Hi HN,<p>Does anyone have any recommendations for a payment processor for use by a startup?<p>Some details:<p>-We have a high volume of payments with low margins.<p>-The tech stack is node.js with react/redux. There is a planned iOS/Android app.<p>-We're based out of Canada and only serve Canadian customers.<p>Even if your preferred processor doesn't cater to those bullet points, I would be interested in hearing your experience with them. Thanks in advance.<p>P.S. I'm sure this question has been asked many times already, but I found nothing too relevant from within the past year: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=payment%20processor&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=pastYear&type=story
We've run on Stripe for 2 years now.<p>Good onboarding, snappy support replies by smart people, they do what they say they'll do, good transparency when there are mistakes, early heads up on changes. Overall, they are solid people running a solid business. We respect them and enjoy being clients of theirs.<p>We're a medium sized business and we run charges pretty regularly through out the day. Their status page only reports their larger outages. If you are running charges regularly, expect their end points do go down for 20 secs up to 2 minutes 2-3 times a month. Its to the point where our customer service chat knows what's going on and says things like "ask the customer to wait 2 minutes, it'll be right back". Its frustrating. We've considered setting up a fail over with spreedly and braintree but its juuuust inside the threshold of annoying enough to do all that.<p>That minor gripe said, I still have the Stripe afterglow because we suffered through the Auth.net days and the AMEX domination days. Stripe set us, and everybody else, free from that jazz. We're still grateful and probably always will be.<p>Lastly I note, if your volume merits, they will discuss alternative rates within reason.<p>You should go with Stripe.
Your details show that you know your business well. What exactly does high volume of payments mean? What does low margins mean? With credit card processing, it is about specifics. The magic numbers are:<p>1) Dollar amount processed by month<p>2) Average dollar amount per transaction<p>From there, you can figure out the rest<p>For startups, the default is ALWAYS Stripe (IMHO) because you can get to processing cards right away - like in 5 minutes. Their API is easy, their virtual terminal works as expected for manually keyed in transactions. There is even a super dumb screen that is just HTML (Checkout) if you don't even want to deal with an API.<p>As far as the fees, the $0.30 per transaction fee is always going to be there. The 2.9% percent is negotiable, specially if you are doing volume. If you are doing $1,000/mo, 2.9% will be your rate.<p>If you are doing much higher volume, that rate goes down. For example, if you can show (with proof via bank statements or from your current merchant provider) something like $300-400k per month for the last 3 months, I was able to get them very close to what is called the "interchange rate" which is the lowest rate you can get even with traditional processors like Moneris (FirstData). My current "effective rate" is about 1.6-1.7% (effective rate is my quick math of fees/total).<p>Like somebody already said, micropayments are pretty bad.<p>High volume + low margins make it sound like you are operating a restaurant where the fees are much more different due to the physical nature of the business (less fraud due to card present) vs internet (card not present)
I help run ReCharge a billing platform for ecommerce stores. We have thousands of ecommerce stores using a variety of processors. From their experiences I have seen the following.<p>If you process less than 80k a month:
<i>Use Stripe their API is the best and they just innovate faster than everyone else. Love these guys!<p>If you process 80k - 250k a month:
</i>At this level support becomes a bigger factor and unfortunately Braintree just kills Stripe on this side. The below forum post alone shows how much people hate Stripe support. I know their fixing this area but its really hard for medium size business to work with a processor without phone support. Braintree literally picks up the phone in minutes while sometimes Stripe takes days to get back. This is killer when your dealing with thousands of charges a month.<p><a href="https://ecommerce.shopify.com/c/payments-shipping-fulfilment/t/worst-experience-with-stripe-payment-gate-how-many-people-using-stripe-151491" rel="nofollow">https://ecommerce.shopify.com/c/payments-shipping-fulfilment...</a><p>If you process 250k+ a month:
<i>I hate to say this but I would seriously look at Authorize or one of the traditional processors. They just provide the best rates and you have to factor how much the cost savings is worth with the increase in implementation pain.<p></i><i></i> I want to emphasize my feedback changes depending on the type of business your in and how quickly you need innovate/ change your processing. Stripe is really moving fast on new innovations which is awesome. But you have to realize basic merchant processing is a commodity so your paying a premium for non commoditized things like a great API. Also things like a great API are becoming commoditized. Stripe is smart and their launching new non commoditized features like Atlas/ Platform Functionality/ ACH etc. The only thing you have to ask yourself do you need these new innovations or just traditional merchant processing.
