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Ask HN: Are there decent alternatives to PayPal?

68 points| tav | 15 years ago | reply

I'm looking for an integrated payment handling solution for my startup but am cautious of PayPal given all the horror stories. The Amazon solutions aren't particularly attractive and they're not available in the UK afaik. Has anyone had experience with Google Checkout?

My ideal would be something like http://www.braintreepaymentsolutions.com/ -- they look awesome but are unfortunately US-only. There seems to be a UK-clone http://subsify.com/ -- but they haven't launched yet. Anyone know of any alternatives and care to share their experiences?

51 comments

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[+] liscio|15 years ago|reply
I've yet to have one of the "bad" problems with PayPal, but I'm always trying to stay a step ahead of them when I can.

For instance, if you're expecting a higher-than-normal sales volume (e.g. a launch day, version upgrade, promotion), it doesn't hurt to give their Merchant Services department a phone call (the number I was given was 866-837-1851).

Be sure you ask for Merchant Services if you're not connected to them by default—it's a whole other support organization from what I could gather on my last phone call with them a month or so ago.

They may be taken aback by the reason for your call, but you can go over your phone numbers and addresses with them to make sure they can get a hold of you in the event that a fraud trigger is hit. If they can't speak with you, they have no other choice but to shut you down until you call them.

You can also get them to put a note on your account about the expected volume increase, so that when the activity does go into review, it may not be such a harsh reaction (e.g. freezing withdrawals temporarily rather than totally shutting down incoming funds.)

For the price of their service, the wide range of things you can do with their APIs, and the support I've received thus far, there's not a whole lot left to complain about IMO. Maybe my tune will change if I experience some of the "trouble" you hear about online, but I think that the proactive approach I describe above may help prevent that from ever happening.

[+] citricsquid|15 years ago|reply
The reason Paypal are popular is because they offer something no other service can. If you want the versatility and spread of Paypal then you're just going to have to suck it up.

Yes, Paypal do sometimes have problems, but if you follow their rules and regulations and don't build your business around them you should be okay. The majority of horror stories are knee jerk reactions to an unfortunate situation which are never reported on again when a resolution is found.

The reason Paypal have such over zealous fraud checking and don't hesitate to lock accounts until they're 100% sure it's legit is because of how large of a target they are for fraud and also because of how accountable they will be. If someone sends me $10 and I run off with it, Paypal will have to pay out that $10 from their own pocket to the customer, might be okay on a small scale but at Paypals volume...

Personally I think the best method is to have a basic merchant account (authorize, nochex etc) and also Paypal, use your merchant account as the default credit card processor and also offer Paypal for those who either have Paypal accounts or are only comfortable with Paypal. If you're smart about how you use Paypal you'll be fine :)

[+] ck2|15 years ago|reply
PayPal locks legit accounts too, all the time, if they feel the type of activity has simply changed/increased in nature. Then to get your money out you have to prove to them otherwise. They will simply keep asking for more and more information from you on purpose to try to make you give up.

And I would bet they have never paid a dollar out of their own pocket to cover fraud, they basically will close the accounts of both parties to cover themselves or take "fees" out of the covered party's return for their "protection service".

Never, ever, keep more than $100 in your PayPal account. You are begging for trouble otherwise. Also if possible close the original checking account that you tied to your PayPal account, because they will tap into it to reverse any transaction at their will, without notice.

[+] aandon|15 years ago|reply
Good advice. I use SkipJack and they rarely hassle me, even when I authorize very large sums or rebill. They've never held my funds. I also allow customers to use PayPal if they want and many of them choose to pay with PayPal.
[+] csomar|15 years ago|reply
My advice is to support as many gateway payments as possible. What you should support are:

-PayPal: They are popular. You "must" support them because a huge % of your users will consider them as the only electronic payment system in the web.

-Credit Cards: Because they are even more popular and available in almost every citizen's pocket (we are speaking here of developed countries).

-Moneybookers: They are an alternative to PayPal. Don't underestimate its' power. It may take only 5% of user's share usage, but can be a valuable alternative if PayPal is down.

Have you considered such systems like fastspring? They offer a multiple gateway solution and they take a % for that.

[+] reinierbutot|15 years ago|reply
http://www.ogone.co.uk/

I am looking into this myself (but only doing business in The Netherlands) and this seems to be one of the best solutions. For my purposes anyway.

[+] bnoordhuis|15 years ago|reply
Another happy Ogone customer here. They're not cheap but the API is versatile enough and the support is quite alright.

For Dutch businesses: Ogone supports iDEAL and I think their transaction overhead is actually lower than when you do business with iDEAL directly.

[+] tav|15 years ago|reply
This looks really good — thanks for the link! Besides the pricing, it's not clear whether you need to have your own merchant account? http://www.ogone.co.uk/en/Extra%20Services/Merchant%20Accoun... seems to indicate that you do, but the rest of their site seems to suggest otherwise. Could you shed some light on this by any chance?
[+] bjelkeman-again|15 years ago|reply
We have been using Mollie for IDEAL payments in the Netherlands. Mollie charges 0.99 Euro cents per transaction, that is all inclusive (no extra bank charges).

