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Working with the Stripe Payouts API

blog.chriswinn.com

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Re: Working with the Stripe Payouts API

#31

Post by whather »

sjtgraham wrote: post #14
icelancer wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've said this before, but each payment provider out there has benefits the others don't, which is a little annoying. For example, Balanced is inferior in almost all regards to Stripe except in one major area: Payment speed. Stripe offers 7-day rolling payouts (shorter for larger merchants), but Balanced offers next day payments and same day for Wells Fargo customers! Square offers same-day payouts and the best in-pe…

How is Balanced inferior, exactly? I would call neither party inferior, but as far as I can see Balanced has the better product. Two things Balanced has that Stripe does not: ACH debit and credit, and programmatic merchant underwriting. Massive features IMO.

The big win Balanced has over Stripe is the ability to use their payouts API independently of whether you're using them to collect credit card and ACH debits or not. So you could be charging cards through Stripe and paying out via Balanced. Stripe forces you to charge cards through them in order to do any payouts.

It's true Stripe is integrated with more shopping carts and invoicing systems, but Balanced will get there. Personally, it would be great to see a Balanced credit card and ACH FreshBooks/Harvest integration because we're moving more into invoicing, as we're now dealing with larger companies and larger payments.

Re: Working with the Stripe Payouts API

#32

Post by Kickmr »

sjtgraham wrote: post #14
icelancer wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've said this before, but each payment provider out there has benefits the others don't, which is a little annoying. For example, Balanced is inferior in almost all regards to Stripe except in one major area: Payment speed. Stripe offers 7-day rolling payouts (shorter for larger merchants), but Balanced offers next day payments and same day for Wells Fargo customers! Square offers same-day payouts and the best in-pe…

How is Balanced inferior, exactly? I would call neither party inferior, but as far as I can see Balanced has the better product. Two things Balanced has that Stripe does not: ACH debit and credit, and programmatic merchant underwriting. Massive features IMO.

Oh, I didn't notice that stripe doesn't do the merchant underwriting. That's a non starter for us.

Re: Working with the Stripe Payouts API

#33

Post by pc »

Kickmr wrote: post #32
sjtgraham wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is Balanced inferior, exactly? I would call neither party inferior, but as far as I can see Balanced has the better product. Two things Balanced has that Stripe does not: ACH debit and credit, and programmatic merchant underwriting. Massive features IMO.

Oh, I didn't notice that stripe doesn't do the merchant underwriting. That's a non starter for us.

Hm? We absolutely do perform the underwriting ourselves.

Re: Working with the Stripe Payouts API

#36

Post by sjtgraham »

Kickmr wrote: post #32
sjtgraham wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is Balanced inferior, exactly? I would call neither party inferior, but as far as I can see Balanced has the better product. Two things Balanced has that Stripe does not: ACH debit and credit, and programmatic merchant underwriting. Massive features IMO.

Oh, I didn't notice that stripe doesn't do the merchant underwriting. That's a non starter for us.

To clarify: Stripe underwrites you as the merchant. Balanced lets the API user underwrite anyone (yourself or someone else) as a merchant, allowing for example the operation of a marketplace, where each merchant has their own merchant account. Balanced allows you to underwrite an arbitrary number of merchants programmatically via API. Correct me if I am wrong, and I am sure pc will do if this is the case, but Stripe does not offer this functionality.

Re: Working with the Stripe Payouts API

#37

Post by jonathancordeau »

tomschlick wrote: post #3

> Their core product, enabling developers to charge credit cards, wasn’t the first to the market. It is, instead, the best. This is what I love about stripe. It may seem to an outsider like HN is full of Stripe fanboys but to someone who has worked with 10-20 other payment gateways its a godsend. Documentation that is simple, a reliable api, webhooks that work and a fantastic team behind it make stripe so much better…

I agree that Stripe has built a great product, and they have a great team. I too have had the absolute displeasure of working with a host of other gateways, and it's easy to separated Balanced & Stripe from the rest of the pack. They are both in another league when it comes to ease of use, integration and features. However, for a marketplace with any volume, the ability to change the soft descriptor for charges across different merchant accounts is a non-negotiable necessity. You can find this gem in Balanced Docs: appears_on_statement_as: optional string. Text that will appear on the buyer's statement. Characters that can be used are limited to...:(https://docs.balancedpayments.com/current/api?language=bash#...) Just try charging a few hundred credit cards with a generic descriptor and the wave of charge-backs will help you to understand the importance.

Re: Working with the Stripe Payouts API

#38

Post by collision »

jonathancordeau wrote: post #37
tomschlick wrote: post #3

> Their core product, enabling developers to charge credit cards, wasn’t the first to the market. It is, instead, the best. This is what I love about stripe. It may seem to an outsider like HN is full of Stripe fanboys but to someone who has worked with 10-20 other payment gateways its a godsend. Documentation that is simple, a reliable api, webhooks that work and a fantastic team behind it make stripe so much better…

I agree that Stripe has built a great product, and they have a great team. I too have had the absolute displeasure of working with a host of other gateways, and it's easy to separated Balanced & Stripe from the rest of the pack. They are both in another league when it comes to ease of use, integration and features. However, for a marketplace with any volume, the ability to change the soft descriptor for charges acros…

Yeah, getting the statement text right makes a big difference. FWIW, Payouts was mostly designed for user-facing services (Lyft, Exec, Homejoy et al) where they want their own name to appear on card statements. If you're using Connect, each seller would have their own Stripe account and could have different card statement text.

Re: Working with the Stripe Payouts API

#39

Post by dencold »

pc wrote: post #9
icelancer wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've said this before, but each payment provider out there has benefits the others don't, which is a little annoying. For example, Balanced is inferior in almost all regards to Stripe except in one major area: Payment speed. Stripe offers 7-day rolling payouts (shorter for larger merchants), but Balanced offers next day payments and same day for Wells Fargo customers! Square offers same-day payouts and the best in-pe…

> For example, Balanced is inferior in almost all regards to Stripe except in one major area: Payment speed. We'll fix this.

pc, any word on if you'll be supporting ACH debits through stripe api anytime soon? (aka charging customers via bank accounts).

Re: Working with the Stripe Payouts API

#40

Post by collision »

sjtgraham wrote: post #36
Kickmr wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I didn't notice that stripe doesn't do the merchant underwriting. That's a non starter for us.

To clarify: Stripe underwrites you as the merchant. Balanced lets the API user underwrite anyone (yourself or someone else) as a merchant, allowing for example the operation of a marketplace, where each merchant has their own merchant account. Balanced allows you to underwrite an arbitrary number of merchants programmatically via API. Correct me if I am wrong, and I am sure pc will do if this is the case, but Stripe…

(I work at Stripe.) When you create a seller via the API, both Stripe and Balanced do the exact same thing: verify the identity of seller. You can run a marketplace on either.

Edit: I'm using the words seller and recipient interchangeably: https://stripe.com/docs/api#update_recipient

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