Stripe used to have really simple docs: paste in some js, paste in some example code on the backend, and you’re good to go.
Now it’s really really confusing. Payment intents are confusing. Figuring out which part of the docs I need is confusing. Figuring out the limitations of the self hosted checkout pages is confusing. The pricing is confusing. There’s narrative for one-click checkout that is comparable to PayPal (I guess there is “link” but seems like a separate thing?)
Give me a thing I can copy and paste. Give me a hosted subscription management page.
Finding a way to allow legal businesses to operate would be huge, though my impression is that you get yanked around by banks a lot.
Don’t nickle and dime me on features. Make it easy to get reports out.
Although I agree with all the issues you raise, I think the confusing nature of the pricing is by design.
Stripe's fee model probably makes serious bank, because it's quite non-transparent and basically nothing is provided for free. Want even the slightest extra feature? +1% of your revenue (and repeat)
I'm one of the founders of OpenPay (getopenpay.com) and we support all this functionality and have a simple to use API. We are charging way less than Stripe so you don't have to pay the "Stripe tax" just to run your business
You can also bring in whichever payment processor you want which will help you save on your payment processing fees
If you're not letting them do the checkout from start to end with only theme changes to the hosted payment page, you're signing up yourself to learn the different flavours of payment auth, callbacks and state management.
I wholeheartedly disagree. I think the Stripe docs and developer experience is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, I've ever seen.
It has great user docs, API docs, developer centric UI elements like copy pastable IDs, webhook event browser, time travel features, test mode (!!), and you can even look at the exact API calls that the stripe UI itself is making. I've brought it up to many colleagues are awesome the docs and experience is...
IMHO, for most things, the data model is straight forward and well explained. Of course there are complicated topics and quirks, but that's just because payments is not easy in general..
I'm clearly a Stripe fanboy, but I am not affiliated in any way.
They seem against any nay-sayers, so I’ll respect that and bite my tongue.
The silver lining is that, their idea (which they later reveal that they “forgot to mention” will also include full banking support and the issuance of cards) is very complicated and will require years of non-stop planning and paperwork before a single customer can be onboarded.
This isn’t handing your friend the keys to a jet and letting them fly a plane, this is your friend wanting to enroll in pilot school. It’s good to try, and, if you realize it’s not for you, there’s nobody harmed as a result.
I'm one of the founders of OpenPay (getopenpay.com) and we offer comprehensive subscription management and analytics, and our customers can bring in any payment processor they want. We don't lock people into only using one payment processor like Stripe so we support a lot of businesses that have gotten banned from Stripe
Would love to partner together to support all the subscription + hosted pages + analytics functionality
They don't say why the hate Stripe, but presumably Stripe closed their account for fraud/spam/PBL reasons and took "their" money and won't give it to them. Whether or not this person/team succeeds, the real point is that spite is a powerful motivator. We all find motivation, in our own places, in our own ways, and spite is up there.
If they think the response from Stripe for fraud/spam/PBL was too harsh, wait until they see how their banking partners (Deutsche+Fargo) will handle that; if they can't even keep up a level of due diligence that's "clean" enough for Stripe, they'll eventually end up owing the whole company to the banks due to contractual penalties and cost of fraud.
A big reason why companies use an outsourced card payment service instead of going directly for a merchant account with banks is the difficulty of handling fraud & spam well, which is horribly expensive unless you have got a major economy of scale.
As a payment processor, your potential risk is larger than your turnover. And while Stripe might freeze part of your incoming funds, in this business you'll need significant upfront capital as collateral - which you'll lose if you're mediocre at handling fraud.
Yeah, you nailed it. They claim that their Japanese online Coffee shop was hit by a BIN attack and strip wouldn't let them back in, but didn't exactly give any details
Good luck to them, but this is the "reason" crypto exists. I don't think we need (or can sustain) dozens of payment processors all with their own flavor of politics/dispute resolution quirks.
