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Stripe increases fees for EU and UK-based businesses in April

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Re: Stripe increases fees for EU and UK-based businesses in April

#121

Post by BillinghamJ »

traceroute66 wrote: post #55
capableweb wrote: post #4

Some European alternatives you might be able to find/negotiate better fees with: - mollie (Netherlands) - adyen (Netherlands) - Klarna (Sweden) - Paylike (Denmark) - Mangopay (Luxembourg) - Quickpay (Denmark) (added in edit) The ones I've tried of those, have an OK development experience, maybe not as polished as Stripe, but much better than the alternatives that were around before Stripe (huge hassle back then). Ide…

> - Klarna (Sweden) Erm, isn't Klarna a BNPL company ? Important not to conflate BNPL with merchant services (card payments).

Klarna operates more payment services than just the BNPL credit option

e.g. Sofort is run by Klarna for some reason - https://www.klarna.com/pay-now/business/merchant-support/wha...

So it seems conceivable that they have options to process regular card payments too

Re: Stripe increases fees for EU and UK-based businesses in April

#122

Post by DizzyDoo »

capableweb wrote: post #108
quelltext wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't Adyen only take on established companies? You cannot just sign up and get started.

You can signup and get started with a test integration: https://www.adyen.com/signup But to be approved you need to talk with them. As long as what you're doing is a real company (and you have documentation to prove it), they'll approve you. But you do need to setup a proper business before being able to go live with payments.

I thought Adyen had a minimum payment volume threshold set? 1000 payments a month, or something similar?

Re: Stripe increases fees for EU and UK-based businesses in April

#123

Post by jasonlotito »

capableweb wrote: post #4

Some European alternatives you might be able to find/negotiate better fees with: - mollie (Netherlands) - adyen (Netherlands) - Klarna (Sweden) - Paylike (Denmark) - Mangopay (Luxembourg) - Quickpay (Denmark) (added in edit) The ones I've tried of those, have an OK development experience, maybe not as polished as Stripe, but much better than the alternatives that were around before Stripe (huge hassle back then). Ide…

> This strikes me as weird. User buys something from me, regrets it and issues a chargeback, dispute gets started and bank says I did nothing wrong, so the charge still sticks, but Stripe gets to keep the fee for handling the dispute?

It's about risk. This requires time and effort to reconcile. Someone has to do something. The fee covers this. Does it suck? For you, sure. For the customer? No. It's peace of mind. It's why people willingly shop online. Don't like it? Negotiate your own terms with a bank for your own merchant account.

And yes the charge sticks. If you have 1000 purchases and all 1000 people dispute, that's a hassle the bank needs to deal with. Compared to someone with 1000 purchases with 1 dispute, even if that dispute is valid, it's much less work. Much less costly for the bank. So part of your responsibility as a merchant is to prevent that as much as possible.

> Stripe gets to keep the fee for handling the dispute?

No, the bank is keeping the money. Stripe had the money taken. This is passed on to you.

Seriously, this is payment processing 101.

Re: Stripe increases fees for EU and UK-based businesses in April

#124

Post by rootusrootus »

reacharavindh wrote: post #38
lotsofpulp wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> SEPA in EU is already something but it is taking ages for it to become an actual payment platform in everyday's life. Is there anything stopping merchants from offering different prices to people based on different payment methods? I assume the reason merchants do not list a discount for paying via SEPA or ACH or debit card or whatever local non credit card (and non Visa/Amex/MC) option, is because merchants benefi…

I think this indirectly happens. I live in Haarlem, Netherlands, and some popular supermarkets in my area would not accept a VISA/Mastercard. They only accept Maestro(Which I think is cheaper for them because it is a debit card that Dutch banks give out). I found it surprising because that should mean they lose out on some business from so many expats that visit/live in Netherlands, but apparently not.

This happens in the US, too. A local (western US) example is WinCo Foods, a chain of grocery stores. The only cards they take are debit (and EBT, but that is a different issue). No credit cards.

Re: Stripe increases fees for EU and UK-based businesses in April

#125

Post by jsumrall »

capableweb wrote: post #4

Some European alternatives you might be able to find/negotiate better fees with: - mollie (Netherlands) - adyen (Netherlands) - Klarna (Sweden) - Paylike (Denmark) - Mangopay (Luxembourg) - Quickpay (Denmark) (added in edit) The ones I've tried of those, have an OK development experience, maybe not as polished as Stripe, but much better than the alternatives that were around before Stripe (huge hassle back then). Ide…

Buckaroo (Netherlands) is also an option if you’re fine with so-so documentation of the API.