I switched to Braintree after having some trouble with the initial integration of Stripe in a Rails application I made about 9 months ago. I am an experienced Rails developer and found the Stripe documentation to be a bit out of step with "the Rails way" and a little incomplete. I switched to Braintree and was up and running with relative ease.<p>I can't speak to my experience as a Braintree customer as sadly my app hasn't processed many payments but the initial integration using Braintree was much easier for me.
I'm in the middle of redoing the card processing system for a hotel property management system.<p>I'd consider using Stripe and have in the past, but we're doing millions/month USD (less than you'd think with a high-dollar, low-margin business) almost entirely card-present, now with EMV, which puts us way outside Stripe's target market. We also have a complex approval process and capture/settlement several days after approval, which, again, isn't really in stripe's wheelhouse.<p>Don't use heartland. I've had to deal with them a lot over the past month and they're absolute garbage. Shit API, integration specialists that can't be bothered, NDAs before they'll look at you, just all-around bad experience. They also announced they're deprecating SHA-1 support, which would be prudent except that they gave merchants <i>two weeks</i> notice before doing it.
not sure if low margins = smaller $$ value for each payment or just small % your taking, but Paypal offers a micro-transaction fee rate: 5% + 5 cents (USD). For transactions under $12, this is usually preferable to the standard rates from Paypal or Stripe. If transaction size goes above and below that, you can set-up two separate accounts and direct payments above a threshold to one account and payments below the threshold to another account. we do that at my company, and it saves us LOADS in fees.<p>Last I checked, no other service has any separate fee for micropayments. Paypal doesn't make it easy to find this info out, but it definitely still offers the product.<p>of course paypal can be really, really annoying to work with, as their code is VERY old and their APIs can be confusing. They also have a weird variety of products that semi-overlap, so selection of which specific product to use can be confusing (Express Checkout vs. Instant Checkout vs. Adaptive payments..?).<p>a few other things to note: paypal's international coverage is much better than any other provider, so if you want to expand to EU or South America quickly, they are good for that. also, paypals payout process (MassPay) is much easier to use than ACH or any other solutions I've seen, and much cheaper (2% transaction fee for payouts). Also, all the payee needs is an email address, no bank account info, etc.<p>Truthfully, those are two reasons we still use Paypal. Otherwise, it kinda sucks =)
In my previous uk startup for an online game (100 mill players) we used multiple providers. Vindicia, Playspan and Paypal as well as physical shop based game time cards. And then also later directly with Apple's appstore and Google's Play store.<p>You might find yourself requiring multiple providers for different requirements and redundancy.<p>Playspan was for example very good at the south american market, Vindicia very good at retrying failed payments and auto replacing card details for recurring subscriptions. And a lot of customers expected to be able to pay with Paypal whom are also good at fraud prevention.<p>But to echo everyone here, if my "next" startup requires a payments provider I would initially go with Stripe and/or Braintree.
For European merchants, there is a payment processor called Https://www.mondido.com/en (I'm the founder).
What makes Mondido different is the support for dynamic 3D-secure, and other conversation optimization tools. If you are selling cross border, this is a must since some issuing banks require 3ds on all purchases, and others doesn't support it.
We just signed with a London based company judopay and they offered us a great deal. They are mostly focused on mobile payments but support rest as well. Our deal is 0.75% + 0.15 with a monthly fee of £100 which i think is really great.<p>I've had a great experience so far, the staff is very open and responsive.<p>We originally intended to go with stripe, but they refused us as 'forbidden business' which we aren't as we reviewed their terms plenty of times to see what we fall under. I asked for a clarification/re-review multiple times, but i got no reply which i think is very unprofessional.
