother in law asked when I was going to finish the design, so I redid it instead.
wondering which of these new patterns are here to stay
Stopping new Stripe Capital offers during the COVID-19 pandemic is completely understandable, but feels like it wasn't really well communicated to long-term clients.
Will you continue to originate new Strike Capital offers? When?
Will you continue to originate new Strike Capital offers? When?
Yes, we will! (And, while we are trying to make sure we understand the impact of Covid-19 across our lending portfolio, we haven't stopped extending new loans.)
OK - for months, we had an available offer of $25k - disappeared in mid March despite minimal/normal churn at the time. Felt to us like the plug got pulled.
I need destination subscriptions - subscribe a customer on my platform to a plan on my platform and share some of the revenue with a Connect account. The workarounds needed to solve this use case are very clunky.
Any plans to make IDR currency into zero decimals so we can charge more than ~$64? Right now you cannot charge more than a million in any currency (which is reasonable) but IDR still has decimals.
Do you know why that big spike happened? Is it possibly related to people being furloughed + having new side hustles they are just now working on/starting?
Not OP, but my guess is businesses that previously had little to no online presence are scrambling to set something up so that they can continue serving customers during the pandemic.
idk, maybe easy access to contactless payments?
When will you bring back crypto payments?
Irrespective of old news or new news, it's a fantastic achievement and ye should definitely be proud of it.
I'm both a Stripe and a Paypal user. I wish Stripe made recurring payments as easy to implement as Paypal.
Having experience implementing and working with people that have used both, I'd love to hear why you think PayPal handles subscriptions better than Stripe.
In Paypal you just create a subscription button and you are done. Paypal takes care of creating the customer profile, etc. In Stripe there are a few more hoops to jump.
Is there any way coupons could be added directly on Checkout in the future?
Yes, coming soon! Email me at [email protected] if you'd like to try this feature out early.
Billing the vendor for refund fees is the biggest gripe I have. It is not only for the self-centered reason that it would affect my business – it is because it contributes to the consolidation of ecommerce to only a few select companies. It adds friction to consumer transactions with small businesses, causing consumers to become aggravated with these small businesses. It conditions consumers to believe it is easier to deal with large businesses that always seem to have a "cancel" button and easy-order-cancellation policies, opposed to the small businesses that just seem to make things hard and expensive for no good reason. This will contribute to the consolidation of ecommerce to a small number of multi-billion dollar players like Walmart, eBay, Amazon, etc. Allow me to explain:
If someone makes a purchase of a $1500 ultrasonic cleaner from me, and then realizes they made a mistake, I now have to tell them there’s a $43.50 restocking fee, even if they call me 2 minutes after they place the order. This will leave a disgusting taste in the customer’s mouth, but I have to do it, because I can’t expose myself to a $43.50 fee for something I have zero control over. That customer may eventually notice that Amazon, eBay, Walmart, etc, do not charge such a fee. The customer has no idea why – they just know dealing with Amazon means less friction. The customer will now utilize Amazon more.
Many will say that this is a dumb gripe. “If you don’t like it go somewhere else!” PayPal instituted this policy as well. They backed down temporarily after people made a stink about it, but months later continued forward with the policy. I currently use a merchant services provider that does not implement these fees, but for how long?
My time in my industry has taught me that companies will often wait for one “outlier” to make controversial reforms to their platform/products before doing it themselves. Whether it is gluing the battery inside of a cellphone, or adding strange fees to transactions. Once a profitable, anti-consumer move succeeds with the company not going out of business, it emboldens other firms to do the same.
My merchant services provider doesn’t charge this fee. Yet. But they saw Stripe charge it, and get away with it. They saw PayPal charge it and have another more profitable quarter. The outrage lasted a week, the increased profit lasted forever. “Gee, it isn’t a business killer after all. Maybe we should do it too!” will come up in corporate boardrooms across America.
Then, we’re left with a landscape where the only companies left in ecommerce who can offer customers friction-free order cancellations are Amazon, eBay, and Walmart. Who wants that? Yes, people can say “just absorb the fee if you don’t want your customers to be mad at you.” How? I am already competing as a dude with no outside financing with a trillion dollar company – I’m winning if I am making any sales at all! Now I’m expected to compete on price when I have to absorb fees when customers cancel an order?
Let’s say you manage to claw your way into a market by offering a better product, or after sales service on that product to the point where you can compete with Amazon. That is a miracle in and of itself. To then have to deal with a minefield of additional charges that your competitor doesn’t have to is just another nail in the coffin of small-business ecommerce.
I find it awful, and I protest using these services. I cut my exposure to paypal by about 95% and dodged a bullet in not signing up for stripe. I suggest the same to my listenership anytime someone brings up or mentions a merchant services provider that I know charges this fee. Even if they say it won't affect their business much because they do not deal with lots of cancellations, it is the greater implication I make them aware of. No one wants a market where the only companies with a free "cancel order" button on their site are eBay and Amazon.
Scott Galloway also has a lot of excellent content with arguments on breaking up Amazon. Whether or not one agrees with his solutions or assessments of the problems Amazon creates and how to fix them – it is clear that they are dominating the race. I am not suggesting that we hold Amazon back – just that we don’t purposely trip companies doing their best to keep up.
If someone makes a purchase of a $1500 ultrasonic cleaner from me, and then realizes they made a mistake, I now have to tell them there’s a $43.50 restocking fee, even if they call me 2 minutes after they place the order. This will leave a disgusting taste in the customer’s mouth, but I have to do it, because I can’t expose myself to a $43.50 fee for something I have zero control over. That customer may eventually notice that Amazon, eBay, Walmart, etc, do not charge such a fee. The customer has no idea why – they just know dealing with Amazon means less friction. The customer will now utilize Amazon more.
Many will say that this is a dumb gripe. “If you don’t like it go somewhere else!” PayPal instituted this policy as well. They backed down temporarily after people made a stink about it, but months later continued forward with the policy. I currently use a merchant services provider that does not implement these fees, but for how long?
My time in my industry has taught me that companies will often wait for one “outlier” to make controversial reforms to their platform/products before doing it themselves. Whether it is gluing the battery inside of a cellphone, or adding strange fees to transactions. Once a profitable, anti-consumer move succeeds with the company not going out of business, it emboldens other firms to do the same.
My merchant services provider doesn’t charge this fee. Yet. But they saw Stripe charge it, and get away with it. They saw PayPal charge it and have another more profitable quarter. The outrage lasted a week, the increased profit lasted forever. “Gee, it isn’t a business killer after all. Maybe we should do it too!” will come up in corporate boardrooms across America.
Then, we’re left with a landscape where the only companies left in ecommerce who can offer customers friction-free order cancellations are Amazon, eBay, and Walmart. Who wants that? Yes, people can say “just absorb the fee if you don’t want your customers to be mad at you.” How? I am already competing as a dude with no outside financing with a trillion dollar company – I’m winning if I am making any sales at all! Now I’m expected to compete on price when I have to absorb fees when customers cancel an order?
Let’s say you manage to claw your way into a market by offering a better product, or after sales service on that product to the point where you can compete with Amazon. That is a miracle in and of itself. To then have to deal with a minefield of additional charges that your competitor doesn’t have to is just another nail in the coffin of small-business ecommerce.
I find it awful, and I protest using these services. I cut my exposure to paypal by about 95% and dodged a bullet in not signing up for stripe. I suggest the same to my listenership anytime someone brings up or mentions a merchant services provider that I know charges this fee. Even if they say it won't affect their business much because they do not deal with lots of cancellations, it is the greater implication I make them aware of. No one wants a market where the only companies with a free "cancel order" button on their site are eBay and Amazon.
Scott Galloway also has a lot of excellent content with arguments on breaking up Amazon. Whether or not one agrees with his solutions or assessments of the problems Amazon creates and how to fix them – it is clear that they are dominating the race. I am not suggesting that we hold Amazon back – just that we don’t purposely trip companies doing their best to keep up.
Wait, are you the Louis Rossmann? https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup
That depends, are you a collections agent or process server?
Stripe seems to have understood Sequoia's Black Swan memo well.
Why haven't you gone public yet? Airbnb raising money from private equity who undoubtedly wants to loan-to-own them should have discredited the idea that staying private longer is better than being a public company.
Patrick, good to see you responding
I'd like to add a few points, especially those considering Stripe vs Paypal
This: Billing through PayPal is playing with fire. They can and do freeze accounts and it can take months to get the issue resolved.
We are very thankful to Stripe because Paypal left us high and dry
We found out they were calling up our customers and pretty much forcing them to do disputes
They also locked our funds FOR SIX MONTHS
If we did not have backup funds and if we did not have Stripe we literally would not be able to continue as a company
Paypal basically have ZERO consideration of the fact that you are running a business and that your payment provider should not just randomly end the business arrangement
Our dispute rate for the last $1.5 million processed through Stripe is roughly 0.3% whereas with Paypal it was considerably higher. I even have saved emails from our customers of Paypal asking them to open disputes even when they said they were happy and did not want to
Even eBay stopped using Paypal, and switched to Adeyn
consider how extreme things have to be if the company from which you were spun off as a separate company (eBay spun off Paypal), even they stop working with you
Stripe is much, much better than Paypal
Most importantly, it is much more dependable, much more small business and startup friendly, and developer first mentality
Paypal always has the attitude of - We're big and we don't give two hoots about you
Whereas Stripe they will always talk to you as a fellow human being
*
Stripe: The CEO is coming here to Hacker News and personally responding As are various members of the Stripe Team
Paypal: Will freeze your account for no reason at all. Will not even respond. The lady on the phone will shout at you even though you are politely asking why account is frozen. Plus as a bonus they will freeze funds for SIX Months
They froze funds equal to TWENTY TIMES the total disputes and refunds combined total from the Past 5 years. For SIX MONTHS
I'd like to add a few points, especially those considering Stripe vs Paypal
This: Billing through PayPal is playing with fire. They can and do freeze accounts and it can take months to get the issue resolved.
We are very thankful to Stripe because Paypal left us high and dry
We found out they were calling up our customers and pretty much forcing them to do disputes
They also locked our funds FOR SIX MONTHS
If we did not have backup funds and if we did not have Stripe we literally would not be able to continue as a company
Paypal basically have ZERO consideration of the fact that you are running a business and that your payment provider should not just randomly end the business arrangement
Our dispute rate for the last $1.5 million processed through Stripe is roughly 0.3% whereas with Paypal it was considerably higher. I even have saved emails from our customers of Paypal asking them to open disputes even when they said they were happy and did not want to
Even eBay stopped using Paypal, and switched to Adeyn
consider how extreme things have to be if the company from which you were spun off as a separate company (eBay spun off Paypal), even they stop working with you
Stripe is much, much better than Paypal
Most importantly, it is much more dependable, much more small business and startup friendly, and developer first mentality
Paypal always has the attitude of - We're big and we don't give two hoots about you
Whereas Stripe they will always talk to you as a fellow human being
*
Stripe: The CEO is coming here to Hacker News and personally responding As are various members of the Stripe Team
Paypal: Will freeze your account for no reason at all. Will not even respond. The lady on the phone will shout at you even though you are politely asking why account is frozen. Plus as a bonus they will freeze funds for SIX Months
They froze funds equal to TWENTY TIMES the total disputes and refunds combined total from the Past 5 years. For SIX MONTHS
Awful. Happened to my friends too. The funniest part is, they still get away with it. But the consumers have choice and I am glad they are choosing Stripe over PP.
Also, if anyone at PayPal reads it: screw you, I will never give you a damn cent.
Also, if anyone at PayPal reads it: screw you, I will never give you a damn cent.
Any plans to go public?
Jeez, just go public already! You've had employees waiting for nigh on a decade to realize the value of what they've built, but instead it appears that those gains are just going to VCs (and whoever is privileged enough to take money off the table during these raises).
Perhaps I'm being too cynical, and perhaps Stripe is taking a more enlightened view than I'm giving it credit for, but my goodness this trend of large businesses just raising money forever (and long after they cease being startups) is frustrating. At least at Google I know I can actually spend all of my paycheck at some point in the decade after I've earned it.
Perhaps I'm being too cynical, and perhaps Stripe is taking a more enlightened view than I'm giving it credit for, but my goodness this trend of large businesses just raising money forever (and long after they cease being startups) is frustrating. At least at Google I know I can actually spend all of my paycheck at some point in the decade after I've earned it.
It’s worse than this; employees who helped build the company are systematically shut out of reaping the rewards. Things like 90 day exercise windows, no information on exit timelines, and more dilution like this, pitched as if it was some forgone conclusion will prevent people who should see immense value from this company from seeing anything other than a token sum.
might be nice for employees but borders on negligent when private markets are practically begging for you to take their money and going public has alot of hoops and disclosures
I will never argue that the founders are not acting wisely - they've got no moral imperative to go public. As you say, there's far cheaper capital on offer. Rather, it's a systemic failing. They would pay an undeniable cost by going the IPO route, but it would be to the benefit of their employees and the public at large.
Private markets being so flush with cash while regular folks are strapped, on the other hand, is a sign that the tax code is too lenient and we should be re-purposing those dollars for societal benefit. _There_ is the moral failing.
Private markets being so flush with cash while regular folks are strapped, on the other hand, is a sign that the tax code is too lenient and we should be re-purposing those dollars for societal benefit. _There_ is the moral failing.
>...we should be re-purposing those dollars for societal benefit. _There_ is the moral failing.
To see such a dangerous, totalitarian ideology expressed so casually is terrifying.
To see such a dangerous, totalitarian ideology expressed so casually is terrifying.
I'm sorry to have terrified you. Here's what I mean by that, and what I think should change.
Companies boast of record profits, buy back stock constantly, and pay next to nothing in taxes. Meanwhile, even with the ACA Americans scrimp and save, paying outrageous amounts for paltry healthcare that most of the First World would find totally inadequate. Education is chronically underfunded and over-regulated. Student debt is a ticking time bomb.