Re: Stripe increases fees for EU and UK-based businesses in April

#126

Post by sleepyhead »

pjan wrote: post #34
sleepyhead wrote: post #3

"Businesses in the EEA who are paying out in USD to a US-domiciled bank account will now incur a 1% fee, with a minimum fee of US$2.50 per payout." This is absurd. A 1% fee to transfer USD to a USD bank account? The alternative is to charge in another currency - which Stripe will put a 2% currency fee on. This is already on top of their expensive transaction costs. Will actively look for alternatives now.

As far as I understand, you can payout in USD on a EEA domiciled account, and you won’t be incurring any fees. It’s the crossborder settlement which they charge for, which I don’t think is crazy, as it just reflects the underlying costs Stripe must be incurring themselves. As someone who ran a business in multiple countries, the bank always charged similar fees for these transfers between accounts. Stripe letting me…

This was previously not possible but looks like they have allowed it now. That is the reason why I had a US USD account in the first place, for Stripe USD payouts. They did not allow USD payouts to any European accounts last time I checked a few years ago, only to US accounts.

The 1% is for all non local currency payouts. Example: "The primary currency for Stripe accounts in France is EUR. All other currencies fall under alternative currencies." "1% Of the payout amount, when you choose to payout in select alternative currencies." Ref https://stripe.com/docs/payouts/alternative-currencies So basically this will result in very expensive payouts for anyone doing USD charges outside US or EUR charges outside Europe. Like many SaaS companies are. Charging any other currency is problematic for many customers so it is not really an option. Like I don't want to be charged in pesos for a SaaS that I am using.

The alternative is to have Stripe convert USD to my local currency. For a small 2% fee.

Re: Stripe increases fees for EU and UK-based businesses in April

#127

Post by mytailorisrich »

smca wrote: post #104
mytailorisrich wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the dispute threshold includes all disputes or only successful ones (i.e. the ones the seller failed to overturn)?

All disputes. The purpose of the card networks' monitoring programs is to encourage businesses to prevent disputes from occurring in the first place. Some more on this here: https://stripe.com/docs/disputes/monitoring-programs/faqs

OK, thanks. So my initial point stands, then, since there is no impact apart from losing every time.

Re: Stripe increases fees for EU and UK-based businesses in April

#128

Post by fatfox »

capableweb wrote: post #4

Some European alternatives you might be able to find/negotiate better fees with: - mollie (Netherlands) - adyen (Netherlands) - Klarna (Sweden) - Paylike (Denmark) - Mangopay (Luxembourg) - Quickpay (Denmark) (added in edit) The ones I've tried of those, have an OK development experience, maybe not as polished as Stripe, but much better than the alternatives that were around before Stripe (huge hassle back then). Ide…

Also worth checking out Braintree (PayPal). It's not the worst dev experience.

Re: Stripe increases fees for EU and UK-based businesses in April

#129

Post by thesimon »

disruptiveink wrote: post #107
superzamp wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with SEPA payment, is that it's great for the merchant and a net loss for the user, especially individual consumers. From a UX perspective today, it will always be more cumbersome to initiate a SEPA transfer to the merchant. Some integrations offer a semblance of interactivity with your banking app in an attempt to streamline it, but nothing beats the simplicity entering your cards details or just showing…

This. I would never do a SEPA payment vs a credit card transaction unless there's a significant advantage to me as a user to go with SEPA. And the merchant can't give me a discount for using a specific payment which is not allowed under EU rules, so there's not much the merchant can do there.

> And the merchant can't give me a discount for using a specific payment which is not allowed under EU rules

Charging a fee is not allowed, but giving discounts for specific payment methods are AFAIK.

Re: Stripe increases fees for EU and UK-based businesses in April

#130

Post by lmz »

GordonS wrote: post #74

Yikes, these are substantial prices hikes! And what's this new nonsense about increased costs for "premium" cards? From here[0], it describes these cards as "Commercial, corporate, or business cards issued by Visa and Mastercard" - but why would Stripe charge more for the use of such cards? Surely the chargeback rate for businesses must be orders of magnitude lower than that of consumer cards? https://support.stripe.…

Straight from the card networks e.g. https://www.visa.co.uk/dam/VCOM/regional/ve/unitedkingdom/PD...

Processing a "Visa Infinite Business Credit" @ 1.5% would lose them money.

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