This is kinda a broad topic, but I'm kinda uncomfortable about the fact I still don't really understand how all this payments stuff works. Can somebody enlighten me, what does it take, exactly, to build a payment processor? Can anybody do that, theoretically? Do you have to implement some payments API for every bank your customers will use? In every country? I assume, the API's are not entirely open and are more than just a number of SWIFT conventions, so why would the banks work with you, how would you convince them? What really is a payment system, anyway, what's the difference between using a card and making a bank transfer? Why are there so few credit card providers, how are they different from, well, your future payment system?
There are many questions beyond that, but it should be enough to judge the level of my ignorance. So, maybe somebody knows a book, a set of good blogposts, a really long YouTube video? Something?
I think patio11’s blog is exactly what you’re looking for. Probably scroll back to the earlier posts to find more fundamental stuff like what you’re asking:
I posted this because I passed regulatory requirements through partner banks and institutions. Reddit is Reddit; that’s what I realized they are just limited.
These days, it's probably easier to obtain a share of big tech profits by engaging in government regulatory shenanigans than to compete against big tech and 'earn' the same amount of money 'on the free market'.
If I was OP, I would just try to get a job as a financial regulator and create more regulations in exchange for a cushy job after.
I work in this space. Good luck! It’s extremely difficult and can be expensive getting off the ground (in addition to high CAC) BUT it’s doable. Buckle up!
I like this attitude, and I wish there was more of it.
We should not grow fear to take on challenges, but support and cheer on those who go head on even if it is the most steepest climb.
Most attempts will end in failure but that is fine, it is not the end of the world. Get back up, brush off the dust, enjoy the experience and knowledge you gained from it then get going again.
I don't want to remove anything from my link; I don't care if it's with tracking or without. So, if you want to remove tracking, just right-click on the link, and you'll see 'Copy Link Without site tracking.'
If they are going through the bank then they are not a true payment processor but a payfac. To be a processor they need direct link to the card networks like visa, amex,MC, etc. It's a tough space that requires solid domain knowledge to be profitable and not eaten alive by fraudsters.
I actually have the code written for my own payment processor (including crypto)--that's the easy part. The hard part is the money transmitter license fees, which are insane and make it impossible to bootstrap.
Imagine building and owning the platform, but not being in control of it. That is what Stripe has become.
The only way to get Stripe Express to stop emailing you during an incomplete registration with a third party, is to change your email address. I used [email protected] in the hopes that it fills up a disk somewhere.
We want to express our sincere apologies if we were not able to respond to your email on time and I understand how important it is to get it resolved for you.
Jumping right in, I would like to inform you that, as you have a Stripe Express account, which is being controlled and managed by the platform (XXXX Inc.) and we do not have any control over it. Also, the only option to delete your account is with the help of API, which can only be done by your platform.
For context, with Express accounts, the platform has the ability to specify charge types and set the connected account's payout settings programmatically. The platform is responsible for handling payments, disputes, charges, account deletion, payouts and refunds.
However, as you mentioned that you're not getting any response from your platform, the other option to stop receiving email is by changing the email address on the account, which I am able to see, you have already changed it.
[+] [-] memset|1 year ago|reply
Now it’s really really confusing. Payment intents are confusing. Figuring out which part of the docs I need is confusing. Figuring out the limitations of the self hosted checkout pages is confusing. The pricing is confusing. There’s narrative for one-click checkout that is comparable to PayPal (I guess there is “link” but seems like a separate thing?)
Give me a thing I can copy and paste. Give me a hosted subscription management page.
Finding a way to allow legal businesses to operate would be huge, though my impression is that you get yanked around by banks a lot.
Don’t nickle and dime me on features. Make it easy to get reports out.
[+] [-] m11a|1 year ago|reply
Stripe's fee model probably makes serious bank, because it's quite non-transparent and basically nothing is provided for free. Want even the slightest extra feature? +1% of your revenue (and repeat)
[+] [-] lancecotingkeh|1 year ago|reply
You can also bring in whichever payment processor you want which will help you save on your payment processing fees
[+] [-] makeitdouble|1 year ago|reply
If you're not letting them do the checkout from start to end with only theme changes to the hosted payment page, you're signing up yourself to learn the different flavours of payment auth, callbacks and state management.
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] binwiederhier|1 year ago|reply
It has great user docs, API docs, developer centric UI elements like copy pastable IDs, webhook event browser, time travel features, test mode (!!), and you can even look at the exact API calls that the stripe UI itself is making. I've brought it up to many colleagues are awesome the docs and experience is...