All of these problems could be resolved in an instant, had we the political will to solve them. Is it totalitarian to wish for a modern single-payer health system? Is it totalitarian to want my children to have access to a good education like I had in the 80s? Is it wrong to ask those who benefit most from society, to pay their fair share? I don't think so. Neither of us want boots on the ground, so to speak.
Companies boast of record profits, buy back stock constantly, and pay next to nothing in taxes. Meanwhile, even with the ACA Americans scrimp and save, paying outrageous amounts for paltry healthcare that most of the First World would find totally inadequate. Education is chronically underfunded and over-regulated. Student debt is a ticking time bomb.
All of these problems could be resolved in an instant, had we the political will to solve them. Is it totalitarian to wish for a modern single-payer health system? Is it totalitarian to want my children to have access to a good education like I had in the 80s? Is it wrong to ask those who benefit most from society, to pay their fair share? I don't think so. Neither of us want boots on the ground, so to speak.
> To see such a dangerous, totalitarian ideology expressed so casually is terrifying.
Totalitarian? Does the economy exist to serve man or itself? There should be nothing scary about suggesting that the current framework doesn't serve society as well as it could.
Totalitarian? Does the economy exist to serve man or itself? There should be nothing scary about suggesting that the current framework doesn't serve society as well as it could.
I don’t understand it either. If you want more compensation, ask for more compensation. If you accept equity that you don’t have control over, don’t complain when it behaves like a lottery ticket.
[deleted]
Taxes are not totalitarian, which was the implication.
-
Credit where credit due - that's better than most private companies I've heard about. Even so, that's a low bar to clear. Ideally, my employer shouldn't even have a say in my decision to sell or hold my equity once I've earned it. That's a different topic.
Just to be clear, I've never worked at Stripe and have no personal bone to pick. I just think it's a shame that all this wealth generation is happening, and not only is the public frozen out of the growth, many of the talented people who made it happen are _also_ frozen out as well.
Just to be clear, I've never worked at Stripe and have no personal bone to pick. I just think it's a shame that all this wealth generation is happening, and not only is the public frozen out of the growth, many of the talented people who made it happen are _also_ frozen out as well.
I'm very happy with Stripe and for their success, but I plan on switching all my payments to go through PayPal again. I did some math and PayPal offers a better deal for Canadian businesses after Stripe bumps me off of their grandfathered conversion fees in a couple months.
I love the slick interface, but it's simply not worth the thousands per year I'll be saving with the switch.
For me the main selling point for any payment processor is the minimization of fees. Sure, the API's are nice, but I already use a payment gateway for that.
I'm a few clicks away from saving thousands. Am I missing anything?
I love the slick interface, but it's simply not worth the thousands per year I'll be saving with the switch.
For me the main selling point for any payment processor is the minimization of fees. Sure, the API's are nice, but I already use a payment gateway for that.
I'm a few clicks away from saving thousands. Am I missing anything?
Are you planning to go through PayPal directly or Braintree?
One thing I notice is, I get much less fraudulent payments through PayPal, and when I do get them it's handled automatically (and most of the time they end up being not fraud because PayPal investigated it and released the funds). 100% hands free, $0 in fees.
With Stripe, not only do I get more fraudulent payments but you need to pay $15 as a dispute fee through Stripe when you lose the case and pretty much all fraud causes through Stripe will be lost (because it's actual fraud). It also takes like 20 minutes to fill out the forms, create fax-compatible sized screenshots and a lot of other boilerplate information if you plan to contest the dispute.
It's a shame Stripe doesn't offer the Radar service (helps detect and prevent fraud) with custom rules as part of their normal service. You can only get it if you pay insurance fees, which are added fees on top of the normal amount.
Combine that with the new Stripe SCA compatible APIs and sketchy docs and yeah I'm in the same boat as you. Stripe is no longer an immediate "of course I'm going to use Stripe" decision. Braintree is looking pretty good at this point.
One thing I notice is, I get much less fraudulent payments through PayPal, and when I do get them it's handled automatically (and most of the time they end up being not fraud because PayPal investigated it and released the funds). 100% hands free, $0 in fees.
With Stripe, not only do I get more fraudulent payments but you need to pay $15 as a dispute fee through Stripe when you lose the case and pretty much all fraud causes through Stripe will be lost (because it's actual fraud). It also takes like 20 minutes to fill out the forms, create fax-compatible sized screenshots and a lot of other boilerplate information if you plan to contest the dispute.
It's a shame Stripe doesn't offer the Radar service (helps detect and prevent fraud) with custom rules as part of their normal service. You can only get it if you pay insurance fees, which are added fees on top of the normal amount.
Combine that with the new Stripe SCA compatible APIs and sketchy docs and yeah I'm in the same boat as you. Stripe is no longer an immediate "of course I'm going to use Stripe" decision. Braintree is looking pretty good at this point.
Would you mind sharing your percentage of fraud with the two services? (I assume you are using Braintree.)
Honestly, you are the first person to make a good case on using PayPal over Stripe. Especially with the arbitrary horror stories I hear about PayPal all the time.
> It's a shame Stripe doesn't offer the Radar service (helps detect and prevent fraud) with custom rules as part of their normal service. You can only get it if you pay insurance fees, which are added fees on top of the normal amount.
I agree. This should be standard.
> Combine that with the new Stripe SCA compatible APIs and sketchy docs
Would you please describe what is sketchy? Their docs seem pretty good... but I am now just hearing about SCA.
https://stripe.com/guides/strong-customer-authentication
Honestly, you are the first person to make a good case on using PayPal over Stripe. Especially with the arbitrary horror stories I hear about PayPal all the time.
> It's a shame Stripe doesn't offer the Radar service (helps detect and prevent fraud) with custom rules as part of their normal service. You can only get it if you pay insurance fees, which are added fees on top of the normal amount.
I agree. This should be standard.
> Combine that with the new Stripe SCA compatible APIs and sketchy docs
Would you please describe what is sketchy? Their docs seem pretty good... but I am now just hearing about SCA.
https://stripe.com/guides/strong-customer-authentication
I agree with the poster that in our own numbers we see almost 0% chargebacks on Paypal vs almost regular occurrences on Stripe (via credit card).
Even in the rare instances where a chargeback or dispute happens PayPal has never failed to side with us or otherwise cover it under seller protection. And this is all done at the same fee levels as Stripe.
Even in the rare instances where a chargeback or dispute happens PayPal has never failed to side with us or otherwise cover it under seller protection. And this is all done at the same fee levels as Stripe.
That is interesting because I have never had a problem getting a refund from PayPal, with one exception notable exception. I assumed they always sided with the buyers.
In the one exception the seller had proof of delivery, yet it was not possible to have been delivered that day because of a road closure. PayPal sided with the seller. A year later out of the blue, with no prior communication, the seller sends me a full refund and said the package was returned by the delivery company. No idea where it has been sitting for about a year before being returned.
In the one exception the seller had proof of delivery, yet it was not possible to have been delivered that day because of a road closure. PayPal sided with the seller. A year later out of the blue, with no prior communication, the seller sends me a full refund and said the package was returned by the delivery company. No idea where it has been sitting for about a year before being returned.
PayPal also happens to have a return shipping protection for buyers, which covers the return shipping costs even when the merchant does not.
You're probably referring to PayPal disputes, but PayPal also covers merchants from chargebacks (even if the chargebacks themselves are won by the buyer), when a physical product is shipped.
So it seems like they must eat a lot of the fees because in the case of the credit card dispute PayPal is eating the charge if they do Seller Protection.
Somehow they do all this while offering standard credit card rates, so I think they're heavily undervalued by startups.
You're probably referring to PayPal disputes, but PayPal also covers merchants from chargebacks (even if the chargebacks themselves are won by the buyer), when a physical product is shipped.
So it seems like they must eat a lot of the fees because in the case of the credit card dispute PayPal is eating the charge if they do Seller Protection.
Somehow they do all this while offering standard credit card rates, so I think they're heavily undervalued by startups.
I use Stripe and PayPal currently but on the next platform I'm currently building I'm strongly (and very seriously) considering Braintree.
With PayPal, the fraud experience has been nothing short of amazing. Out of many many thousands of transactions, I've only had about 3 or 4 transactions get flagged as high risk by PayPal. What this means is PayPal will hold the funds, review the transaction and then either give you the funds if it's legit or do something else if it's not legit.
I've had 0 cases on PayPal where fraud / disputes actually took place. Of those 3-4 transactions, they were all released. None of this required any intervention by me. I just got notified by email from PayPal when a high risk transaction occurred. 100% of the funds were put back into my account a few days later (short of the normal 2.9% + 30c fees).
On Stripe, I've also had many many thousands of transactions. I've had a number of fraud transactions in the process which ended up as disputes. Stripe sends out an email letting you know, but then it's now on you to decide if you want to contest the dispute. This dispute typically happens when someone who got their credit card stolen sees an unknown charge in their records.
Now you need to fill out like 8 form fields and supply screenshots and server logs of proof that someone was accessing the material they've stolen (I sell digital courses so there's no physical item). The screenshots need to be sized perfectly to be displayed in portrait mode on a sheet of paper that gets faxed over to the person reviewing it from the bank, otherwise it'll be unreadable from their perspective and you'll auto-lose the case.
Stripe doesn't let you see a real preview of these screenshots and they even alter the uploaded image size in your preview which makes it hard to preview what it will look like from the reviewer's POV even though that's the only thing that matters.
After doing that, it takes about 2-3 months to get a resolution. You get charged a $15 bank dispute fee (on top of the full amount of the product of course) which is non-refundable unless you happen to win the dispute, but if someone got their card stolen then you're not going to win the case. You also don't get any information from Stripe about the review, other than you won or lost. Stripe says it's because banks don't give them any info beyond that. Fine, that's ok, but yeah the overall experience is very very bad.
Then on top of that, Stripe sells a Radar service that you need to pay extra on top of for each transaction to get better tools to help prevent fraud before it takes place. They choose not to give it to everyone because I guess they profit from dispute fees and fraudulent transactions.
The kick in the teeth is that the data Stripe uses to train their Radar / anti-fraud service is data provided by business owners who have trusted Stripe with their business. Now they are selling that data back to us in the form of insurance fees on each transaction (the Radar service you need to pay for).
I haven't personally used Braintree yet but from what I read in their docs, you get that type of anti-fraud service baked into the normal 2.9% + 30c (don't quote me on that, but it very much reads that way on their site).
Whatever PayPal is doing (and in turn Braintree since it's a PayPal service), they're doing a fantastic job at combating fraud and disputes, especially compared to Stripe.
> Would you please describe what is sketchy? Their docs seem pretty good... but I am now just hearing about SCA.
Their docs are typically good, but the SCA / Payment Intents docs are not really at the same standards as the rest of their documentation yet.
Come back in a few weeks when you've implemented it.
What's interesting is I run a podcast about running web apps in production and I've had a bunch of folks come on the show who use Stripe to accept payments.
All of them have said the experience with implementing SCA with Stripe was pretty rough. These are seasoned developers running successful platforms too.
They've all done it in the last couple of months as well.
With PayPal, the fraud experience has been nothing short of amazing. Out of many many thousands of transactions, I've only had about 3 or 4 transactions get flagged as high risk by PayPal. What this means is PayPal will hold the funds, review the transaction and then either give you the funds if it's legit or do something else if it's not legit.
I've had 0 cases on PayPal where fraud / disputes actually took place. Of those 3-4 transactions, they were all released. None of this required any intervention by me. I just got notified by email from PayPal when a high risk transaction occurred. 100% of the funds were put back into my account a few days later (short of the normal 2.9% + 30c fees).
On Stripe, I've also had many many thousands of transactions. I've had a number of fraud transactions in the process which ended up as disputes. Stripe sends out an email letting you know, but then it's now on you to decide if you want to contest the dispute. This dispute typically happens when someone who got their credit card stolen sees an unknown charge in their records.
Now you need to fill out like 8 form fields and supply screenshots and server logs of proof that someone was accessing the material they've stolen (I sell digital courses so there's no physical item). The screenshots need to be sized perfectly to be displayed in portrait mode on a sheet of paper that gets faxed over to the person reviewing it from the bank, otherwise it'll be unreadable from their perspective and you'll auto-lose the case.
Stripe doesn't let you see a real preview of these screenshots and they even alter the uploaded image size in your preview which makes it hard to preview what it will look like from the reviewer's POV even though that's the only thing that matters.
After doing that, it takes about 2-3 months to get a resolution. You get charged a $15 bank dispute fee (on top of the full amount of the product of course) which is non-refundable unless you happen to win the dispute, but if someone got their card stolen then you're not going to win the case. You also don't get any information from Stripe about the review, other than you won or lost. Stripe says it's because banks don't give them any info beyond that. Fine, that's ok, but yeah the overall experience is very very bad.
Then on top of that, Stripe sells a Radar service that you need to pay extra on top of for each transaction to get better tools to help prevent fraud before it takes place. They choose not to give it to everyone because I guess they profit from dispute fees and fraudulent transactions.
The kick in the teeth is that the data Stripe uses to train their Radar / anti-fraud service is data provided by business owners who have trusted Stripe with their business. Now they are selling that data back to us in the form of insurance fees on each transaction (the Radar service you need to pay for).
I haven't personally used Braintree yet but from what I read in their docs, you get that type of anti-fraud service baked into the normal 2.9% + 30c (don't quote me on that, but it very much reads that way on their site).
Whatever PayPal is doing (and in turn Braintree since it's a PayPal service), they're doing a fantastic job at combating fraud and disputes, especially compared to Stripe.
> Would you please describe what is sketchy? Their docs seem pretty good... but I am now just hearing about SCA.
Their docs are typically good, but the SCA / Payment Intents docs are not really at the same standards as the rest of their documentation yet.
Come back in a few weeks when you've implemented it.
What's interesting is I run a podcast about running web apps in production and I've had a bunch of folks come on the show who use Stripe to accept payments.
All of them have said the experience with implementing SCA with Stripe was pretty rough. These are seasoned developers running successful platforms too.
They've all done it in the last couple of months as well.
My experience mightn't be typical but I recently had a dispute on Stripe that went a lot smoother. A customer disputed 3 monthly subscription transactions. After providing evidence it was resolved in our favour within a week.