Just to list a few:<p>- Stripe<p>- Braintree<p>- Adyen<p>- Paypal<p>- Wells Fargo Merchant Services<p>- Chase Paymentech<p>- Vantiv (acquired Litle)<p>- Forte (acquired ACH Direct)<p>- WorldPay<p>- Skrill<p>- Moneris<p>- Coinbase<p>- AMEX<p>- Auth.net<p>Stripe is probably your best bet, but should you decide to choose anyone else, let me know if you'd like any help as I've integrated with most of these processors before :)<p>PS: Ultimately your decision should come down to your card blend, i.e., if you process mainly debit cards (Durbin regulated and basically zero interchange), go with a processor who will offer you interchange-plus pricing. If you process mostly premium cards, go with a processor who will offer you a blended rate, since they'll probably be eating their AMEX transaction fees (typically around 3.5%).
I'm currently running a Node.js/Express.js/MongoDB service with a Bootstrap/jQuery frontend and iOS + Android clients. My payments mix also tends to be high volume and low margin. I have been extremely satisfied with Stripe - they have a solid api, a great npm package[1] to interface with their api, thorough documentation with examples in node[2], and a wonderful dashboard. I highly recommend them.<p>1) <a href="https://github.com/stripe/stripe-node" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/stripe/stripe-node</a>
2) <a href="https://stripe.com/docs/api/node#intro" rel="nofollow">https://stripe.com/docs/api/node#intro</a>
I've integrated Braintree for monthly recurring subscription services and for digital product purchases. For my own purposes, I built my own cart in Rails as I needed a degree of flexibility in check-out.<p>So far I haven't run into any problems. The only thing I really needed was to customize customer e-mails, so I used Braintree's webhooks to my server to send out my own e-mails.<p>Support wise, I was on the phone with them quite a bit in the beginning, and they were nice and knowledgeable. I used them pre-paypal and post-paypal i haven't noticed any differences.<p>Fraud wise, my customers tend to be reliable ones so I haven't had to worry about fraud yet.
-We have a high volume of payments with low margins.<p>Based on this alone, you need to get your own merchant account and gateway. I highly recommend Beanstream in Canada for the gateway. A proper merchant account (interchange plus pricing, either Chase Paymentech or TD are good) will boost your margins. For example, processing a debit card has a much lower interchange rate than a credit card (I don't think the rate is as good as the USA, but its still 1%+ difference).<p>Beanstream will also give you the option of Interac Online - which is a flat transaction fee between 20-50c.
We found Stripe to be the easiest and most affordable to implement. $.30 + 2.9% processing fee per transaction, though.<p>Micropayments are tough (if that's what you're going for).
Braintree has a Canadian product that allows you to present and settle in CAD and USD. You can check out the documentation for their best integration here: <a href="https://www.braintreepayments.com/v.zero" rel="nofollow">https://www.braintreepayments.com/v.zero</a>. They also have a support team that will answer any questions you may have by phone or email as you investigate different payment processors.
If you're doing online charges only, Stripe gets my vote. If you're building an app and need to accept cards in person, take a look at <a href="https://cardflight.com" rel="nofollow">https://cardflight.com</a>. I'm an engineer for CardFlight and in the past was lead developer for a gateway with stripe-like functionality.
Usually I recommend Avangate, Bluesnap, Cleverbrige or Fastspring. The best part is that with these services there is nothing to configure. You just link to your page on their servers, they even theme it for you.<p>Downside: The cost is somewhat higher. So I don't think they work for a low margin business.
I will echo the recommendations for Stripe. I used it for a side project that needed to process payments for enrichment classes organized by our school's PTA, and have had zero problems over the last two years, processing around $150k of payments.
If any payment processor is interested in having someone who knows the ins and outs help them implement IBAN-based bank transfers for customers in SEPA or other regions really well, let me know.
If you have a high volume of payments (like you actually have a high volume) you're not going to want to work with an off the shelf processor. Negotiate your fees down where you can.
For any other Canadian startups, this chart of payment processors came in handy for us: <a href="https://www.payfirma.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Canadas-Top-Payment-Processors.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.payfirma.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Canadas-...</a>
I'd say Forte for sure. They have a 48 hour deposit time on credit/debit transactions. For eChecks they can work it out that funds are deposited in 24 hours. Sales, Customer Service, and Tech Support has always been a good expirience for me.
The top 5 I have experience with -
* Stripe - Great selection of currencies to accept
* Braintree - Great developer API
* Helcim - Best pricing
* BitPay - Easy Bitcoin integration, versatile API
* Coinbase - Get started accepting Bitcoin in seconds<p>The last 2 are Bitcoin focused!