IMHO, for most things, the data model is straight forward and well explained. Of course there are complicated topics and quirks, but that's just because payments is not easy in general..
I'm clearly a Stripe fanboy, but I am not affiliated in any way.
[+] [-] pier25|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] cowsup|1 year ago|reply
The silver lining is that, their idea (which they later reveal that they “forgot to mention” will also include full banking support and the issuance of cards) is very complicated and will require years of non-stop planning and paperwork before a single customer can be onboarded.
This isn’t handing your friend the keys to a jet and letting them fly a plane, this is your friend wanting to enroll in pilot school. It’s good to try, and, if you realize it’s not for you, there’s nobody harmed as a result.
[+] [-] lancecotingkeh|1 year ago|reply
Would love to partner together to support all the subscription + hosted pages + analytics functionality
[+] [-] fragmede|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] PeterisP|1 year ago|reply
A big reason why companies use an outsourced card payment service instead of going directly for a merchant account with banks is the difficulty of handling fraud & spam well, which is horribly expensive unless you have got a major economy of scale.
As a payment processor, your potential risk is larger than your turnover. And while Stripe might freeze part of your incoming funds, in this business you'll need significant upfront capital as collateral - which you'll lose if you're mediocre at handling fraud.
[+] [-] hughesjj|1 year ago|reply
https://old.reddit.com/r/SaaS/comments/1f762xf/i_hate_stripe...
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Ferret7446|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] krick|1 year ago|reply
There are many questions beyond that, but it should be enough to judge the level of my ignorance. So, maybe somebody knows a book, a set of good blogposts, a really long YouTube video? Something?
[+] [-] longdustytrail|1 year ago|reply
https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/
[+] [-] egypturnash|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] geodel|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] kulahan|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] intelVISA|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] assimpleaspossi|1 year ago|reply
People post all kinds of things on reddit. Most of them aren't true at all.
Most people who post on reddit are people no one would listen to otherwise. That's why they post on reddit cause reddit will let anyone post there.
[+] [-] 0x64x|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] jongjong|1 year ago|reply
If I was OP, I would just try to get a job as a financial regulator and create more regulations in exchange for a cushy job after.
[+] [-] spamizbad|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] TheChaplain|1 year ago|reply
We should not grow fear to take on challenges, but support and cheer on those who go head on even if it is the most steepest climb.
Most attempts will end in failure but that is fine, it is not the end of the world. Get back up, brush off the dust, enjoy the experience and knowledge you gained from it then get going again.
[+] [-] TheSmoke|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] synicalx|1 year ago|reply
But seriously I wish them luck, and I sincerely hope they know what they're getting themselves into and are receiving good advice/support from SME's.
EDIT: Ok I retract that statement of goodwill, OP in that thread just comes across as a jerk. Enjoy the audits.
[+] [-] phendrenad2|1 year ago|reply
I like the Indian system: no protections, just direct bank-to-bank transfers.
[+] [-] talldayo|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] cranberryturkey|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] lakomen|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] 0x64x|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] cabbageicefruit|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] segmondy|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] tazu|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] 0x64x|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] latchkey|1 year ago|reply
The only way to get Stripe Express to stop emailing you during an incomplete registration with a third party, is to change your email address. I used [email protected] in the hopes that it fills up a disk somewhere.
This is the response to my support requests...
-----------------------------------------------------
We want to express our sincere apologies if we were not able to respond to your email on time and I understand how important it is to get it resolved for you.
Jumping right in, I would like to inform you that, as you have a Stripe Express account, which is being controlled and managed by the platform (XXXX Inc.) and we do not have any control over it. Also, the only option to delete your account is with the help of API, which can only be done by your platform.
For context, with Express accounts, the platform has the ability to specify charge types and set the connected account's payout settings programmatically. The platform is responsible for handling payments, disputes, charges, account deletion, payouts and refunds.
However, as you mentioned that you're not getting any response from your platform, the other option to stop receiving email is by changing the email address on the account, which I am able to see, you have already changed it.
-----------------------------------------------------
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]