I had low hopes because the server logs were long gone (over 90 days). However I had logs from our email provider showing reads and clicks from our emails so I sent a screenshot of that. I said Wordpress said they logged in once when they bought it and never again (of course, anyone could say that). I said their account email matched their Stripe email which had their name in it, and their IP matches where the billing address is so it seems to be a real person. I also said they'd never responded to any emails sent to them from us to resolve this.
Despite being nearly certain this was just a change-of-mind chargeback I didn't have high hopes because that's a lot of conjecture rather than evidence but it worked out.
We also had an early fraud warning giving us notice to refund and avoid the chargeback fee. I chose not to because it looked legitimate to me which was probably a mistake despite how it worked out.
We also use Paypal. My major issue is their internal dev team/processes seem broken. We got stuck in a 'verify your identity' loop for months. The business support person was great, patient and understanding. But no one could fix it. We'd pass the check then overnight it would revert and block transactions, sometimes multiple times a day. We setup a second payment processor as we should've much earlier. Eventually it was fixed without explanation or notice. Braintree is probably a lot better on this front but having the Paypal logo more prominently displayed has a lot of value for some customers who don't like the unfamiliar.
I had low hopes because the server logs were long gone (over 90 days). However I had logs from our email provider showing reads and clicks from our emails so I sent a screenshot of that. I said Wordpress said they logged in once when they bought it and never again (of course, anyone could say that). I said their account email matched their Stripe email which had their name in it, and their IP matches where the billing address is so it seems to be a real person. I also said they'd never responded to any emails sent to them from us to resolve this.
Despite being nearly certain this was just a change-of-mind chargeback I didn't have high hopes because that's a lot of conjecture rather than evidence but it worked out.
We also had an early fraud warning giving us notice to refund and avoid the chargeback fee. I chose not to because it looked legitimate to me which was probably a mistake despite how it worked out.
We also use Paypal. My major issue is their internal dev team/processes seem broken. We got stuck in a 'verify your identity' loop for months. The business support person was great, patient and understanding. But no one could fix it. We'd pass the check then overnight it would revert and block transactions, sometimes multiple times a day. We setup a second payment processor as we should've much earlier. Eventually it was fixed without explanation or notice. Braintree is probably a lot better on this front but having the Paypal logo more prominently displayed has a lot of value for some customers who don't like the unfamiliar.
All of what you provided as proof was what I submit too.
I've won 100% of the disputes where it was pretty clear the person wanted to just grab the content for free and then do a charge back. The problem is Stripe not blocking the real fraudulent transactions where a bad actor stole someones credit card and signed up with that. These are the ones where I've lost 100% of the time (for good reason since it was fraud). Stripe didn't prevent those from occurring where as PayPal has blocked every single fraudulent transaction before it took place and I didn't have to sign up for extra fees or lift a finger to get that protection.
To my understanding (and I may be wrong) with Braintree the customer would still see PayPal's branding if they check out via PayPal. They would see something like this: https://articles.braintreepayments.com/img/developers/pay-wi...
I've won 100% of the disputes where it was pretty clear the person wanted to just grab the content for free and then do a charge back. The problem is Stripe not blocking the real fraudulent transactions where a bad actor stole someones credit card and signed up with that. These are the ones where I've lost 100% of the time (for good reason since it was fraud). Stripe didn't prevent those from occurring where as PayPal has blocked every single fraudulent transaction before it took place and I didn't have to sign up for extra fees or lift a finger to get that protection.
To my understanding (and I may be wrong) with Braintree the customer would still see PayPal's branding if they check out via PayPal. They would see something like this: https://articles.braintreepayments.com/img/developers/pay-wi...
Can I ask how do you win those? I've lost many of these via PayPal. Customer can claim goods not working all the way to "not my card, my kid bought it without my consent".
I asked PayPal for their advice, and on that advice I keep email confirmation, IPs and timestamps of download, login, registration and payment IPs, billing address, etc. -- doesn't seem to help when I submit it all as evidence.
I asked PayPal for their advice, and on that advice I keep email confirmation, IPs and timestamps of download, login, registration and payment IPs, billing address, etc. -- doesn't seem to help when I submit it all as evidence.
Paypal is notoriously customer biased. I have won these but usually because I reached out to the customer and talked it through. Either they didn't recognise or forgot the charge (couples who share accounts sometimes do this, they don't always communicate well so one disputes the others' purchases) or just want a plain old refund and thought clicking the Paypal button was easier than email.
Once I explain that I can simply refund them and it's quicker and easier, but they have to withdraw the dispute, it should happen.
If they actually stick to their story or go dark? I don't think I've heard many stories of Paypal siding with the business especially for digital goods.
Once I explain that I can simply refund them and it's quicker and easier, but they have to withdraw the dispute, it should happen.
If they actually stick to their story or go dark? I don't think I've heard many stories of Paypal siding with the business especially for digital goods.
I'm not sure how it works with PayPal since I only had to do this for Stripe but:
First I reach out to the person over email and kindly ask them why they disputed the charge with a number of things we can do as an alternative.
If they don't reply within a few days then I contest the dispute with piles of evidence that the user indeed signed up to my platform and downloaded / consumed the content.
First I reach out to the person over email and kindly ask them why they disputed the charge with a number of things we can do as an alternative.
If they don't reply within a few days then I contest the dispute with piles of evidence that the user indeed signed up to my platform and downloaded / consumed the content.
I see, that's fair.
I don't recall paying extra for Radar and I definitely received an early warning from them, but after the transaction went through. It's apparently included on standard Australian pricing but costs an extra $0.08 per transaction if you're on a negotiated rate. Good to know.
I don't recall paying extra for Radar and I definitely received an early warning from them, but after the transaction went through. It's apparently included on standard Australian pricing but costs an extra $0.08 per transaction if you're on a negotiated rate. Good to know.
Hi Nick -- I'd love to have us dig in more here to understand this better. Could you email me? [email protected].
[In brief, chargebacks/disputes work differently for PayPal payments as compared to credit card payments... I suspect that much of this is mostly a PayPal vs credit card difference. But I want to understand the details.]
[In brief, chargebacks/disputes work differently for PayPal payments as compared to credit card payments... I suspect that much of this is mostly a PayPal vs credit card difference. But I want to understand the details.]
Hi Patrick.
I am the person who asked the question that Nick responded to.
I understand PayPal has stronger network effects that may give it more leeway in handling the banks that a smaller competitor may not have.
I do agree with Nick that Radar should be a free service for all users. It reduces headaches for everyone involved. Why charge for it?
(Post to my above post if you reach HN's post limit.)
I am the person who asked the question that Nick responded to.
I understand PayPal has stronger network effects that may give it more leeway in handling the banks that a smaller competitor may not have.
I do agree with Nick that Radar should be a free service for all users. It reduces headaches for everyone involved. Why charge for it?
(Post to my above post if you reach HN's post limit.)
> Their docs are typically good, but the SCA / Payment Intents docs are not really at the same standards as the rest of their documentation yet.
Stripe PM on the Payment Intents API here. You're right that there were some rough edges when we started rolling out this new API last year. SCA is complex and we want to help make it easy to navigate this regulation: we designed the new APIs to abstract away as much of the complexity as we can. In addition, thanks to a lot of feedback from users, we made important changes to our docs architecture, guides, API reference, and Dashboard in November 2019, and are continuing to iterate on it. I would love feedback on how we can further improve our documentation. I’m [email protected].
Stripe PM on the Payment Intents API here. You're right that there were some rough edges when we started rolling out this new API last year. SCA is complex and we want to help make it easy to navigate this regulation: we designed the new APIs to abstract away as much of the complexity as we can. In addition, thanks to a lot of feedback from users, we made important changes to our docs architecture, guides, API reference, and Dashboard in November 2019, and are continuing to iterate on it. I would love feedback on how we can further improve our documentation. I’m [email protected].
One of the main tough things with the SCA / Payment Intents is that we have to keep our payment state in sync with Stripe's (updating the amount to charge and syncing with the cart total), and then syncing with a webhook. The transaction apparently happens in a separate process from the customer's browser session.
With PayPal you simply send a request for a certain amount, and when it gets approved the customer's client comes back with a token and you choose to execute it or not. If you don't execute, the charge just isn't completed.
Stripe's docs says to not depend on the client because the client can close the browser window. In the PayPal case, if that happens, the transaction is simply canceled (since the client closed before finishing).
EDIT: It looks like Stripe's docs do support the PayPal style integration, but recommends against it because it doesn't work with longer-delay asynchronous methods. It's funny because PayPal's old API was done in this way (with instant payment notification webhooks) and their new API is closer to Stripe's old API.
With PayPal you simply send a request for a certain amount, and when it gets approved the customer's client comes back with a token and you choose to execute it or not. If you don't execute, the charge just isn't completed.
Stripe's docs says to not depend on the client because the client can close the browser window. In the PayPal case, if that happens, the transaction is simply canceled (since the client closed before finishing).
EDIT: It looks like Stripe's docs do support the PayPal style integration, but recommends against it because it doesn't work with longer-delay asynchronous methods. It's funny because PayPal's old API was done in this way (with instant payment notification webhooks) and their new API is closer to Stripe's old API.
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FWIW, one thing you could usefully do is have someone double-check the code snippets in the online guides. They looked very helpful (and much needed) when I was reading them recently, but I remember almost immediately running into examples where something just didn't make sense. Then if I followed through to the corresponding code in the samples repo, it really was slightly different to what was shown in the guide on your docs site. The guide to setting up a new subscription using the new API definitely had some instances of that problem. The more recent guides would also benefit from more explanation of why the sequence of actions shown was what it was and what each API or webhook used was actually for. Either that or some concise, big picture overview would be good (or ideally both).
Just want to say I've had the opposite experience.
Stripe has blocked multiple fraudulent transactions for me. PayPal has let multiple through which are clearly fraudulent just from me looking from my end. I recently had a case where a customer tried to pay with a stolen card on Stripe, got blocked with maximum risk score, so they created a PayPal account and used that. The payment went through, got hit with a chargeback and a fee a few weeks later. Product was automatically given - digital goods. PayPal refused to cover the costs and passed it through.
I've never had a dispute raised on Stripe. I've had multiple on PayPal.
Stripe has blocked multiple fraudulent transactions for me. PayPal has let multiple through which are clearly fraudulent just from me looking from my end. I recently had a case where a customer tried to pay with a stolen card on Stripe, got blocked with maximum risk score, so they created a PayPal account and used that. The payment went through, got hit with a chargeback and a fee a few weeks later. Product was automatically given - digital goods. PayPal refused to cover the costs and passed it through.
I've never had a dispute raised on Stripe. I've had multiple on PayPal.
I was gonna ask pc directly about this, but chargebacks are a major vector of online abuse especially for livestreaming/influencer donations and such, and I was wondering how well Stripe's Chargeback Protection has worked to defeat this if anyone's signed up for the 0.4% cut to get around this. Is it a no-brainer, what's people's experiences been, and are there other trade-offs than a bigger cut for Stripe (and less agonizing over chargebacks)?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20082032
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20082032
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That's interesting to read. I'm in the US and every time i go through a site that uses Stripe I have to use one particular credit card because all others get denied. So I just assumed Stripe had strong anti fraud settings. I wonder if it's actually the card issuer denying Stripe now.
Stripe should be able to add those features, their team is really strong.
It’s a business decision, not a talent issue.
No, you're not. I was very happy with Stripe for a few years. As my business grew and I looked at where I could cut costs, I asked around and Braintree's model was going to save me 1% per transaction. At my volume that was going to add up to thousands of dollars in savings a month over Stripe. I went back to Stripe to see if they'd be willing to match Braintree's pricing, because I was happy with them over the years and it would have made things much easier to not have to switch to a new payment processor. But they only offered about 75% of the savings so I switched anyway. Turns out the APIs are roughly the same anyway for the basic functionality that I need, I'm not an advanced user. I estimate the switch has already saved me about $75k.
I've worked for FreshBooks and three other invoicing or payment related companies, and I have lots of friends that work at Shopify or run online stores.
Billing through PayPal is playing with fire. They can and do freeze accounts and it can take months to get the issue resolved. It will probably be fine, of course, but I've seen it happen and personally, if I were in a high margin business, I'd stick to Stripe. Especially if you run a company where other people make money on your platform like an Etsy or similar.
Billing through PayPal is playing with fire. They can and do freeze accounts and it can take months to get the issue resolved. It will probably be fine, of course, but I've seen it happen and personally, if I were in a high margin business, I'd stick to Stripe. Especially if you run a company where other people make money on your platform like an Etsy or similar.
PayPal is fine until it isn’t. They ban hammer people “for life” and tell them it cannot be appealed for cryptic and often inscrutable reasons they won’t elaborate on or even bother to speak to you about.
I suspect they don’t talk about it or consider appeals at all, because they feel they have no need to bother with any sort of customer service. They are king of the hill, and always have millions of more users eager to sign up. There seems to be little reason for them to bother resolving any issues. Much easier for them to just ban the user and ignore them.
Watch out for PayPal freezing funds at their discretion, for long periods of time.
https://www.google.com/search?q=paypal+freeze+funds&oq=paypa...
https://www.google.com/search?q=paypal+freeze+funds&oq=paypa...
Stripe not allowing to withdraw onto USD accounts not located in the US is an absolutely MASSIVE gripe with the service.
We operate internally in USD - we sell in USD, we pay in USD, so we end up being shafted with not one, but two pointless FX conversions. And that's without going into minor stuff like the headaches with refunds done at rates, extra accounting overheads, etc.
We operate internally in USD - we sell in USD, we pay in USD, so we end up being shafted with not one, but two pointless FX conversions. And that's without going into minor stuff like the headaches with refunds done at rates, extra accounting overheads, etc.
This x100. We’re based in the UK but most of our customers are in the US so we bill in USD.
The most annoying thing is that US customers pay additional fees because we’re based in the UK, and our UK customers pay extra fees because we’re billing in dollars.
