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Poll: How do you bill recurring payments?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Poll: How do you bill recurring payments?

#42

Post by voxmatt »

Question: It's a bit out on the horizon, but in the not too distant future we're going to be implementing a payment system that charges a % of the transaction to us. For example: $110 payment in, $100 to seller, $10 to us.

I've had a real problem finding a recurring billing company that allows payments to be split like this. Any suggestions?

Re: Poll: How do you bill recurring payments?

#43

Post by shazow »

I hate the construct that you must be a business in order to make money. Not only that, but you must be a reasonably-successful business. Talk about a chicken and egg problem.

I'm trying to bootstrap a product that charges between $10-40/mo per user. Right now I have no users, but I hope to get a few over the next couple of months. What are my options?

Do I have to incorporate in order to get a merchant gateway? Do I cut my losses by using Chargify or Recurly and pay $30-40/mo while I am making less than half of that in revenue?

If I'm to remain economical, I'm forced to use Paypal (or Amazon's SimplePay, or Google Checkout) until I graduate to a better position with more customers.

I imagine a more efficient economy someday in the future when peer-to-peer transactions are commonplace and streamlined. Everyone should be able to provide a service or product in an ad-hoc nature before having to invest in incoporation, etc.

As much as I love to hate Paypal, I have to appreciate their forward thinking.

Re: Poll: How do you bill recurring payments?

#45

Post by gotrythis »

We use BillingCircle.com, which I see hasn't been mentioned yet. It's good. We even wrote them a testimonial. However, we also use PayPal and it would be so much better if all the reporting ended up in one place. They said that feature was coming, but that was over a year ago.

John.

Re: Poll: How do you bill recurring payments?

#46

Post by nopal »

jqueryin wrote: post #36

We're using CheddarGetter, they have their own gateway as well. Any positive or negative comments would be appreciated as we're just getting underway.

I couldn't get a merchant account through them because I didn't estimate that I'd make $10,000 in my first months.

Re: Poll: How do you bill recurring payments?

#49

Post by bradleyjoyce »

patio11 wrote: post #2

Spreedly provides the logic, Paypal the gateway. It works, it took vanishingly little time to get working eight (a few hours, total), it is fairly inexpensive, and it didn't require a real merchant account, which would be difficult to get for my business. ("You live where? I see. And your business does what exactly? I see. And you have five figures in yearly sales? I see. Thanks, we'll pass.")

I use Spreedly on TweetSaver.com ... like patio says, it works great and is easy to integrate... main downside is their reporting sucks really bad and they haven't added any new features in a really long time.

Re: Poll: How do you bill recurring payments?

#50

Post by marketer »

shazow wrote: post #43

I hate the construct that you must be a business in order to make money. Not only that, but you must be a reasonably-successful business. Talk about a chicken and egg problem. I'm trying to bootstrap a product that charges between $10-40/mo per user. Right now I have no users, but I hope to get a few over the next couple of months. What are my options? Do I have to incorporate in order to get a merchant gateway? Do I…

I think Cheddargetter is friendly to bootstrappers - they have a free plan for up to 20 customers.
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