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Why we ditched PayPal for Stripe

gc-taylor.com

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Re: Why we ditched PayPal for Stripe

#11

Post by latchkey »

slashclee wrote: post #9
latchkey wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If ravelry.com used WePay, each time someone bought one of her amazing works of art, the money would be deposited directly into a FDIC insured account that your wife controls. From there, your wife could transfer the money directly into her own regular bank account. If ravelry.com goes out of business before they transfer the money to her paypal account, there is no chance that they can take any of her money with the…

*ravelry, not raverly

Fixed. Thanks. Must be my old school raver roots. Heh.

Re: Why we ditched PayPal for Stripe

#12

Post by dcaldwell »

From what I understand, one of the differences between WePay and Stripe is that WePay allows marketplace transactions where the app creator can take a cut of the transaction (similar to Paypal's adaptive payments API). I don't believe that Stripe allows marketplace transactions. WePay doesn't currently handle the dunning process for recurring payments but they plan to do so at the beginning of the year. Stripe currently handles the dunning process. At Bellstrike, we use WePay's API and have had nothing but good things to say about them. Their customer service is outstanding and we always have access to their developers, usually within minutes. We're getting ready to implement their iFrame solution as well. I've talked to some others that are using Stripe and they are pleased - particularly with the fact that Stripe only requires the credit card number and expiration date for a transaction - no other info. I guess it just depends on what you're looking for but I'd recommend WePay from my experience. We had a terrible time with PayPal.

Re: Why we ditched PayPal for Stripe

#13

Post by gtaylor »

dcaldwell wrote: post #12

From what I understand, one of the differences between WePay and Stripe is that WePay allows marketplace transactions where the app creator can take a cut of the transaction (similar to Paypal's adaptive payments API). I don't believe that Stripe allows marketplace transactions. WePay doesn't currently handle the dunning process for recurring payments but they plan to do so at the beginning of the year. Stripe curren…

I too heard lots of great things about WePay. They seem like a great shop.

As you've noted, there are some differences in feature sets on both sides. However, perhaps there will be some convergence in the future. Both services are very young, and improving very rapidly.

Re: Why we ditched PayPal for Stripe

#14

Post by latchkey »

gtaylor wrote: post #7
latchkey wrote: post #5

WePay doesn't require you to redirect them to their site. https://www.wepay.com/developer/tutorial/iframe

Perhaps "redirect" wasn't the best word to use. WePay does interrupt the flow of your site with their own system, however: "The iframe checkout lets you embed an iframe on your own site that will contain the WePay checkout system." With Stripe, we have 100% control over presentational stuff during checkout.

Sure, if you want that level of control. In my case, I was happy to not have to implement that part of things. It isn't a trivial amount of work to deal with the credit card / address forms and get everything correct. I made the iframe look like a part of my site well enough that people can trust it and it saves me a ton of development time.

Your app appears to be in private beta, so I can't test that form to see if you missed anything and post about it here. ;-)

Re: Why we ditched PayPal for Stripe

#15

Post by templaedhel »

The better question would be "why wouldn't you ditch paypal for stripe?"

Stripe is much easier to integrate than the x.com/paypal.com family of conflicting api's, all of which lack easy to read documentation.

https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?cmd=_render-content&c...

Compared to

https://stripe.com/docs

Stripe doesn't have a history of randomly locking accounts, and even if they do (if you process payments, I can understand the legal need to now and then) their customer support is so responsive and helpful I wouldn't really mind.

Stripe is easy to use. The web UI is fast, the api makes sense, I get joy out of it.

Stripe sent me a real, physical letter, to thank me. I was one of the early users of the beta, and we all got real letters, on thick cardstock, I wish I had taken a picture of it. That may be a virtue of being a small userbase startup, but if you start with that mentality, it means a lot.

Paypal does have slightly lower fees, but Stripe is worth it.

Paypal also makes it easy to add a paypal pay button to sites, but those a fraught with stories of accounts shut down, and are ugly.

Re: Why we ditched PayPal for Stripe

#16

Post by michaelschade »

The post is spot on.