Stripe customer support very responsive, but they’ve told us the only way to fix it is to open a bank account in the US - which would mean we pay tax in the UK and US. We tried opening a USD bank account in the UK, but Stripe told us after we’d done it that they couldn’t send money to it. Maddening problem with an otherwise brilliant service.
The most annoying thing is that US customers pay additional fees because we’re based in the UK, and our UK customers pay extra fees because we’re billing in dollars.
Stripe customer support very responsive, but they’ve told us the only way to fix it is to open a bank account in the US - which would mean we pay tax in the UK and US. We tried opening a USD bank account in the UK, but Stripe told us after we’d done it that they couldn’t send money to it. Maddening problem with an otherwise brilliant service.
You can open a USD account in US with TransferWise business.
This is where partnering with a company like Routefusion comes in handy. We would help you repatriate those funds, and move it back to your country of choice at .5% currency exchange :)
check us out [email protected], and feel free to email me at [email protected] if you have any questions!
check us out [email protected], and feel free to email me at [email protected] if you have any questions!
I skimmed through your homepage and I frankly have no idea what you do and who it is for. "International bank-to-bank payments" implies that it's some sort of service for banks.
Thanks for the feedback :)
We are an API for cross-border payments. Our customers are international payroll providers, credit card companies, neo-banks, and other types of companies who need to process X-border payments in their application.
If you were an e-commerce store, we could certainly help you re-patriate funds via our web app, but that’s not our focus.
Are you having issues re-patriating funds? Happy to help in anyway I can!
We are an API for cross-border payments. Our customers are international payroll providers, credit card companies, neo-banks, and other types of companies who need to process X-border payments in their application.
If you were an e-commerce store, we could certainly help you re-patriate funds via our web app, but that’s not our focus.
Are you having issues re-patriating funds? Happy to help in anyway I can!
> re-patriating funds
I have no idea what this means.
The problem is that you (and the marketing copy on your site) explain what you DO instead of which of the problems you might help me solve. Use-cases, in plain English.
Perhaps you have enough business already, so you don't really care about pitching passerbys, but if you do, then your pitch is unclear and confusing.
I have no idea what this means.
The problem is that you (and the marketing copy on your site) explain what you DO instead of which of the problems you might help me solve. Use-cases, in plain English.
Perhaps you have enough business already, so you don't really care about pitching passerbys, but if you do, then your pitch is unclear and confusing.
You actually hit the nail on the head. We have been growing like crazy and the copy on our marketing website hasn't changed since we quickly put it up. I truly appreciate the candidness.
fwiw - re-patriating of funds would be when a company based in the UK for example, is doing business in the USA, and they are getting paid in the USA, in USD. Moving that money back home to the UK in GBP would be the re-patriation of those funds.
fwiw - re-patriating of funds would be when a company based in the UK for example, is doing business in the USA, and they are getting paid in the USA, in USD. Moving that money back home to the UK in GBP would be the re-patriation of those funds.
Paypal also have some crappy rules about adding a USD account to a company not registered in the US.
And they're currency conversion fees are obscene if you want to withdraw USD to EUR (on the order of like ~4% iirc)
And they're currency conversion fees are obscene if you want to withdraw USD to EUR (on the order of like ~4% iirc)
Is this country-specific perhaps? I'm in Canada and it's no problem for me to withdraw USD to a Canadian-based USD account.
It's the other way around. Canada is the only exception here.
Stripe only support USD accounts in USA and Canada.
Which is already better than Paypal. They don’t support USD account in Canada. That’s the main reason I’m using Stripe now. But seems like Braintree support USD account in Canada. Anyone can confirm?
If you're doing enough business they'll usually cut your fees if you ask (according to a friend who did just that).
Enough business is a lot of business though, I just emailed them about this and they said to even talk to the department that considers you, you need 3 straight months of $100k+ MRR.
From the user's perspective:
A few (maybe 5 or 6?) years back I suddenly stopped being able to add or withdraw money through PayPal, with a completely vague description. Multiple hours on support documents and attempting to contact support (which is a problem in itself) and the problem was not resolved. I wasn't that invested in buying what I was trying to buy, so I eventually gave up. I've tried again a few times over the years, with no success.
When I see PayPal on a site nowadays and either no other options or I don't trust them to process the card themselves, I just leave. If this is the sort of effect that could harm your business it may be worth it to pay for a payment processor that works for all your users.
I also have a $0.49 balance in PayPal which I can't withdraw. I don't care, but if it were a larger amount I probably would.
A few (maybe 5 or 6?) years back I suddenly stopped being able to add or withdraw money through PayPal, with a completely vague description. Multiple hours on support documents and attempting to contact support (which is a problem in itself) and the problem was not resolved. I wasn't that invested in buying what I was trying to buy, so I eventually gave up. I've tried again a few times over the years, with no success.
When I see PayPal on a site nowadays and either no other options or I don't trust them to process the card themselves, I just leave. If this is the sort of effect that could harm your business it may be worth it to pay for a payment processor that works for all your users.
I also have a $0.49 balance in PayPal which I can't withdraw. I don't care, but if it were a larger amount I probably would.
How are you saving fees on paypal ?
Looking at https://www.paypal.com/ca/for-you/fees It looks like the fees are exactly the same as Stripe, what am I missing ?
Can you elaborate ? Are you a charitable organization?
Looking at https://www.paypal.com/ca/for-you/fees It looks like the fees are exactly the same as Stripe, what am I missing ?
Can you elaborate ? Are you a charitable organization?
A majority of my sales are from US customers buying in USD.
With PayPal, fees are: 3.7% + $0.30 USD
With Stripe, fees are: 2.9% + $0.30 CAD + 0.6% (international card charge) + 2.0% (currency conversion fee)
With PayPal, fees are: 3.7% + $0.30 USD
With Stripe, fees are: 2.9% + $0.30 CAD + 0.6% (international card charge) + 2.0% (currency conversion fee)
If you're a Canadian merchant, you can add a USD bank account to avoid the 2% currency conversion fee. This bank account can either be with a Canadian bank, or a US bank.
Source: I work at Stripe, but in addition to that, previously started a Canadian company using Stripe, and like you did mostly payments to US customers in USD. I had deposits directly into both a USD bank account held at a Canadian bank as well as a USD bank account held at a US bank, and did not pay the 2% conversion fee. I actually never received CAD directly at all.
More details: https://stripe.com/docs/payouts
But yes, other than certain exceptions such as this one, getting payouts in non-local currencies on Stripe is limited, and we're working on improving that.
(edit: This assumes you have expenses in USD, or a cheap way to convert USD to CAD, to avoid a ~2% fee from your bank on the conversion. Personally I've used Interactive Brokers which charges 0.002% for USD/CAD conversions.)
Source: I work at Stripe, but in addition to that, previously started a Canadian company using Stripe, and like you did mostly payments to US customers in USD. I had deposits directly into both a USD bank account held at a Canadian bank as well as a USD bank account held at a US bank, and did not pay the 2% conversion fee. I actually never received CAD directly at all.
More details: https://stripe.com/docs/payouts
But yes, other than certain exceptions such as this one, getting payouts in non-local currencies on Stripe is limited, and we're working on improving that.
(edit: This assumes you have expenses in USD, or a cheap way to convert USD to CAD, to avoid a ~2% fee from your bank on the conversion. Personally I've used Interactive Brokers which charges 0.002% for USD/CAD conversions.)
To add to Ken's comment, you can add a USD bank account (in addition to your CAD account) in your dashboard settings and your USD transactions will settle into USD without any conversion fees. If you click on 'Add bank account' in the payouts tab [0], there's an option to add a USD account. CAD transactions will automatically settle in the CAD account associated with Stripe. USD transactions will automatically settle in your USD account associated with Stripe.
[0]https://dashboard.stripe.com/settings/payouts
Source: I work at Stripe
[0]https://dashboard.stripe.com/settings/payouts
Source: I work at Stripe
Wow, so expensive either way. European card processing is around 1.7% from what I’ve seen. American banks are atrocious. Is the Federal Reserve rate responsible for this.
American banks also take forever to transfer payments, which drives me mad. There is this massive amount of money just in limbo, a sort of shush cash pile, which the banks make interest off of while the owners of the money fume waiting for permission to use their own money. Grr. /rant
American banks also take forever to transfer payments, which drives me mad. There is this massive amount of money just in limbo, a sort of shush cash pile, which the banks make interest off of while the owners of the money fume waiting for permission to use their own money. Grr. /rant
>Is the Federal Reserve rate responsible for this.
No, it’s caused by the fact that I get a minimum of 2.625% cash back on all purchases, and actually 5.25% on all online and most of my other purchases with credit cards.
No, it’s caused by the fact that I get a minimum of 2.625% cash back on all purchases, and actually 5.25% on all online and most of my other purchases with credit cards.
If you do anything through PayPal do not keep any funds in your PayPal account. The company is well known for seizing funds in their customers account with no recourse.
PayPal owes me $200.
I got a letter from the state comptroller saying that paypal had been trying to reach me and my money was about to revert to the state and call this number to get it.
So I called the number, and they ask me, "Do you want it in a check or in your paypal account?" Well that account has been frozen for years so I say, "Send me the check."
That was a few years ago now and I'm still waiting.
Fuck PayPal.
I got a letter from the state comptroller saying that paypal had been trying to reach me and my money was about to revert to the state and call this number to get it.
So I called the number, and they ask me, "Do you want it in a check or in your paypal account?" Well that account has been frozen for years so I say, "Send me the check."
That was a few years ago now and I'm still waiting.
Fuck PayPal.
Did you try to recover the money through the state? Most states have a site through comptroller/treasury/etc. where you can start a claim process.
(Assuming that paypal reported the uncollected money correctly.)
(Assuming that paypal reported the uncollected money correctly.)
No. My consulting rate starts at $200 per hour so it's just not worth it.
THX-1138, eh?
I talk shit about it (and will continue to do so until the Sun grows cold or PayPal goes under, whichever comes first) because it's the only way to get them back for robbing me. The actual $200 mean almost nothing to them either, so I just rub my muddy boots on their couch from time to time.
"Fuck yo' couch Eddie Murphy" (head's up the n-word is in there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcJkhSUSnek )
THX-1138, eh?
I talk shit about it (and will continue to do so until the Sun grows cold or PayPal goes under, whichever comes first) because it's the only way to get them back for robbing me. The actual $200 mean almost nothing to them either, so I just rub my muddy boots on their couch from time to time.
"Fuck yo' couch Eddie Murphy" (head's up the n-word is in there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcJkhSUSnek )
I love the quote from John Collison:
"This is digital migration in a very compressed period of time, for both businesses and customers," Collison adds. "My mom recently asked me if I'd heard of 'this Instacart thing.' Yeah mom, I have."
"This is digital migration in a very compressed period of time, for both businesses and customers," Collison adds. "My mom recently asked me if I'd heard of 'this Instacart thing.' Yeah mom, I have."
Sadly, it’s also likely one of the largest and fastest transfers of wealth from small businesses to large corporations. As Amazon hires 100,000+ workers how many small businesses are shuttering for good?
Stripe is one of the “good” tech companies in this respect by helping to level the playing field for smaller businesses, but it’s not going to be enough.
Stripe is one of the “good” tech companies in this respect by helping to level the playing field for smaller businesses, but it’s not going to be enough.
The impact of Covid-19 on many businesses around the world is very sad.
That said, it's less clear to me that the medium-term impact will be pro-incumbent or pro-large company. Big incumbents tend to be less adaptable and to benefit from large fixed cost barriers to entry (e.g. real estate). We're seeing a lot of nimble small businesses migrate to online business models far faster than the behemoths they used to struggle to compete against.
That said, it's less clear to me that the medium-term impact will be pro-incumbent or pro-large company. Big incumbents tend to be less adaptable and to benefit from large fixed cost barriers to entry (e.g. real estate). We're seeing a lot of nimble small businesses migrate to online business models far faster than the behemoths they used to struggle to compete against.
I think he's thinking about local specialty retailers, which pretty much by definition cannot pivot into some online model. If you aren't deemed essential, you're likely going out of business as your market is eaten up by Amazon and Target/Walmart (which get to keep selling various non essentials since they're allowed to remain open, so they can sell groceries and drugs). Small local businesses will fail or take out crushing loans from the govt, and your mom+pop kitchen store is not more able to cope than Target with its well staffed IT dept, unbroken revenue stream, and deep pockets.
This is true, but the big incumbents will benefit from being able to buy up swaths of local business at a discount. Their advantages of scale will only increase
I keep thinking about a line from "Small is Beautiful":
> Rather than mass production we need production of the masses.
Something like that.
Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Is_Beautiful
> First published in 1973, Small Is Beautiful brought Schumacher's critiques of Western economics to a wider audience during the 1973 energy crisis and the popularisation of the concept of globalization. In 1995 The Times Literary Supplement ranked Small Is Beautiful among the 100 most influential books published since World War II.
> Rather than mass production we need production of the masses.
Something like that.
Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Is_Beautiful
> First published in 1973, Small Is Beautiful brought Schumacher's critiques of Western economics to a wider audience during the 1973 energy crisis and the popularisation of the concept of globalization. In 1995 The Times Literary Supplement ranked Small Is Beautiful among the 100 most influential books published since World War II.
It's interesting to see smaller companies adapt though. Local cafes in Australia are selling toilet paper and soap.
Overall I agree with your point. Many have shut their doors and I don't know if they'll reopen.
Overall I agree with your point. Many have shut their doors and I don't know if they'll reopen.
I don't understand this idolization of small over large (or vice versa for others). The thing that matters most is that businesses best satisfy their customers, whether they are small or large.
There's no benefit to having a small business that provides inferior products or inferior service relative to a large company.
I buy from small companies all the time and many of those that I do will likely survive because they provide better goods and services than any large company.
There's no benefit to having a small business that provides inferior products or inferior service relative to a large company.
I buy from small companies all the time and many of those that I do will likely survive because they provide better goods and services than any large company.
> There's no benefit to having a small business that provides inferior products or inferior service relative to a large company.
