Ask HN: European startup looking for a service for recurring billing

I looked into Chronopay, it seems a bit shady. Their co-founder was arrested recently too http://krebsonsecurity.com/2011/06/chronopay-co-founder-arre...

Probably the number of countries in Europe, each of which has a slightly different banking system (never mind the general legal system or language). If I recall correctly, a lot of web services in general aren't even easily accessible for Canadians.

I'm not quite sure about the rest of Europe, but payment options in Germany are generally quite different. Credit cards are getting more popular, but most transactions are done via direct bank transfer, often via a debit card. Wasn't that popular in the US, at least where I worked. So if you're selling something, just working out a deal with Visa and MasterCard isn't enough, as a lot of people won't be able to pay that way. Some web shops here have a huge amount of different payment options, credit cards, direct transfer (via a number of different companies), mobile phone payment (yuck), paypal etc.

European startups would be more used to it, but start with a smaller original userbase, and thus less money available to expand.

Saying that you want to use our service helps us know that it is worth our while, yes... but in terms of issues, there are a few things:

The overarching theme is that the payments industry is much more complicated than it seems to the layman. There are a ton of players that you have to interact with, and they are a different set from country to country.

The payment systems are surprisingly different on the backend in each country. The US is large enough where it makes sense for us to create integrations into all of the different backends to work with all banks/processors. To do it in smaller countries might not make as much sense. We have to tread carefully because we need to ensure that our partners are great. That is something we can do in the US because our partners are a known quantity. Not the case for us abroad.

We also want to be able to provide adequate support. There is even a timezone hurdle. We provide phone support and it would suck to get calls at night.

Another part is just honestly the US market is so large and we still have room to grow here and add awesomeness that it is hard to prioritize going somewhere else. That being said, we are pursuing it because there is OBVIOUSLY a huge need there. We are still in beta so we're still working on the core product. Simultaneously we're working out a solution for the EU (difficult) and Canada (not as difficult).

Other issues include taxes, currency and currency risk, taking payments, etc. There's a lot to think about there. We really want to do it, but to do it right requires a lot of thought, and we just haven't done it yet.

If you have connections to folks that can help, please drop me a line (email in profile)

BTW, if you are interested in geeking out about how processing works (in the US), here's an ebook: http://feefighters.com/ebooks/what-is-credit-card-processing...

If you are in the UK with a UK bank account, you are going to need a UK gateway and merchant account - unless you relocate. It's just part of the "know your customer" anti-money-laundering deal that all western countries have between their governments and their banks that make it difficult to set up abroad. It might be possible, but it's just extra headache.

I would suggest looking at Recurly as your integration endpoint for a few reasons:

1) Multi-currency. Some people claim it's "expensive" as as $200/mo add-on, but the extra conversions from geo-targetting visitors with their native currency make this a no-brainer, especially for UK companies.

2) Data portability. You can leave Recurly in 5 years if you want to write your own recurring billing app or switch to somewhere else and they will give you your data.

3) Not having your customer's CC details held at the gateway (Recurly are best described as a value-add intermediary) means you should be able to easily switch out gateways later on. This is a key architectural choice that I don't think people pay enough attention to, and Recurly really don't promote it enough. Chargify etc do not do this, instead they store your customer's details at the gateway and have no power to retrieve them ever again.

4) Supports VAT.

The down side to Recurly is their API is a bit messy. Their hosted payment pages and "transparent API" appear to be next to useless if you want to also record extra information (e.g, username) as part of the signup process in a seemless way.

With regards to payment gateway, pick any payment gateway from here: http://recurly.com/features/payment-gateway-support

The truth is, it really doesn't matter. As long as it is working, and your bank/merchant account doesn't put a hold or delay on your income.

Don't stress about the transaction fees. People get too hung up on a percentage point, with the frame of reference that "when we've got $10m in revenue, that 1% is worth $100,000)", but honestly, when you get to that point, you will have enough business savvy to re-negotiate or look for a better deal then. When you don't have any customers, it really doesn't matter.

You don't have to be a resident to incorporate, although (as always) the laws often are quite arcane. If I remember correctly, taxation differs massively depending on whether your European company owns the US corporation/LLC or whether individual persons do.

You have to register with a state, and Delaware seems to be the preferred one, as they're basically a tax haven. The Liechtenstein of the US…