Paul, our programmer who handles our payment gateway stuff, wrote a Python interface to the iDEAL API by Mollie.nl for use in Django projects. We also have our own transaction system, as we are dealing with donations, not your normal purchases. So we ended up rolling our own.

http://github.com/peeb/django-mollie-ideal

[+] inovica|15 years ago|reply
These look good but no indication (that I can see) of pricing. Any ideas on what costs are?

We're based in the UK and use Worldpay and Protx (as well a PayPal and Google Checkout)

[+] barmstrong|15 years ago|reply
For SAAS type subscriptions, I was pretty happy with Spreedly

http://spreedly.com/

One thing that is pretty cool is they let you be merchant account agnostic (all CC's are stored in their own PCI compliant vault). So if Authorize.net drops you or is being stupid, you can setup a different merchant account and the entire thing is transparent from your customer's perspective.

[+] cosmicray|15 years ago|reply
About Google Checkout ... I've used both PayPal (~10 years) and GC (~3 years). My view is that PP has a more robust dispute resolution system. Resolving a dispute at GC is merely a matter of "Providing a positive customer experience" (and doing a refund even if the customer is defrauding you). The GC process (and dispute results) is very opaque.
[+] nhebb|15 years ago|reply
I'm not sure if they still do this, but I dropped Google Checkout several years ago because they allowed the user to hide contact information from the vendor. This may sound like a great privacy feature for the customer, but it really made it a nightmare to support customers who I couldn't confirm were actually my customers - especially if I needed to re-issue license keys.
[+] mpclark|15 years ago|reply
I've heard good things about SagePay in the UK, though haven't used it myself. Have dropped PayPal because, though I understand chargebacks and fraud can happen, I was not at all happy with the level of information provided (ie almost none) when payments were held for investigation, then approved, then a few days later yanked from my account. Am now using Barclays ePDQ because I bank with Barclays, but the system is horrible to integrate, looks hideous, and is expensive. But at least it isn't PayPal :)
[+] marquis|15 years ago|reply
I have used Paypal with Payflow Pro since they bought the services from Verisign. I have had absolutely no issues, and we process several high-value transactions daily from international clients. However, we only do credit card transactions, not direct Paypal transactions. I think this keeps Paypal out of our transaction issues with clients, and if we get charge-backs (rare) we deal directly with our Merchant bank which is alway dealt with in a way we find reasonable.
[+] ergo14|15 years ago|reply
I'm looking for a solution where I can have recurring payments for my SAAS startup. I'd like to charge in USD and/or EUR, but I'm based in Poland, and so is my company.

I can't use google checkout (not present here), and I want to avoid resorting to Paypal because of horror stories(actually one of my clients got permanently suspended). Any other solutions anyone could recommend to me?

[+] evilhackerdude|15 years ago|reply
What about Chargify? http://chargify.com/

About other countries and currencies: http://support.chargify.com/faqs/general-questions/does-char...

[+] wheels|15 years ago|reply
Chargify isn't a payment processor, they're just a front-end for various other payment processors to handle recurring billing.
[+] jsatok|15 years ago|reply
I signed up for a Chargify account a couple days ago, been working on integrating it into my app. Really simple, great API. I haven't run any transactions through it, but on the integration side, it's pretty solid.
[+] tav|15 years ago|reply
As far as I can tell, you can only use Chargify in the UK if you have an account with Barclays. And, on top, you still need to get hold of costly payment gateways and merchant accounts...
[+] VMG|15 years ago|reply
One thing about US-only services: I have read on multiple occasions that Google Checkout is US-only and was surprised it was an option when I wanted to donate to a OSS project from Germany. So it seems to depend on whether you use it for incoming or outgoing transactions.
[+] srhyne|15 years ago|reply
Cheddargetter.com, wonderful API
[+] Apreche|15 years ago|reply
I really just want to use Amazon, like Kickstarter does. However, ther are no e-commerce packages that support Amazon out of the box. Shopify, BigCartel, etc. All of them primarily support PayPal, and maybe support Google Checkout.
[+] illumen|15 years ago|reply
worldpay? Depends on what you are selling, and to what market(s). eg, currencies are important, turnkey support for selling subscriptions, or electronic products, or virtual currencies(some payment processors don't do some of those). The fraud rate of your demographic(eg, products for teens in HighCrimeCountry might have higher fraud than old ladies in LowCrimeCountry). Some people only have paypal, and not credit cards too. There's so many factors to give a good answer.
[+] pbreit|15 years ago|reply
If you want regular credit card processing, have a look at WorldPay. If you want alternative payment processing, PayPal or Google might be good options.
[+] alexbowman|15 years ago|reply
AliPay is one to maybe watch. The leader in China they have announced plans to expand internationally.
[+] leftnode|15 years ago|reply
I've been attempting to work with Alipay for my job for a while now. While they are the Paypal equivalent in China, it's very difficult to work with them.

First, they require a ton of documentation to become a registered business with them. Their API is non-existent, and getting answers is difficult because you either need to speak Chinese or use Google Translate. A lot.

While I'm sure it's great, it can be very frustrating.

[+] DeusExMachina|15 years ago|reply
www.fastspring.com

Easy to configure, neat interface, great support. And accepts paypal payments.

[+] elliottcarlson|15 years ago|reply
Agreed - had a great experience using FastSpring; hope to use them again once another idea comes up :)
[+] sushrutbidwai|15 years ago|reply
Realex payments?

Few other are - payvision.

Global players - Google checkout, Amazon checkout.