Sure there is - in terms of where the profit goes. The profit in a small business goes to the owner(s), who usually live somewhere in the local community, and in turn that money stays within the community to be spent on other businesses there.
When a Walmart comes along, the profits all move up the chain to a corporation that is nowhere nearby, effectively sucking the wealth out of small towns in exchange for slightly reduced costs thanks to efficient logistics.
The happy medium would be to find a way to have logistics as good as Walmart without having to actually be Walmart.
Sure there is - in terms of where the profit goes. The profit in a small business goes to the owner(s), who usually live somewhere in the local community, and in turn that money stays within the community to be spent on other businesses there.
When a Walmart comes along, the profits all move up the chain to a corporation that is nowhere nearby, effectively sucking the wealth out of small towns in exchange for slightly reduced costs thanks to efficient logistics.
The happy medium would be to find a way to have logistics as good as Walmart without having to actually be Walmart.
By that logic, car dealerships in America are a positive because they keep profits locally. In reality, they just increase prices to consumers and limit competition through lobbying.
The cost advantage from Walmart is not just in logistics, it is specialization of labor, superior negotiating power against suppliers, and diversification of geographic risk. A small business will be less efficient and give up more profits to suppliers.
The cost advantage from Walmart is not just in logistics, it is specialization of labor, superior negotiating power against suppliers, and diversification of geographic risk. A small business will be less efficient and give up more profits to suppliers.
This is true, but are lower prices for consumers better for everyone in the community than keeping the profits locally? I don't think anyone knows. My guess is it creates different winners and losers.
While this is true, I would be curious of the overall economic impact.
A business owner can have a successful business but they aren't really making tremendous profit, so how much of that money really remains in the local community.
The other aspect is also that real estate taxes need to be increased, which is the best way to ensure that funds inside a community stay there.
This way as more work moves remotely, through real estate taxes the local communities are still able to thrive.
I'm not disagreeing with what you are saying, but it isn't so black and white.
A business owner can have a successful business but they aren't really making tremendous profit, so how much of that money really remains in the local community.
The other aspect is also that real estate taxes need to be increased, which is the best way to ensure that funds inside a community stay there.
This way as more work moves remotely, through real estate taxes the local communities are still able to thrive.
I'm not disagreeing with what you are saying, but it isn't so black and white.
> While this is true, I would be curious of the overall economic impact.
Where have you been for the past decade? The economic impact is increasingly concentrated levels of wealth, where a handful of people are vacuuming up pretty much all of the wealth in America. The middle class (local business owners) is shrinking, the labour/wage worker class is growing, and the ultra-wealthy are getting richer.
> The other aspect is also that real estate taxes need to be increased
No, this also affects local businesses, who do not have the profit margins needed to survive. You need to find a way to limit the power big corporations have, while not hurting small/local business owners. A VAT tax is likely a much better solution to this problem.
Increasing real estate taxes is one way to ensure only big corporations with extensive logistics networks and high profit margins, that pay their laborers minimum wage would be able to survive. The point is to prioritize people over corporations, and your solution misses that completely.
Where have you been for the past decade? The economic impact is increasingly concentrated levels of wealth, where a handful of people are vacuuming up pretty much all of the wealth in America. The middle class (local business owners) is shrinking, the labour/wage worker class is growing, and the ultra-wealthy are getting richer.
> The other aspect is also that real estate taxes need to be increased
No, this also affects local businesses, who do not have the profit margins needed to survive. You need to find a way to limit the power big corporations have, while not hurting small/local business owners. A VAT tax is likely a much better solution to this problem.
Increasing real estate taxes is one way to ensure only big corporations with extensive logistics networks and high profit margins, that pay their laborers minimum wage would be able to survive. The point is to prioritize people over corporations, and your solution misses that completely.
Smaller businesses are also more swift and responsive to needs in their environment (when they have enough resources). While big companies are prone to take risk-averse actions (layoffs, outsourcing, store closures), smaller businesses have less layers of management, so pivots and benevolent actions are more likely.
> Smaller businesses are also more swift and responsive to needs in their environment
And yet, the covid crisis demonstrates the opposite effect.
And yet, the covid crisis demonstrates the opposite effect.
I'm not so sure about the tremendous benefits of having locally-wealthy people instead of remotely-wealthy people. As I've gotten more involved in local politics, I've discovered that local small business owners have a quite toxic influence on local politics. Who funds the campaigns opposing density? Often it's small business owners. In Seattle, the city was trying to create spaces where addicts could safely use needle drugs (and get services and be off the street). Who opposed this? Small business owners.
Additionally, because they fly under the radar and are less efficient, small businesses can be some of the most exploitative workplaces. Small businesses are also often exempted from pro-worker regulations, for example they do not have to provide healthcare to their employees. Several small businesses in cities I've lived in have waged years-long union-busting campaigns.
The point isn't that small businesses are worse than large ones, I just think they have a progressive halo which is often undeserved.
Additionally, because they fly under the radar and are less efficient, small businesses can be some of the most exploitative workplaces. Small businesses are also often exempted from pro-worker regulations, for example they do not have to provide healthcare to their employees. Several small businesses in cities I've lived in have waged years-long union-busting campaigns.
The point isn't that small businesses are worse than large ones, I just think they have a progressive halo which is often undeserved.
I'm struggling to see how local people influencing local politics is a bad thing. Would you prefer for remote corporations to control local politics?
No, I'd just prefer we're equally critical of wealthy and corporate interests controlling our politics, regardless of where they live.
I wish we were equally critical of everyone controlling our politics regardless of wealth and location. No one's preferred policy positions are above criticism.
And that wealth goes into people's pension funds, and gives them more money to spend in their community in retirement. Why the assumption that money magically disappears once it gets to Walmart?
For big public companies, the owners can be distributed in many communities.
I admire people willing to take risks starting their own business instead of being another cog in the machine.
I guess you could say I’m privileged to be able to value more diverse offerings over the absolute lowest prices, but culture suffers when all you have are same 5 retailers and 20 restaurant chains in every town.
Also, economies of scale put small businesses at a disadvantage, even if their product isn’t inferior.
I guess you could say I’m privileged to be able to value more diverse offerings over the absolute lowest prices, but culture suffers when all you have are same 5 retailers and 20 restaurant chains in every town.
Also, economies of scale put small businesses at a disadvantage, even if their product isn’t inferior.
Large companies have more power than smaller ones. This could be the power to offer poor products at inflated prices, or power to alter political processes to their favor.
> or power to alter political processes
Doing away with large companies doesn't guarantee that this will end, though.
An example: while there are few large corporations providing physician services, the American Medical Association lobbies on behalf of the thousands of individual doctors and small private practices, often to the detriment of consumers anyway.
Doing away with large companies doesn't guarantee that this will end, though.
An example: while there are few large corporations providing physician services, the American Medical Association lobbies on behalf of the thousands of individual doctors and small private practices, often to the detriment of consumers anyway.
Also small companies often employ and are owned by my neighbors.. Amazon doesn't and is owned by a bunch of hedge funds and a dude who buys $200M houses.
Large companies also employ my neighbors, and clearly for a better value as otherwise they would be with smaller ones. As for ownership, Amazon is part of the S&P 500 which is quite literally owned by millions of folks in their savings, 401k's etc. Hence the reality is not that simple.
And plenty of small investors like me own Amazon via their manged funds
Many small companies can serve a wider variety of customers more precisely. They also increase diversity so we don’t end up with a few large companies optimizing for their local maximum, which is rarely the market’s.
Looks like everyone responding to me completely ignored the fact that my point wasn't a defense of large businesses, it was about defending businesses that are more customer-centric. i.e. those businesses that better meets the needs of the customer by providing superior value. Many of the replies actually reinforce my point.
That could be restaurants that provide better quality food than the large chain restaurants. It could be a butchers that provide higher quality locally sourced meats than what I can get at Safeway and Walmart. It could be businesses making specialized gear that I use in my outdoor endeavors (Hyperlite Mountain Gear, Mountain Laurel Designs, Astral, Kokatat, Alpacka Raft, etc. etc.). It can be businesses that sell things the big businesses don't such as a specialty wine shop. There are tons of good small businesses that provide superior value. Selling the same products as Amazon and Walmart at a higher price with poorer customer service and worse return policy doesn't provide superior value.
A good business is one that provides superior value. Being large or small tells me nothing about the value being provided.
Everyone focusing on things like pricing power is missing the forest for the trees. If you don't have pricing power, the money is still leaving the community. Instead of going to the middleman that lives far away, it just goes to the manufacturers that live far away.
Furthermore, many of these large companies are public, which means everyone within any community has the opportunity of buying a piece of the company on the open market. The communities that buy the most of such large companies probably even keep more wealth in their community than the ones that don't. If enough local people buy shares, then it's possible that more profits flow into that particular community than flow out of that community.
With a small local retailer, it just means the money flows into the pocket of one person or one family in the community and no one else in the community can buy into that business and get the benefits of the value generated. This is what happens in places like Lake Chelan in Washington, where one family (the Campbells) has a stranglehold on politics and funnels everything to their businesses, which no one else locally is able to buy into.
Strong communities with a solid local economy are those that have many such small businesses that provide superior value. If your community does nothing that an Amazon or Walmart does, then there really isn't anything that's going to flow the balance of payments in your direction and the community will slowly die.
That could be restaurants that provide better quality food than the large chain restaurants. It could be a butchers that provide higher quality locally sourced meats than what I can get at Safeway and Walmart. It could be businesses making specialized gear that I use in my outdoor endeavors (Hyperlite Mountain Gear, Mountain Laurel Designs, Astral, Kokatat, Alpacka Raft, etc. etc.). It can be businesses that sell things the big businesses don't such as a specialty wine shop. There are tons of good small businesses that provide superior value. Selling the same products as Amazon and Walmart at a higher price with poorer customer service and worse return policy doesn't provide superior value.
A good business is one that provides superior value. Being large or small tells me nothing about the value being provided.
Everyone focusing on things like pricing power is missing the forest for the trees. If you don't have pricing power, the money is still leaving the community. Instead of going to the middleman that lives far away, it just goes to the manufacturers that live far away.
Furthermore, many of these large companies are public, which means everyone within any community has the opportunity of buying a piece of the company on the open market. The communities that buy the most of such large companies probably even keep more wealth in their community than the ones that don't. If enough local people buy shares, then it's possible that more profits flow into that particular community than flow out of that community.
With a small local retailer, it just means the money flows into the pocket of one person or one family in the community and no one else in the community can buy into that business and get the benefits of the value generated. This is what happens in places like Lake Chelan in Washington, where one family (the Campbells) has a stranglehold on politics and funnels everything to their businesses, which no one else locally is able to buy into.
Strong communities with a solid local economy are those that have many such small businesses that provide superior value. If your community does nothing that an Amazon or Walmart does, then there really isn't anything that's going to flow the balance of payments in your direction and the community will slowly die.
So the question is, will the adoption of these services stick after things return to a more normal state?
Certainly there will be some stickiness, but how much and for whom?
To state the obvious, some adoption will be permanent but others not much. Where that will happen and by how much is a diff question.
Example, will people go back to Starbucks or will they keep on making more coffee at home, maybe get an entry espresso machine?
Certainly there will be some stickiness, but how much and for whom?
To state the obvious, some adoption will be permanent but others not much. Where that will happen and by how much is a diff question.
Example, will people go back to Starbucks or will they keep on making more coffee at home, maybe get an entry espresso machine?
The biggest barrier to late adopters is the learning curve and confidence: They worry that new tech will take too long to learn, and they're not confident it will work right.
Right now a lot of people have no choice but to learn how to meet with Zoom, how to order with Instacart, how to communicate through Slack, ... And as they do, hopefully things are working out OK and they're building confidence in those technologies.
When the pandemic subsides, I don't see much reason for people to revert en masse.
Right now a lot of people have no choice but to learn how to meet with Zoom, how to order with Instacart, how to communicate through Slack, ... And as they do, hopefully things are working out OK and they're building confidence in those technologies.
When the pandemic subsides, I don't see much reason for people to revert en masse.
The biggest barrier to instacart is that the experience is awful. 80% of the time the deliverer calls to say they can't find half the items and half the time don't do what you tell them. Then it costs $10-20 extra, nah.
Still competitive with "sending husband out to get groceries"
We had been talking about trying out instacart in December. I was just spending lots of time running to pick things up at the store. We used to grocery shop small orders every 2 days or so. Sometimes daily.
Now we are trying to minimize going out at all. So we've been using instacart and shipt for over a month and it's a big time saver. So I expect we will continue to use them once we are in a more normal state.
So I expect lots of people will keep using them just because it saves time.
I think normal is going to be way out like 18 months at least and probably longer.
Even at that point we're probably going to be minimizing crowds and shopping in stores. And we're definitely going to be shopping less frequently and larger grocery orders.
This event will change how a large % of us lives and shops for a long time.
Now we are trying to minimize going out at all. So we've been using instacart and shipt for over a month and it's a big time saver. So I expect we will continue to use them once we are in a more normal state.
So I expect lots of people will keep using them just because it saves time.
I think normal is going to be way out like 18 months at least and probably longer.
Even at that point we're probably going to be minimizing crowds and shopping in stores. And we're definitely going to be shopping less frequently and larger grocery orders.
This event will change how a large % of us lives and shops for a long time.
:-). True.
On the API docs, there's plenty of code examples and a caching feature which is awesome, but I wish the docs at https://stripe.com/docs/development could be cached like the API docs.
Working on this!
Is Stripe still hiring during COVID-19?
I've seen at least two of my friends take a new job there in the past week, FWIW. Both amazing people.
Yes!
Although they are particularly picky at the moment, which makes sense given the situation.
Anecdotally, I couldn't get an interview, even though I had an offer from them in the past.
Anecdotally, I couldn't get an interview, even though I had an offer from them in the past.
Hello! Do you have plans for more new grad positions?
How many headcount do you have open for SRE?
Stripe doesn’t make the distinction between software engineers and SREs that some firms do. We’re all responsible for shipping things that work for our customers, regardless of whether we’re working on a product team or an infrastructure team.
