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Choosing a payment provider for your Europe-based SaaS startup

blog.gogemba.com

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Re: Choosing a payment provider for your Europe-based SaaS startup

#31

Post by cpncrunch »

robotmay wrote: post #11

Well I've worked with pretty much every provider available in the UK, so here are some brief opinions on the bigger ones: PayPal: Awful, API changes regularly without warning (including changing parameter names for no apparent reason) SagePay: Truly awful, datacentre seems to catch fire regularly WorldPay: Awful, but not as bad as SagePay Barclays ePDQ: You have to fill out an Excel spreadsheet to get a developer acc…

I've been using various online credit card processors since 1995, and my experiences are slightly different. Worldpay is absolutely excellent - their service is amazing, and their support is absolutely top-notch. Definitely the best solution if you're in the UK.

I'm not sure what you're doing with paypal, but there haven't been any API changes that have affected us in the 7 years we've been using them. In fact I just looked at our paypal code, and it hasn't really changed at all since 2007.

Re: Choosing a payment provider for your Europe-based SaaS startup

#32

Post by ig1 »

Silhouette wrote: post #27
ig1 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're charging customers and aren't making enough in a few months to cover the minimum fee then your business is going to be in trouble in any case. Sure the percentage is going to be crappy, but if you're a SaaS business and your margins are so small that the percentage is worth stressing about in the early days then you're probably doing something wrong. (I bootstrapped my last startup and 100 euros is roughly…

If you're charging customers and aren't making enough in a few months to cover the minimum fee then your business is going to be in trouble in any case. Sure the percentage is going to be crappy, but if you're a SaaS business and your margins are so small that the percentage is worth stressing about in the early days then you're probably doing something wrong. Right, so if you're in that position, why would you put u…

I've not implemented either Braintree or Stripe before, but I'd agree with the principle of just doing whatever gets you out the door the fastest (for a subscription business I might including the proviso of using a service that will give you card portability so you can transition off in the future).

Re: Choosing a payment provider for your Europe-based SaaS startup

#33

Post by itengelhardt »

kilian_paymill wrote: post #9
itengelhardt wrote: post #4

Thanks for the blog post and going into how difficult it is to accept payments in Europe. I would like to add one - IMHO important - point to PayMill: They do not support credit cards from the USA. source: https://www.paymill.com/en-gb/pricing/ (click on "fees for card types and countries" - the US is not mentioned in that list)

hi all, we support cards from the US (although processing and payouts in USD), but we can not onboard merchants based in the US at the moment. best Kilian (MD PAYMILL)

Hi Kilian, Thanks for clarifying this! Good to hear

Re: Choosing a payment provider for your Europe-based SaaS startup

#34

Post by tchvil »

We are Belgian and happily use http://adyen.com for 3 years now. Receiving payments from about 60 different countries without any problem.

The implementation was easy. And on the rare occasions we needed support, they were very quick to respond.

I didn't do a price review recently, but at that time they were the most interesting for us to start.

Re: Choosing a payment provider for your Europe-based SaaS startup

#35

Post by passwert »

Does anyone know of a service provider which also allows you to SEND money (via wire transfer) to customers? I've been looking for that since a long time and contacted airbnbs provider, but no reply at all. This function is used if you are acting as the middle man between 2 parties.

Re: Choosing a payment provider for your Europe-based SaaS startup

#36

Post by robotmay »

cpncrunch wrote: post #31
robotmay wrote: post #11

Well I've worked with pretty much every provider available in the UK, so here are some brief opinions on the bigger ones: PayPal: Awful, API changes regularly without warning (including changing parameter names for no apparent reason) SagePay: Truly awful, datacentre seems to catch fire regularly WorldPay: Awful, but not as bad as SagePay Barclays ePDQ: You have to fill out an Excel spreadsheet to get a developer acc…

I've been using various online credit card processors since 1995, and my experiences are slightly different. Worldpay is absolutely excellent - their service is amazing, and their support is absolutely top-notch. Definitely the best solution if you're in the UK. I'm not sure what you're doing with paypal, but there haven't been any API changes that have affected us in the 7 years we've been using them. In fact I just…

I've had so many issues with PayPal that it's just unreal. First up, they have something like 10 separate API interfaces for taking payments. Second, the documentation is -terrible-.

We implemented one of the APIs (can't remember the name, it was something stupid at least) recently, and half way through our implementation the parameters we received back changed name for no apparent reason, and the PayPal sandbox was entirely changed; this resulted in our account becoming broken, constant errors where code was previously working, and it was never resolved.

WorldPay is incredibly outdated, underfeatured, and rarely improved. Their support is pretty decent, however.

With Stripe and Paymill now available, I don't see any reason why people should continue to use what we've been struggling by on for the past few years. They're so much better that I can't even really draw a comparison.

Re: Choosing a payment provider for your Europe-based SaaS startup

#37

Post by JonoBB »

Having tested and used most of these solutions in the UK, Stripe wins hands in almost all scenarios for bootstrapped companies. Its just so easy to get up and running, and their support is top-notch.

There is one big downside though - you can only charge in USD, GBP and EUR. We sell to other countries who like their pricing in local currency, and this is a major issue for us.

Re: Choosing a payment provider for your Europe-based SaaS startup

#38

Post by cpncrunch »

robotmay wrote: post #36
cpncrunch wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using various online credit card processors since 1995, and my experiences are slightly different. Worldpay is absolutely excellent - their service is amazing, and their support is absolutely top-notch. Definitely the best solution if you're in the UK. I'm not sure what you're doing with paypal, but there haven't been any API changes that have affected us in the 7 years we've been using them. In fact I just…

I've had so many issues with PayPal that it's just unreal. First up, they have something like 10 separate API interfaces for taking payments. Second, the documentation is -terrible-. We implemented one of the APIs (can't remember the name, it was something stupid at least) recently, and half way through our implementation the parameters we received back changed name for no apparent reason, and the PayPal sandbox was…

I just had a look at Stripe, and it does seem like a good service. If I was building a new site I'd probably consider it. The annoying thing about paypal is that it doesn't allow you to change subscriptions.
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