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

I Created a $60K/Month App That Collects In-Person Payments Through Stripe

starterstory.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 172 posts

Re: I Created a $60K/Month App That Collects In-Person Payments Through Stripe

#21

Post by kohanz »

alibaba_x wrote: post #14

How can such an app compete against Stripe’s very own Terminal? Don’t this guy’s customers know that an official option exists? https://stripe.com/terminal

At first glance, Terminal looks like it still needs some level of integration and development work. It's not a ready-to-go, install-the-app-and-process-payments solution.

Re: I Created a $60K/Month App That Collects In-Person Payments Through Stripe

#22

Post by xyzzy_plugh »

kohanz wrote: post #21
alibaba_x wrote: post #14

How can such an app compete against Stripe’s very own Terminal? Don’t this guy’s customers know that an official option exists? https://stripe.com/terminal

At first glance, Terminal looks like it still needs some level of integration and development work. It's not a ready-to-go, install-the-app-and-process-payments solution.

Terminal is really for people like this guy. For folks who want to sell/distribute integrated POS systems e.g. Shopify.

Re: I Created a $60K/Month App That Collects In-Person Payments Through Stripe

#23

Post by ttraub »

He's getting 80% of the gross = 48,000/month. That's impressive income, half a million a year for what amounts to a good idea implemented at the right time. I love reading stories like this, and it demonstrates that there are still many opportunities out there. I don't understand some of these comments which seem to resent his success or belittle his company as "not a unicorn". That's good money, he works for himself, not beholden to investors or creditors, and he's raising a young family in an affordable region. Congratulations to him for a job well done.

Re: I Created a $60K/Month App That Collects In-Person Payments Through Stripe

#25

Post by calvinmorrison »

cmdshiftf4 wrote: post #18
paulkon wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Stripe forced to do this because of their upstream provider ToS, Well's Fargo?

Does it matter? It's a private business, they can do what they want, right?

Eh it's kind of relevant. I worked at a high end tobacco sales company and we were limited to a few payment providers due to selling tobacco online. This amounted to using a very second tier provider. Also PayPal would flag anything with the words Cuba in it. So many cigars use the word Cuba, and we didn't sell those. Annoying at best, but at worse we had more frequent downtimes because our payment gateway wasn't close to reliable.

Re: I Created a $60K/Month App That Collects In-Person Payments Through Stripe

#26

Post by NoInputSignal »

treyfitty wrote: post #15
echelon wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, good find! The article claims > The app collects a 1% service fee on every single charge. Per your comment, this is indeed a more expensive Square. Square already does Card Not Present transactions. The question then is why do people choose to use this?

The only thing I can think of is because certain issuers/networks treat Card Not Present transactions differently for chargeback disputes. For example, depending on the network, if you fail to collect CVV or zip code, you automatically lose second presentment rights. I don’t know how CNP vs CP charges are priced, but the mere presence of different fraud liability treatment leads me to believe there’s a fundamentally…

Here is a good high level book [1] that touches this subject

[1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/0982789742/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_...

Re: I Created a $60K/Month App That Collects In-Person Payments Through Stripe

#27

Post by fyfy18 »

echelon wrote: post #13
gruez wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but with cheaper processing fees What? The product's page says it charges 1% + whatever Stripe charges ("generally" 2.9% + $0.3). A quick search says that Square charges 2.6% + $0.10 per in-person transaction. Seems like that this product is more expensive than Square.

Ah, good find! The article claims > The app collects a 1% service fee on every single charge. Per your comment, this is indeed a more expensive Square. Square already does Card Not Present transactions. The question then is why do people choose to use this?

Stripe is available is more countries.

Re: I Created a $60K/Month App That Collects In-Person Payments Through Stripe

#28

Post by rastographics »

echelon wrote: post #13
gruez wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but with cheaper processing fees What? The product's page says it charges 1% + whatever Stripe charges ("generally" 2.9% + $0.3). A quick search says that Square charges 2.6% + $0.10 per in-person transaction. Seems like that this product is more expensive than Square.

Ah, good find! The article claims > The app collects a 1% service fee on every single charge. Per your comment, this is indeed a more expensive Square. Square already does Card Not Present transactions. The question then is why do people choose to use this?

Sounds like his app is for people who already are using stripe (existing online store, etc) and want to start using Stripe for in-person too.

Re: I Created a $60K/Month App That Collects In-Person Payments Through Stripe

#30

Post by Scoundreller »

NoblePublius wrote: post #24

What does this do that Square doesn’t?

Diff their ToSs and then focus on whatever equals (Stripe minus Square).

Or maybe he ranks #1 in Google for 2% of the search terms that relate to processing credit cards.

Post reply on HN