You can see our open roles at https://stripe.com/jobs/search?t=engineering (some corresponding to multiple people). They’re very real. We hire hundreds of engineers every year.
You can see our open roles at https://stripe.com/jobs/search?t=engineering (some corresponding to multiple people). They’re very real. We hire hundreds of engineers every year.
I should point out that the way you phrased it sounds very much like "Yeah, you're gonna carry a pager and like it. Deal with it." This, if true, entirely disqualifies Stripe for me as a potential employee; I am not interested in ever being on call, unless I'm getting an absurd slice of the upside that a company Stripe's size is not offering.
Do you want to clarify your phrasing or is that actually how you operate? :(
Do you want to clarify your phrasing or is that actually how you operate? :(
Thanks for the info about the team structure Patrick! Hope you're staying safe out there
quite a few shops are hiring rn. i’ve been told google plans on easing up on hiring over the rest of 2020, but it wasn’t described to me as a freeze. there are a bunch of startups that managed to close funding before this broke open, they’ve been hiring as well if thats your thing
Google wouldn’t describe it as a freeze. “Pause”, “slow down”, “recalibration” are all great euphemisms because unless you are super hard up on cash you are going to have critical roles to fill or backfill and the PR hit on a “freeze” is and unforced error.
How does stripe plan to navigate through the current economic climate and recession?
We're focused on a few things --
- Staying secure, reliable, and available for our existing customers. Some businesses in Stripe are seeing huge surges in demand and others are seeing major shortfalls. In either case, we want to make sure we can that we can be relied on to provide flawless service.
- Keeping up with the surge of new customers. A lot of businesses are migrating online and many of the platforms we serve are also seeing significant spikes in signups. So, we're investing a lot of effort in making sure that we can scale effectively there and remove all unnecessary friction. (There's a very active project working on cleaning up our docs and improving the integration experience, for example.)
- Adding support for business models that were previously limited because of bank/card network restrictions. We just launched support for telemedicine last week.
- Figuring out ways to help businesses by enabling access to government programs (e.g. the PPP program in the US). These programs usually haven't thought much about the somewhat unique characteristics of online businesses. We're trying to help government officials understand what internet businesses need. (And, per the comment elsewhere in this thread, we're rolling out our first PPP loans this week.)
- Staying secure, reliable, and available for our existing customers. Some businesses in Stripe are seeing huge surges in demand and others are seeing major shortfalls. In either case, we want to make sure we can that we can be relied on to provide flawless service.
- Keeping up with the surge of new customers. A lot of businesses are migrating online and many of the platforms we serve are also seeing significant spikes in signups. So, we're investing a lot of effort in making sure that we can scale effectively there and remove all unnecessary friction. (There's a very active project working on cleaning up our docs and improving the integration experience, for example.)
- Adding support for business models that were previously limited because of bank/card network restrictions. We just launched support for telemedicine last week.
- Figuring out ways to help businesses by enabling access to government programs (e.g. the PPP program in the US). These programs usually haven't thought much about the somewhat unique characteristics of online businesses. We're trying to help government officials understand what internet businesses need. (And, per the comment elsewhere in this thread, we're rolling out our first PPP loans this week.)
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I hope they are letting the employees cash out at these rounds. Otherwise they will end up like Uber, Lyft and other unicorn employees that not only got screwed by the IPO, but the subsequent taxes because of that. I know many Uber employees that need to sell at these low prices just to pay taxes and their RSUs leaving them with very little actual gains.
Are employees supposed to make gains on their equity based compensation when their company underperforms? Isn't this a risk you take when joining a startup? Thus far the only thing Uber has ever proved successful at, financially, was taking VC money. So it sounds like what you're asking for is that startup employees be allowed to siphon vc funds into their personal bank accts.
This is a ludicrous comment unless you believe that "employees" deserve to be second-class citizens. Lots of people cash out during funding rounds. It may be the status quo, but no one deserves their equity being a scam.
Here's the way I see it - whether or not a company is profitable, rests entirely on executive management. It's their job to steer the company into profitability (by the right vision, strategies, and execution).
For rank and file workers, that may just build up the company, should get paid for their work. A company can be worth a lot, but still perform poorly.
If you have enough VC money coming in, you can purposely run a company unprofitable 'till for a long, long time - if you're goal is to simply undercut competition.
For rank and file workers, that may just build up the company, should get paid for their work. A company can be worth a lot, but still perform poorly.
If you have enough VC money coming in, you can purposely run a company unprofitable 'till for a long, long time - if you're goal is to simply undercut competition.
That is a function of the very poor treatment of employee shares in the USA - maybe that is what the unionisation efforts in FANGS should target
Stripe user here (Stripe Singapore) since 2016 and processed a loooot of money which was a life-changing thing for me and many other people.
Patrick, I appreciate how supportive you are here so I hope you don't mind this turning into Q&A/support type of topic :D
1) Do you plan to lower the currency conversion fees for Singapore? We charge customers in USD but we are forced to convert to SGD and conversion fees adds up. On 99USD charge, with the current conversion, we get around 138 SGD but the net for us is 133 SGD because the processing fee is ~5.20SGD. That fee was lower before. There is no problem for us getting an extension of our account in USD currency so we could avoid unnecessary conversion USD->SGD fees.
2. Chargebacks. A real pain in the ass. I shared a post on IH about it. Basically there is no way for us to issue someone a refund if they are doing a chargeback. This is a real problem that is relatively easy to solve. PayPal does it - basically, if the customer submits dispute, PayPal first tries to contact the seller to voluntarily provide the refund and only if they refuse, the dispute is being reviewed. Why Stripe cannot work this way? That would save a lot of drama and stress involved running the business for both sides - you and us, your customers.
3. Pricing info. It's still very confusing on your website to understand what and how you charge for particular add-ons and whether we are grandfathered and have these add-on services included free of charge (since we have been with you since 2016).
Patrick, I appreciate how supportive you are here so I hope you don't mind this turning into Q&A/support type of topic :D
1) Do you plan to lower the currency conversion fees for Singapore? We charge customers in USD but we are forced to convert to SGD and conversion fees adds up. On 99USD charge, with the current conversion, we get around 138 SGD but the net for us is 133 SGD because the processing fee is ~5.20SGD. That fee was lower before. There is no problem for us getting an extension of our account in USD currency so we could avoid unnecessary conversion USD->SGD fees.
2. Chargebacks. A real pain in the ass. I shared a post on IH about it. Basically there is no way for us to issue someone a refund if they are doing a chargeback. This is a real problem that is relatively easy to solve. PayPal does it - basically, if the customer submits dispute, PayPal first tries to contact the seller to voluntarily provide the refund and only if they refuse, the dispute is being reviewed. Why Stripe cannot work this way? That would save a lot of drama and stress involved running the business for both sides - you and us, your customers.
3. Pricing info. It's still very confusing on your website to understand what and how you charge for particular add-ons and whether we are grandfathered and have these add-on services included free of charge (since we have been with you since 2016).
Hi there! Jon here from the Singapore office. We have a USD payout feature for Singapore in beta and would be happy to share more about it with you! I'm at [email protected]
You could leverage a partnership with @routefusion to solve this. We would help you move that money back to SGD super quickly, and at a great price. We are actually in partnership with company in SG called CardUp, if you have ever heard of them :)
Shoot me an email if you would like to chat more!
[email protected] developer.routefusion.co
Shoot me an email if you would like to chat more!
[email protected] developer.routefusion.co
We can potentially help you avoid that currency round-trip. Can you write us at [email protected] ?
For 2, a dispute is not a cb - on paypal if someone chargebacks _on their card_, there is an entirely different workflow
When I say "dispute" I mean chargeback. It's the same in Stripe.
Adyen:
$25b market cap, with 2019 full year net revenue being $538m, up 43% year-on-year.
https://www.adyen.com/investor-relations/news/h2-2019-financ...
Stripe:
Significantly less than Adyen, as many have reported.
----
Same business model, with Adyen having a higher operating margin.
This should be interesting to see how this plays out. Either Adyen will skyrocket in value, or Stripe will decrease in value.
$25b market cap, with 2019 full year net revenue being $538m, up 43% year-on-year.
https://www.adyen.com/investor-relations/news/h2-2019-financ...
Stripe:
Significantly less than Adyen, as many have reported.
----
Same business model, with Adyen having a higher operating margin.
This should be interesting to see how this plays out. Either Adyen will skyrocket in value, or Stripe will decrease in value.
This is not a new valuation, is an extension of their series G from last year which also had a 35B valuation.
That's right; this isn't new. We just decided that it was prudent to extend the round a little given the economic uncertainty.
In which book is $600M 'a little' :) Really, that's boatload of money by any standard.
Fair :-). "A little" relative to market cap. But, yes, $600M is a staggering amount of money in absolute terms.
Please tell me it's to fund a massive expansion of Stripe Press! I want more books like The Dream Machine!
I just looked at your site and saw a book about Prince of Persia I hadn't seen before. I'm trying not to buy any more books because my stack is already too big but it's really tempting...
I just looked at your site and saw a book about Prince of Persia I hadn't seen before. I'm trying not to buy any more books because my stack is already too big but it's really tempting...
It's interesting though, how do you conceptually deal with these very large numbers? Do you equate it to some kind of internal standard of 'X employee years' or how does it work for you?
Interesting — did you just extend the round at the same price and identical terms?
>series G
seriously? like they've had A,B,C,D,E,F,G rounds of vc funding?
seriously? like they've had A,B,C,D,E,F,G rounds of vc funding?
Technically 8 if this is an extension of G
At this point we may as well just start using numbers instead of letters.
I just want to say thank you to Stripe for being amazing.
I'm just now dealing with canceling service with a traditional merchant account (I switched completely over to Stripe back in August), and the experience has been terrible and stupid.
Around 2003 or 2004, I was working on my first startup. I signed up for an authorize.net account through a merchant account called Capital Merchant Systems (later acquired by EVO Payments). At the time, the process required filling out a pile of paperwork, including writing an actual cover letter to get approved.
Things were fine until recent years, business for this particular service had slowly dropped to the point where it was no longer feasible to run through authorize.net. So I decided to finally make the switch over to Stripe (which I'd used for a number of years on another project).
Signing up for Stripe is so painlessly easy, straightforward, and friendly.
After switching my system over, I called and emailed my merchant account to cancel (this was in August). Then I called and emailed again in November. Then I called and emailed again in January.
All the while, they've been withdrawing from my checking account.
Then I emailed again in April, and filed reports with the BBB and FTC. Only then have I heard back from them, and they're claiming my January request is the first request.
So the short of it is, use Stripe. They are amazing, open, and transparent, their API is a joy to work with, and their dashboard is great. I wish Stripe was around 16 years ago when I first got started processing payments.
And DO NOT, under any circumstances, use EVO Payments. Cancelling with them is like cancelling a shitty gym membership - at the end of the day, you'll have to file complaints with every 3-letter organization you can think of, and file transaction disputes to cancel your account.
I'm just now dealing with canceling service with a traditional merchant account (I switched completely over to Stripe back in August), and the experience has been terrible and stupid.
Around 2003 or 2004, I was working on my first startup. I signed up for an authorize.net account through a merchant account called Capital Merchant Systems (later acquired by EVO Payments). At the time, the process required filling out a pile of paperwork, including writing an actual cover letter to get approved.
Things were fine until recent years, business for this particular service had slowly dropped to the point where it was no longer feasible to run through authorize.net. So I decided to finally make the switch over to Stripe (which I'd used for a number of years on another project).
Signing up for Stripe is so painlessly easy, straightforward, and friendly.
After switching my system over, I called and emailed my merchant account to cancel (this was in August). Then I called and emailed again in November. Then I called and emailed again in January.
All the while, they've been withdrawing from my checking account.
Then I emailed again in April, and filed reports with the BBB and FTC. Only then have I heard back from them, and they're claiming my January request is the first request.
So the short of it is, use Stripe. They are amazing, open, and transparent, their API is a joy to work with, and their dashboard is great. I wish Stripe was around 16 years ago when I first got started processing payments.
And DO NOT, under any circumstances, use EVO Payments. Cancelling with them is like cancelling a shitty gym membership - at the end of the day, you'll have to file complaints with every 3-letter organization you can think of, and file transaction disputes to cancel your account.
That's much higher than Square (25.2B) but lower than Shopify (60.5B)
(Square and Shopify have 4.71B and 1.58B in revenue, respectively)
(Square and Shopify have 4.71B and 1.58B in revenue, respectively)
Shopify is going to pull back payments from stripe. It's the only logical thing for them to do for them to boost revenue. They already ramped up the Shopify Pay branding and removed the "powered by stripe" cobranding on Shopify Payments. Stripe helped it along by not refunding payment fees on returns. Shopify's largest merchants are apparel companies who have high return rates.
It's unfortunate that Stripe has remained private. Both Square and Shopify IPO'd in the low single digit billions in market cap, allowing plenty of retail investors to tap into their growth.
So with Stripe, is it industry practice to keep the fee when refunding customers?
For example, if I return something to Best Buy, are they still paying that 2.9% fee to their CC processor?
For example, if I return something to Best Buy, are they still paying that 2.9% fee to their CC processor?
i don't know about best buy, they might be able to negotiate something better. but for small fish, it's standard practice to keep not just the fee, but twice the fee: when you charge a card, visa charges you 2.5% on the purchase amount. and then when you refund the card, visa charges you 2.5% on the refund amount.
as far as visa is concerned, they're both just transactions, regardless of the direction, and they want their fee.
as far as visa is concerned, they're both just transactions, regardless of the direction, and they want their fee.
IMHO it is time to start promulgating the idea that electronic money transfer should be considered a basic human right just like free cash transactions have been since the invention of money. It already is that way in many advanced countries where electronic money transfer is a service provided by the government. It is only in the U.S. where a private monopolistic cartel is allowed to impose a private tax on all retail transactions.
I can't believe I'm going to be "that guy" but, uh, bitcoin, eh?
Rights aren't granted, they have to be taken.
To the tune of "Yellow Rose of Texas" (from the Simpsons):
Rights aren't granted, they have to be taken.