My initial attraction to Stripe was because of a reason mentioned in the post: not wanting to redirect or otherwise interrupt the normal order process of my site with another company's (branded) checkout form just to handle credit card payments. The other reason for initial attraction was of course their elegant API, which was very refreshing to see after having dealt with Intuit's QBMS API (shudder) in the past.

Stripe really sealed the deal though when I tweeted them to ask my first question about signup and one of the co-founders reached out to me. Since then, I've been in contact to share my feedback or ask other questions, and the quality and timing of their responses is one of the best I've ever seen.

When a customer of ours had an issue placing his order, I wrote Stripe to see if they could offer any insight as to what errors they might be seeing on their end. While the error was unrelated to Stripe itself, they were so awesome that they actually took the initiative to browse through our checkout page and point out the spot that they thought to be the issue.

A company that stands beside you when debugging your checkout page, maintaining swift response times on an issue that isn't even theirs? That's customer support.

I probably sound like I'm gushing right now, but I just have mad respect for this company. The product isn't the only thing that's top notch, the people behind it rock too.

Re: Why we ditched PayPal for Stripe

#17

Post by billclerico »

latchkey wrote: post #14
gtaylor wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps "redirect" wasn't the best word to use. WePay does interrupt the flow of your site with their own system, however: "The iframe checkout lets you embed an iframe on your own site that will contain the WePay checkout system." With Stripe, we have 100% control over presentational stuff during checkout.

Sure, if you want that level of control. In my case, I was happy to not have to implement that part of things. It isn't a trivial amount of work to deal with the credit card / address forms and get everything correct. I made the iframe look like a part of my site well enough that people can trust it and it saves me a ton of development time. Your app appears to be in private beta, so I can't test that form to see if…

hey guys - bill from wepay here.

we contemplated building a JS solution as well, but using JS can place your site within the scope of PCI compliance. (this is somewhat up for debate) the reason we went with an iframe implementation is because it is firmly outside the scope of PCI, and we are working on making it even more customizable.

either way, you are in good hands with stripe or wepay. (at wepay we are big stripe fans - they rule!) to me, the big difference is whether or not you want the money to settle to someone's bank account directly (stripe), or whether you want it aggregated and stored in an online account first (wepay).

Re: Why we ditched PayPal for Stripe

#18

Post by michaelschade »

templaedhel wrote: post #15

The better question would be "why wouldn't you ditch paypal for stripe?" Stripe is much easier to integrate than the x.com/paypal.com family of conflicting api's, all of which lack easy to read documentation. https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?cmd=_render-content&c... Compared to https://stripe.com/docs Stripe doesn't have a history of randomly locking accounts, and even if they do (if you process payments, I can und…

I was one of the beta users too–I showed the letter to my co-founder and we both got huge smiles on our faces.

Here's a picture of it: http://yfrog.com/nz99532600j

Re: Why we ditched PayPal for Stripe

#19

Post by JoshTriplett »

templaedhel wrote: post #15

The better question would be "why wouldn't you ditch paypal for stripe?" Stripe is much easier to integrate than the x.com/paypal.com family of conflicting api's, all of which lack easy to read documentation. https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?cmd=_render-content&c... Compared to https://stripe.com/docs Stripe doesn't have a history of randomly locking accounts, and even if they do (if you process payments, I can und…

I can only see two reasons why someone might need PayPal rather than Stripe: if the business resides outside the US, or if they need to take methods of payment other than credit cards. Other than that, Stripe seems like a no-brainer.

Re: Why we ditched PayPal for Stripe

#20

Post by angryasian »

james33 wrote: post #2

I don't really consider Stripe a replacement for PayPal. You don't accept PayPal because it can process credit cards, you accept PayPal because millions of people want to pay with it. Don't get me wrong, I hate PayPal just as much as the next guy, but unfortunately it isn't a viable option to stop using it in favor of simply accepting credit cards right now (though Stripe is an awesome product!).

agree, I'd like to know conversion numbers after the switch.
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