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Stripe increases price for business in the European Economic Area

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21–30 of 237 posts

Re: Stripe increases price for business in the European Economic Area

#21
post #15

I don't know how Stripe can justify these pricing, except for "oh we can extract more money, let's do that!". In other (non-Western) countries pricing for local payment systems can be less than half of what Stripe charges, e. g. Alipay (one of the biggest Chinese payment services) charges about 0.55% merchant fee without per-transaction cost.

Why don't Stripe customers shift to Alipay? I don't know anything about the service, but that seems like a pretty straightforward win, if they're as similar as you suggest.

More work to support multiple payment providers (and their respective APIs, conflict resolution procedures, fraud prevention systems...).

Re: Stripe increases price for business in the European Economic Area

#23
post #15

I don't know how Stripe can justify these pricing, except for "oh we can extract more money, let's do that!". In other (non-Western) countries pricing for local payment systems can be less than half of what Stripe charges, e. g. Alipay (one of the biggest Chinese payment services) charges about 0.55% merchant fee without per-transaction cost.

Higher costs of compliance in the EU perhaps?

Re: Stripe increases price for business in the European Economic Area

#24
post #15

I don't know how Stripe can justify these pricing, except for "oh we can extract more money, let's do that!". In other (non-Western) countries pricing for local payment systems can be less than half of what Stripe charges, e. g. Alipay (one of the biggest Chinese payment services) charges about 0.55% merchant fee without per-transaction cost.

Why don't Stripe customers shift to Alipay? I don't know anything about the service, but that seems like a pretty straightforward win, if they're as similar as you suggest.

Because countries where both work are not completely overlapping. It'd be very interesting to compare Stripe market share in countries where there are strong competitors.

Re: Stripe increases price for business in the European Economic Area

#25

I have been pondering transaction costs lately. Seems like this is an area where intervention could have massive impact: these costs are effectively a tax that incurs deadweight loss so according to prevailing economic theory if we can reduce it the whole economy should be catalysed. IIUC governments already introduce price caps for certain elements of this market but I think we could be doing more? Like mandating in…

Stripe provides value-added 'premium' service which competes with merchant banking solutions offered by most EU banks, and Stripe does not have a dominant position. But in general, yes, EU does place a LOT of attention to these deadweight transaction costs, and has had large interventions - for example, if you look at the price listed in this very article, the reason why 'international cards' have 3.25% fee and 'standard EU cards' have a 1.5% fee is primarily caused by EU-imposed changes to interchange fees which get paid by the acquiring/merchant institution (including Stripe) to the issuing bank.

Re: Stripe increases price for business in the European Economic Area

#26

Those charges don't look exorbitant. They seem to be inline with what PayPal charges.

For comparison:

PayPal normal: 2.99% + 0.39€

PayPal Microtransactions: 4.99% + 0.09€

So Stripe still has some edge vs PayPal in all but non-EU cards. Not sure if they offer a microtransaction optimized fee schedule, if not, PP is far better there.

Re: Stripe increases price for business in the European Economic Area

#27

Those charges don't look exorbitant. They seem to be inline with what PayPal charges.

Since these charges are from the gross, it all depends on your profit margins. If they're >50%, sure, it's not a big thing. If it's 5%, that means that 0.5% extra on Stripe eats 10% of your profit.

Re: Stripe increases price for business in the European Economic Area

#28
post #15

I don't know how Stripe can justify these pricing, except for "oh we can extract more money, let's do that!". In other (non-Western) countries pricing for local payment systems can be less than half of what Stripe charges, e. g. Alipay (one of the biggest Chinese payment services) charges about 0.55% merchant fee without per-transaction cost.

Higher costs of compliance in the EU perhaps?

EU has limited the fees credit card companies can apply on transactions in Europe, doesn't that mean Stripe should have lower overhead costs there?

Re: Stripe increases price for business in the European Economic Area

#29
post #3

How can Europeans use Stripe when they can't use Google Fonts and Google Analytics on the grounds that sending even a single IP packet to a server under the control of a US company violates the GDPR?

Visa and MasterCard aren't in EU either. So you end up with US companies even when you use a local processor

Re: Stripe increases price for business in the European Economic Area

#30
> Dispute fees (also known as chargebacks) will increase from €15 to €20. Due to costs for managing dispute evidence submissions (regardless of outcome), we'll no longer refund this fee if the customer's bank resolves the dispute in your favor.

> If you or your users have an account located in an EEA country that has not adopted the Euro, here are the fixed fees of €20 in local currencies: Bulgaria: ЛВ40; Czech Republic: 550Kč; Denmark: 200kr; Hungary: 7,000Ft; Liechtenstein: 20CHF, Poland: 90zł; Romania: 100LEU, Sweden: 200kr.

200 DKK is almost 27 EUR. This seems a bit expensive considering that you don't get refunded if you're in the right anymore.

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