To the tune of "Yellow Rose of Texas" (from the Simpsons):
The yellow gold of Texas
Is what I long to save.
I will not pay no taxes
If I hide it in a cave.Bitcoin vs government service is a dispute over implementation, not principle. Personally I hew towards government, but it's important to be clear about what is actually being argued about otherwise the forces of evil will be able to divide and conquer.
> it's important to be clear about what is actually being argued
I agree, and I'm not arguing with you, at least not directly.
I personally think of "rights" as a kind of useful fiction that gives a kind of psychological "leverage" in politics. I understand that a lot of people think that that term has some sort of concrete real-world referent, but I don't. I've never read anything intelligible on the matter, e.g. the US Constitution says God endowed us with them. It's poetic but legally meaningless AFAICT.
So I really don't want to argue about principles. It smacks of theology to me and I believe in the separation of Church and State.
Bitcoin, for better-or-worse, already lets people transfer wealth without asking anyone for permission for very reasonable cost. One way I can interpret what you're saying is that governments shouldn't attempt to outlaw that.
But I think you mean more. I think you mean something like, constitutions should be amended to include EFT as a "basic human right", and that governments should provide the service too. Is that right?
I agree, and I'm not arguing with you, at least not directly.
I personally think of "rights" as a kind of useful fiction that gives a kind of psychological "leverage" in politics. I understand that a lot of people think that that term has some sort of concrete real-world referent, but I don't. I've never read anything intelligible on the matter, e.g. the US Constitution says God endowed us with them. It's poetic but legally meaningless AFAICT.
So I really don't want to argue about principles. It smacks of theology to me and I believe in the separation of Church and State.
Bitcoin, for better-or-worse, already lets people transfer wealth without asking anyone for permission for very reasonable cost. One way I can interpret what you're saying is that governments shouldn't attempt to outlaw that.
But I think you mean more. I think you mean something like, constitutions should be amended to include EFT as a "basic human right", and that governments should provide the service too. Is that right?
> I personally think of "rights" as a kind of useful fiction that gives a kind of psychological "leverage" in politics.
Yes, of course. Rights are whatever we as a society decide they are. That's why I wrote, "should be considered a basic human right" rather than "is a basic human right."
> One way I can interpret what you're saying is that governments shouldn't attempt to outlaw that.
The devil is very much in the details here, and reasonable people can disagree. IMHO bitcoin is dangerous. The anonymity and inability to roll back transactions is IMHO a bug, not a feature. It makes it too easy to produce irreversible bad outcomes through negligence or malice.
> But I think you mean more. I think you mean something like, constitutions should be amended to include EFT as a "basic human right", and that governments should provide the service too. Is that right?
More or less. I don't think it's so important what constitutions say. What matters more is what the societal consensus is. Money transfer should be a commodity. Its cost should be somewhere in the neighborhood of the marginal cost of production, which is one hell of a lot less than the 2.5% the credit card companies charge. And that cost should probably be born by society as a whole, just like with most other infrastructure.
Yes, of course. Rights are whatever we as a society decide they are. That's why I wrote, "should be considered a basic human right" rather than "is a basic human right."
> One way I can interpret what you're saying is that governments shouldn't attempt to outlaw that.
The devil is very much in the details here, and reasonable people can disagree. IMHO bitcoin is dangerous. The anonymity and inability to roll back transactions is IMHO a bug, not a feature. It makes it too easy to produce irreversible bad outcomes through negligence or malice.
> But I think you mean more. I think you mean something like, constitutions should be amended to include EFT as a "basic human right", and that governments should provide the service too. Is that right?
More or less. I don't think it's so important what constitutions say. What matters more is what the societal consensus is. Money transfer should be a commodity. Its cost should be somewhere in the neighborhood of the marginal cost of production, which is one hell of a lot less than the 2.5% the credit card companies charge. And that cost should probably be born by society as a whole, just like with most other infrastructure.
Without any profit, what's going to support the creation of such service and pay for the talent that is going to make it cheap and reliable? The only answer is likely to have taxes pay for it, but then you're still paying a tax and then you're in the situation where you can't switch to a new company providing a better service. A service being provided by the government doesn't make it free. You're still paying for it one way or another.
Here's a recent example from my life: About 10 days ago my partner sent $1000 to friends/family in another country and used the official channels that involves the nationalized bank in that country. It should have been there quickly, but took 10 days. There was no update the entire time and no phone number to call or other customer service channel to figure out what was happening. On day 3 or 4, a friend asked why she hadn't used this other private money transfer service that is known to be far more reliable, faster and with better customer service. With the government, there were still fees involved and the service was far less convenient/reliable.
Here's a fact of life: Nothing that requires the labor of other people will ever be free unless:
- the people providing the labor choose to do so and have the time to do so because they have some other means to support themselves; or
- someone voluntarily donates the money to fund both the creation of such a service and the maintenance of such a service in perpetuity.
- you steal money from someone else to pay for that labor.
Those are pretty much the only three ways that something requiring labor comes into being.
You can't just magically declare anything that requires human labor to be a basic human right and will it into being.
Here's a recent example from my life: About 10 days ago my partner sent $1000 to friends/family in another country and used the official channels that involves the nationalized bank in that country. It should have been there quickly, but took 10 days. There was no update the entire time and no phone number to call or other customer service channel to figure out what was happening. On day 3 or 4, a friend asked why she hadn't used this other private money transfer service that is known to be far more reliable, faster and with better customer service. With the government, there were still fees involved and the service was far less convenient/reliable.
Here's a fact of life: Nothing that requires the labor of other people will ever be free unless:
- the people providing the labor choose to do so and have the time to do so because they have some other means to support themselves; or
- someone voluntarily donates the money to fund both the creation of such a service and the maintenance of such a service in perpetuity.
- you steal money from someone else to pay for that labor.
Those are pretty much the only three ways that something requiring labor comes into being.
You can't just magically declare anything that requires human labor to be a basic human right and will it into being.
I very deliberately did not use the word "free". Of course it's not free. Many things that are considered basic human rights are not free. Food, clothing, shelter... none of these are free. We as a society choose to provide them because we'd rather live in a world where everyone has these things rather than one where some people don't.
Of course this does not apply to everything. It's perfectly fine if not everyone has a private jet. It's not so perfectly fine if people are starving in the street.
Of course this does not apply to everything. It's perfectly fine if not everyone has a private jet. It's not so perfectly fine if people are starving in the street.
> Without any profit, what's going to support the creation of such service and pay for the talent that is going to make it cheap and reliable?
Lending. Money sitting idle in accounts (moved into an account and not yet sent, or received, but not yet moved out) can be lent out to earn interest. That's how my bank can offer free transactions to all customers, both private and business.
Lending. Money sitting idle in accounts (moved into an account and not yet sent, or received, but not yet moved out) can be lent out to earn interest. That's how my bank can offer free transactions to all customers, both private and business.
In what countries can you do free electronic transactions?
If you're a business basically nowhere. Some of the sibling comments are suggesting e.g. the UK where I live. Modestly sized transactions (maybe not the price of a new car or home but from pocket change to a nice family holiday) between individuals are zero cost and typically near instant. But a business can't access those rates.
However the EU forced the payment services sector to cap charges for businesses so you're maybe paying 0.5% or less on a transaction not 2.5% and that's why you don't see amazing cashback card deals or big discounts for cash in the EU normally.
However the EU forced the payment services sector to cap charges for businesses so you're maybe paying 0.5% or less on a transaction not 2.5% and that's why you don't see amazing cashback card deals or big discounts for cash in the EU normally.
U.K. and South Korea are the two that I know of but there are probably others. (According to the sibling comment, Canada is on the list too.)
Despite what anyone says, the answer is none. Taxes are paying for those electronic transactions to be possible.
Australia has free bank transfers and our credit card fees are regulated to be significantly lower (amex = ~1.5%, visa/mc = ~0.5%).
Canada if you want to pay the Interac (our debit system).
China, for one. (in Beijing atm)
Stripe has great and interesting products but this valuation seems very high. They are competing with companies like Global Payments and First Data but they aren't disrupting them.
First Data has a lower market cap than this with $9B in annual revenue and $1B in annual profit.
First Data has a lower market cap than this with $9B in annual revenue and $1B in annual profit.
I'm aware of a large org actively moving the bulk of $3bn in volume from FiServ (formerly First Data) to Stripe. Stripe's valuation is higher because of their trajectory. FiServ isn't innovating- at all. Just more attempts at lipstick on the pig.
$3bn in volume equates to around $90M (~3% of volume) in fees. Not an insignificant amount of money but when your revenue is approaching $10B, it doesn't move the needle.
Also, this money is divided up among all the players. This includes the network (Visa, Mastercard, etc.), the Bank (every credit card has an issuing bank), and the acquirer (Stripe).
Also, this money is divided up among all the players. This includes the network (Visa, Mastercard, etc.), the Bank (every credit card has an issuing bank), and the acquirer (Stripe).
I think I've tried to use Stripe stores with ApplePay and discounts, and it never works. A couple local breweries, a coffee roaster, and another place I ordered car parts from. As soon as you enter a coupon code, the ApplePay option goes away. I am trying to remember why, I want to say, the ApplePay option shows up BEFORE the checkout page where you enter coupon codes, then once you enter a code you can no longer ApplePay.
Anyone else notice this?
If they are so successful, why do they need to continuously raise money?
To build intuition for this, here's a contrived example. You own a widget-making company, and they're very successful: you get a profit of $1 for each widget sold, and each widget factory produces 1 million widgets per year. You currently have one factory, for a profit of $1M/year, and a new factory costs $8M to build. Suppose that four factories are enough to supply the world's widget needs, in which case you'll eventually be making $4M/year.
If you don't raise any money at all, you'll be able to build a second factory after 8 years, a third factory after 4 years, and a fourth factory after another 2 years. At that point you're making $4M/year and no longer expanding. Hooray! After 14 years of putting all the profits into making new factories, you can enjoy watching the money flow in.
Now suppose you were able to convince investors to give you $24M to build three more factories immediately, in exchange for some percentage of the business. You're immediately making $4M/year, minus whatever percentage goes to your investors. If the percentage that the investors get is low enough, this has a higher net present value to you than the slow-and-steady approach described in the previous paragraph.
Now what if investors aren't convinced enough to give you $24M, but they will give you enough ($8M) to make one factory? Well, you could open that factory, show investors that you're making double the profits now, and maybe that'll convince them to invest more now that your business has proven itself. There may even be multiple rounds of this. The rationale is the same: by expanding your business faster, you expand your revenue faster.
If you don't raise any money at all, you'll be able to build a second factory after 8 years, a third factory after 4 years, and a fourth factory after another 2 years. At that point you're making $4M/year and no longer expanding. Hooray! After 14 years of putting all the profits into making new factories, you can enjoy watching the money flow in.
Now suppose you were able to convince investors to give you $24M to build three more factories immediately, in exchange for some percentage of the business. You're immediately making $4M/year, minus whatever percentage goes to your investors. If the percentage that the investors get is low enough, this has a higher net present value to you than the slow-and-steady approach described in the previous paragraph.
Now what if investors aren't convinced enough to give you $24M, but they will give you enough ($8M) to make one factory? Well, you could open that factory, show investors that you're making double the profits now, and maybe that'll convince them to invest more now that your business has proven itself. There may even be multiple rounds of this. The rationale is the same: by expanding your business faster, you expand your revenue faster.
Because they're aiming to be even more successful. $36B is still a tenth of Visa, and I think Stripe believes they can eventually become an equally important part of the financial ecosystem.
It’s larger than Adyen who has a arguably a better platform and bigger customers like eBay and Microsoft. Stripe has Shopify but with their misstep of not refunding processing fees on returns, that’s going away quickly as merchants pressure Shopify.
Stripe's forward looking goals seem to be mostly about expanding and changing the nature of online commerce, rather than capturing the existing payment processing market. I agree it'd be dumb for them to expect to grow based solely on stealing customers from existing processors.
Stripe's forward looking goals seem to be mostly about expanding and changing the nature of online commerce, rather than capturing the existing payment processing market.
This seems to be a recurring pattern in the more innovative online payment services. GoCardless is similarly trying to shift how people pay for things online away from the fragile and unreliable card networks.
Unfortunately, at least for some of us, the problems these services are solving are becoming secondary. The biggest pain points now, as a business selling services online from the UK, tend to be about regulatory compliance issues that increasingly conflict with clean, user-friendly payment processes and about the increasing complexity of global VAT/sales tax rules (and the ever more hostile rhetoric combined with often unrealistic demands from many governments in connection with the same).
I'm looking at setting up a new business at the moment, and our initial assumption is that we won't be using services like Stripe and GoCardless at all any more, even though I've built modestly successful businesses with them in the past. We just don't have time for all of the compliance and tax hassle in every country in the world where someone might buy from us, and while Stripe's new samples and guides have helped with showing how to get their new PSD2-friendly API to work, they also serve to show how horrifically complicated the once-simple process of charging a card online is now becoming. In the near future, I suspect this will push many of us into using marketplace or merchant-of-record arrangements and just outsourcing the whole shebang to businesses large enough to deal with those issues properly, who will no doubt take a larger cut of the revenues in return.
You'd think governments would have been solving these problems at an international level decades ago, but many of them aren't even following the general OECD guidelines they've theoretically agreed. It's bizarre that in 2020, it's actually becoming harder for an honest business to sell a decent product or service to a genuine customer online.
This seems to be a recurring pattern in the more innovative online payment services. GoCardless is similarly trying to shift how people pay for things online away from the fragile and unreliable card networks.
Unfortunately, at least for some of us, the problems these services are solving are becoming secondary. The biggest pain points now, as a business selling services online from the UK, tend to be about regulatory compliance issues that increasingly conflict with clean, user-friendly payment processes and about the increasing complexity of global VAT/sales tax rules (and the ever more hostile rhetoric combined with often unrealistic demands from many governments in connection with the same).
