Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Stripe And A/B Testing Made Me A Small Fortune

kalzumeus.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 164 posts

Re: Stripe And A/B Testing Made Me A Small Fortune

#121

Post by [deleted] »

dennisgorelik wrote: post #96
jeremymcanally wrote: post #21

Stripe the service is fantastic. I just hope they can get the financial side together soon. They sent me a 1099 on April 14 this year (you know, one day before taxes are due). Fortunately I hadn't filed yet (I was literally typing everything in TurboTax as the postman came). Not only was that usually illegal (at least for traditional 1099's; I don't know if the same rules apply to 1099-K's...haven't looked), it was h…

Do payment processors even have to send you 1099? If I'm not mistaken, Google Checkout and PayPal did not send me 1099 - I just had to report all the revenue received from them myself.

[deleted]

Re: Stripe And A/B Testing Made Me A Small Fortune

#122

Post by dusing »

sulife wrote: post #43
MBCook wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what a company I worked with did, and I thought it was a bad decision. The per-transaction fees are lower, but there is a monthly (or yearly) cost. The API is big because it covers so many cases that you probably won't use. Plus there are fees. Sure, they'll let you do e-checks (every customer wants those, right?), but that's a fee. Return? That's a fee. Chargeback? Fee. Process transactions in real-time inste…

You can negotiate all those BS fees to $0. For example.. I pay 0.1% + interchange. $0.05 per transaction gateway fee and $0.10 cc trans fee (includes AVS). $5/mo base fee. NOTHING ELSE (well chargeback fees, everywhere has that). You have no clue what you're talking about. I guarantee Stripe will charge you CB fees too. Only way Stripe is worth the time and % they jack it up is if you do LOW volume. edit: 5 seconds i…

You have it right, the key for stripe is LOW volume.

Re: Stripe And A/B Testing Made Me A Small Fortune

#123

Post by dangrossman »

mietek wrote: post #118
dennisgorelik wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do payment processors even have to send you 1099? If I'm not mistaken, Google Checkout and PayPal did not send me 1099 - I just had to report all the revenue received from them myself.

This is a good question and I would really like to see it answered.

They have to send you a 1099-K like all other payment processors... if you made over $20,000 in gross sales in the year. I got one from PayPal in 2011.

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

Re: Stripe And A/B Testing Made Me A Small Fortune

#124

Post by dangrossman »

dcaldwell wrote: post #40

I work in the same co-working facility as an education-based startup that switched from using PayPal(where user gets redirected to PayPal) to Stripe (completely branded checkout) and their conversion rates increased 40% overnight and have stayed at those levels. After digging into their API, we're actually building our new company, MoonClerk, on top of Stripe's API. We'll basically be an abstraction layer on top of S…

Why build it on top of Stripe's API and lock you into a single (relatively expensive) vendor? You could build on top of something like SpreedlyCore and simultaneously support Stripe, PayPal Pro, and 30+ different payment gateways for hundreds of merchant account providers.

Re: Stripe And A/B Testing Made Me A Small Fortune

#125

Post by sulife »

davidandgoliath wrote: post #116
sulife wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chase Paymentech - ~1.9% + $0.15 <---- WINNER!

Stripe would end up costing an additional $20,000 a year or thereabouts for us. Due to their instant sign-up and almost instant approval however, they were the only option for a quickfix while we await chase or braintree to approve our applications. :) Love their UI & easy integration though.

Chase usually takes me < 24 hrs for VAR sheet...

Re: Stripe And A/B Testing Made Me A Small Fortune

#127

Post by pbiggar »

nemesisj wrote: post #72
StavrosK wrote: post #10

God I hate posts about Stripe with a passion. It's like saying "You've had this pain in your back for the last five years? Well, I've got this miracle pill here that will not only make it go away, but it will also taste great . Oh, you're not in the US? Too bad then." Stop reminding me I can't use Stripe all the time.

I don't know why this is getting down voted. Stripe is close to my most hated company right now because they're not available in the UK :) It's really annoying.

"Hated", really?

Re: Stripe And A/B Testing Made Me A Small Fortune

#128

Post by dangrossman »

jasonkester wrote: post #71
sulife wrote: post #5

Or spend a few hours, get a merchant account through a bank and authorize.net with much lower fees and a pretty standard API. Tons of classes to use authorize.net with and super simple... no point of adding ANOTHER layer... charging with a merchant account is trivial.

By hours, I assume you mean months. It took me just shy of two months to get my merchant account set up a couple years back. In theory, you could do it in less time, but only if you already have your business licensed, registered and a business bank account set up in exactly the right way. But since that's part of the list of things you need to do to get a traditional payment provider set up that Stripe doesn't requi…

That seems a little exaggerated... most merchant account providers get applications through underwriting in 2-3 business days. I'm not sure what "set up in exactly the right way" is since my merchant account applications only asked for the bank account # and routing #, and the first one I opened 8 years ago was tied to a consumer checking account. Opening a business bank account once I registered an LLC took less than 30 minutes at the local branch.

Re: Stripe And A/B Testing Made Me A Small Fortune

#129

Post by pclark »

sulife wrote: post #92
pclark wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need to be an ass. Also, it's business 101 to focus on your core and outsource the rest: so yes, it absolutely is worth using stripe rather than building payment architecture yourself. You are probably the only person on Hacker News that thinks building all this yourself makes sense.

It's business 100 to not waste money. If 1% is not a lot to save you have a hobby, not a business. I do see you enjoy using every service imaginable. I imagine you are building your dumb idea on top of Amazon SES or sendgrid. And you even used some other dumbass start up to make an email submit form for new startups. You're a pro.

We (userfox.com) rely on mailgun.com for email delivery since it is a 'distraction' from our core: helping companies send interesting and relevant messages to their customers.

Re: Stripe And A/B Testing Made Me A Small Fortune

#130

Post by ROFISH »

corkill wrote: post #56
dmix wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stripe is beta testing internationally. I got an account in Canada about 2 weeks ago. http://www.businessinsider.com/stripe-square-international-e...

Great to hear, I'm just praying they remove the need for a social security number in the US. One of the main reasons we chose the US to incorporate in was for access to business tools like this. But with neither founder having a SS number we can't use the service.

The SSN requirement confuses me, especially as a US citizen with a US company. Whose SSN is the right one to use? Are they legally liable for events? Why require a single person's SSN when in reality it's the corporation's account, goes to the corporation's bank account, which the corporation gets charged corporation taxes.
Post reply on HN