I'm looking at setting up a new business at the moment, and our initial assumption is that we won't be using services like Stripe and GoCardless at all any more, even though I've built modestly successful businesses with them in the past. We just don't have time for all of the compliance and tax hassle in every country in the world where someone might buy from us, and while Stripe's new samples and guides have helped with showing how to get their new PSD2-friendly API to work, they also serve to show how horrifically complicated the once-simple process of charging a card online is now becoming. In the near future, I suspect this will push many of us into using marketplace or merchant-of-record arrangements and just outsourcing the whole shebang to businesses large enough to deal with those issues properly, who will no doubt take a larger cut of the revenues in return.
You'd think governments would have been solving these problems at an international level decades ago, but many of them aren't even following the general OECD guidelines they've theoretically agreed. It's bizarre that in 2020, it's actually becoming harder for an honest business to sell a decent product or service to a genuine customer online.
Can you expand on changing the nature of online commerce? I don't see that they are in any position to do so. P2P payments is dominated by Venmo/Paypal, mobile is going to be Apple Pay/Google Pay. Their best chance was partnering with Shopify which is the second largest e-commerce site/platform by GMV. With that position, they could go after affirm/after pay on the consumer lending side of things. I assume Shopify will do this soon since they already offer merchant lending.
They can go after the PaymentTechs and Worldpays of the world but that is just a race to the bottom on processing fees. Another problem with going after those companies, they can easily drop the processing fees to near zero since PaymentTech is owned by Chase and Worldpay by Vantiv/FIS. Adyen is going to dominate the omnichannel retailers since their solution is best.
They can go after the PaymentTechs and Worldpays of the world but that is just a race to the bottom on processing fees. Another problem with going after those companies, they can easily drop the processing fees to near zero since PaymentTech is owned by Chase and Worldpay by Vantiv/FIS. Adyen is going to dominate the omnichannel retailers since their solution is best.
How about opening your business to new markets. Stripe feels like you have to have your business in the top first world countries only. It's unusable even in some EU countries nowadays.
We're still working hard on this. (We just expanded our beta in Bulgaria last week!)
I wished I could use Stripe but when selling worldwide you need to send the V.A.T. / G.S.T. to each country and US state you're dealing with. With customers all around the globe it means something like minimum 50 tax invoices to fill and send for me
Hey! I'm a PM at Stripe working on solving VAT/GST/sales tax pain points for our users. Would be great to connect and hear more about what you're looking for. Please do correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like your main pain point is around specifically handling the collection, and then remittance and filing of tax for all countries/jurisdictions you have nexus in? Or is it actually the difficulty with issuing customers compliant invoices across all countries you sell to (e.g. ensuring VAT ID is shown, language is local, etc.)?
Either way, would be great to connect -- [email protected]
Either way, would be great to connect -- [email protected]
Email sent !
Try Paddle, takes care of it worldwide
Octobat helps with that
My biggest concern is data leaking, via web hooks, from other platforms into ours.
Most of our clients use Stripe for payments on our platform. They are connected via Stripe Connect. However a handful of them use other services from other providers as well also with Stripe Connect.
We are seeing web hook events not just for our own platform but also the other platforms too which obviously includes details about the transaction but also often with personally identifiable information such as name, email, address, telephone number.
Your support team acknowledged that they are aware of the issue. The response was:
"Because of how the design of the connected accounts are, any events from that connected account will be sent to all Platforms that the account is connected to. We do understand and see how this is a potential security/safety issue, and we have made note of this to our Connect team.
While we do not have any current plans to adjust this, we are going to discuss things with our Connect team to see if there is a way to we can make this better for our users."
I personally consider this a massive data leak because potentially sensitive information about customers is being shared to companies who have no right to access that information.
I really hope you can look into this.
Regards, Will
Most of our clients use Stripe for payments on our platform. They are connected via Stripe Connect. However a handful of them use other services from other providers as well also with Stripe Connect.
We are seeing web hook events not just for our own platform but also the other platforms too which obviously includes details about the transaction but also often with personally identifiable information such as name, email, address, telephone number.
Your support team acknowledged that they are aware of the issue. The response was:
"Because of how the design of the connected accounts are, any events from that connected account will be sent to all Platforms that the account is connected to. We do understand and see how this is a potential security/safety issue, and we have made note of this to our Connect team.
While we do not have any current plans to adjust this, we are going to discuss things with our Connect team to see if there is a way to we can make this better for our users."
I personally consider this a massive data leak because potentially sensitive information about customers is being shared to companies who have no right to access that information.
I really hope you can look into this.
Regards, Will
I want a bot that translates these advertisements to the equivalent phrasing used in public equity markets
"Someone bought 1,000,000 shares of a company at a price of $20 in a secondary offering. Company's marketcap is now $36B"
Private equity market lingo is dumb. Many companies don't state the valuation after a round and the ones that do deliberately do it for clout. It is confusing and counterintuitive because people wonder why the "valuation is stretched" when literally just someone bought some shares, its not really news that someone bought shares at a high price. "Jonathan bought 1 share of Amazon for $2,000 for a valuation of 1.5 trillion" doesn't matter if this was a secondary market trade, or Amazon doing a 1 share secondary offering "raising $2000", it is a completely non news story, except in how the private equity world chooses to warp the language.
In private equity, the "rounds" have to be a higher valuation, and a "down round" is bad - an instant death knell and death spiral for the company solely because of how the PE world chooses to broadcast clout.
"Someone bought 1,000,000 shares of a company at a price of $20 in a secondary offering. Company's marketcap is now $36B"
Private equity market lingo is dumb. Many companies don't state the valuation after a round and the ones that do deliberately do it for clout. It is confusing and counterintuitive because people wonder why the "valuation is stretched" when literally just someone bought some shares, its not really news that someone bought shares at a high price. "Jonathan bought 1 share of Amazon for $2,000 for a valuation of 1.5 trillion" doesn't matter if this was a secondary market trade, or Amazon doing a 1 share secondary offering "raising $2000", it is a completely non news story, except in how the private equity world chooses to warp the language.
In private equity, the "rounds" have to be a higher valuation, and a "down round" is bad - an instant death knell and death spiral for the company solely because of how the PE world chooses to broadcast clout.
Down rounds are also bad news for previous investors (and other shareholders, like employees) due to how liquidation preferences typically work.
This article was an eye-opener for me on how that works:
https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2020/04/08/w...
https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2020/04/08/w...
A preferred share issue.
Naive question: why? Aren't you already profitable and making more money as even more transactions happen online?
Oh.. May be Stripe will hire Frontend Developers who use Firefox to fix numerous bugs?
I get that stripe is easy and convenient, but once your business is running, I don’t get how many people doesn’t switch to bank provided payment gateways, at least in Europe the savings are huge (like 0.40% instead of 1.4%)
Why would a very successful company need $600M? this is pure speculation now.
I have 100% the same question. Esp. since they make money from the very first customer.
privatize the gains, socialize the losses?
if HNers are asking specifically for how to beat Stripe, Paypal in business I would say quite simply process more transactions or offer more flexible rates or services. Both are great companies that have grown into larger players. However, they still only account for a non material portion of total transaction value and volume when it comes to commerce. Therefore, they can be caught to in many areas. Take for example stripe. They are almost exclusively online and offer a bundled transaction rate. By simply focusing on areas like offline payments or more flexible/customizable rates a company could easily beat them.
For PayPal, they are much larger, you could do the same. You will not beat them over night but you can easily find niches where a more tailored approach would benefit the businesses rather than the broad strokes a company of that size has to take.
One area to look at for both would be online sales. Neither do that well at all. Another area to consider would be embedded experiences that require micro transactions. Stripe and PayPal are all but wedded to the payment networks at this time.
For PayPal, they are much larger, you could do the same. You will not beat them over night but you can easily find niches where a more tailored approach would benefit the businesses rather than the broad strokes a company of that size has to take.
One area to look at for both would be online sales. Neither do that well at all. Another area to consider would be embedded experiences that require micro transactions. Stripe and PayPal are all but wedded to the payment networks at this time.
I love Stripe and have been a happy customer for years. But to piggyback off of this comment, one thing I've always wanted from them is plug-and-play subscription management, similar to Memberful[0].
[0]: https://memberful.com/
[0]: https://memberful.com/
I wish stripe would offer some relief for the pandemic to their customers. I use them for my business to process CC's but they have not provided anything. I can't get a PPP loan. I'd accept an interest free loan if they would offer it to my business. They did approve me for a loan but want a fee upfront + a slice of daily sales until its paid back.
We've been working with various government agencies behind-the-scenes and are about to pilot our first PPP loans. (Since so many banks have had troubles with the SBA application process, we want to make sure the process is robust and scaleable before deploying anything broadly.) Feel free to email [email protected] if you're interested in trying it out.
Thank you for this. It doesn't impact me personally, but every contribution helps.
Thank you. email sent!
> I'd accept an interest free loan if they would offer it to my business. They did approve me for a loan but want a fee upfront + a slice of daily sales until its paid back.
Genuine question... is the interest really the major issue with the loan they offered?
The amount of interest in the “slice of daily sales” is not that much (relatively speaking). That slice is just a loan repayment, which you would have to do whether it was interest free or not.
Maybe Stripe could do something like temporarily lower their fees or maybe reduce the up front fee, but I imagine that their current loan offer to you isn’t far from what you would get even if they had a net zero expected value from your loan.
Am I missing something?
Genuine question... is the interest really the major issue with the loan they offered?
The amount of interest in the “slice of daily sales” is not that much (relatively speaking). That slice is just a loan repayment, which you would have to do whether it was interest free or not.
Maybe Stripe could do something like temporarily lower their fees or maybe reduce the up front fee, but I imagine that their current loan offer to you isn’t far from what you would get even if they had a net zero expected value from your loan.
Am I missing something?
>Maybe Stripe could do something like temporarily lower their fees or maybe reduce the up front fee.
YES! I did email them. Lets see, Fingers crossed. :-) Thank you.
YES! I did email them. Lets see, Fingers crossed. :-) Thank you.
Beggars can’t be choosers. The fee and slice of sales until paid back is completely reasonable.
Why should one business have to shoulder the struggles of another? Yes, there is potentially a moral obligation to your fellow man. But this is capitalism baby.
If stripe handed out a bazillion loans without any expectation they’d be paid back... what do you imagine would happen?
Why should one business have to shoulder the struggles of another? Yes, there is potentially a moral obligation to your fellow man. But this is capitalism baby.
If stripe handed out a bazillion loans without any expectation they’d be paid back... what do you imagine would happen?
On the other hand, presumably it’s in Stripe’s best interest for its customers to stay afloat.
If they are viable businesses, then yes. That's the hard part of risk management: determining which companies will make it through if you support them and which will fail anyway, regardless of assistance.
Anyone at Stripe do security or pentesting or redteaming? What's the hiring/requirements like for that?
I want to use stripe but we sell travel, and 1.5% for a +1500Eur ticket is way too much compared to what integrating with my regular ol' bank costs 0.15%, no fixed fee.
I would love to use stripe because of DX/UX, but honestly as a SMB, can't really justify it.
I would love to use stripe because of DX/UX, but honestly as a SMB, can't really justify it.
What's the story with paying people through Stripe? PayPal is dead easy, give me an email address and I can pay them. I would really like to replace our PayPal system with a product from Stripe, but it's not straight forward how you would do that.
Congratulations to folks at Stripe!
>Stripe is an American technology company based in San Francisco, California. Its software allows individuals and businesses to make and receive payments over the Internet.
They're worth how much!? Forgive me but how is this worth that much?
They're worth how much!? Forgive me but how is this worth that much?
Anyone know Stripe's revenue and the multiple this 36B valuation represents?
There's huge uncertainty in the estimate, but someone on Forbes sites guessed about $3.4B yearly revenue in the fall. https://www.forbes.com/sites/christianowens/2019/09/21/strip...
I remember seeing a graph (from Paul I think):
graph1: linear + exponential s curve
When you zoom out the first graph, the exponential part starts looking linear
graph2: linear + slightly less linear + exponential
Oh wait, it is an exponential curve right? D'oh
graph1: linear + exponential s curve
When you zoom out the first graph, the exponential part starts looking linear
graph2: linear + slightly less linear + exponential
Oh wait, it is an exponential curve right? D'oh
Would be nice if Stripe decided to lower their processing fees a bit for small businesses getting crushed right now. Ours just went up in fact. A big slap in the face really.
Best wishes to Stripe. They deserve to succeed. I speculate that the biggest competition for Stripe is going to be Amazon which will use AWS to rollout payments API.
I just wish Stripe figured out how to integrate with PayPal. I'm stuck using Braintree because I want a single payment provider for CC and PayPal payments.
Just curious: what field are you in, and what's the % of PayPal payments?
I work with non-profits in Canada. PayPal used to be omnipresent, but in the past 2-3 years, most of our clients dropped it. I never found any good data to back whether we should still support it or not. (payment method FOMO)
I work with non-profits in Canada. PayPal used to be omnipresent, but in the past 2-3 years, most of our clients dropped it. I never found any good data to back whether we should still support it or not. (payment method FOMO)
Consumer saas. 60% of our payments come through PayPal.
The only way that's ever going to happen is if Stripe's volume outgrows PayPal so much that it starts hurting PayPal and they have to play ball.
Is it easy enough to integrate multiple payment vendors- stripe, braintree, paypal and switch between them as needed in your application?
When Stripe goes public they need to let customers participate in IPO just like Square did. That was awesome.
It's been really fun and inspiring to see what Stripe has done. Well done and well deserved!
Didn't they recently start out giving loans to SMs?
Yes based on incoming revenue from payments, Stripe Capital:
https://stripe.com/capital
Stripe is the only company worthy of its lofty valuation. I love their products. Not sure how Shopify market cap is nearly 2x Stripe. Makes zero sense to me.
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why is stripe looking for funding now, instead of before the pandemic? it might have increased their valuation.
That said, we've seen a big spike in signups over the past few weeks. If any HN readers have integrated recently and have feedback, we're always eager to hear it. Feel free to email me at [email protected] and I'll route to the right team(s).
As always, thank you to the many HNers who are also active Stripe users!