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Amex for Developers

developer.americanexpress.com

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Re: Amex for Developers

#41

Post by yellowbeard »

nodesocket wrote: post #39
nodesocket wrote: post #37

I'll play devils advocate. If your Netflix and this direct Amex integration saves you 1/2 percent per transaction that makes a huge difference to your bottom line. Netflix current subscribers 83 million and average revenue per subscriber per month is $10.32. $83M * $10.32 = $857M total revenue per month. Assume 10% of transactions are Amex. $857M * .10 = $86M per month. Finally 1/2 percent of $86M is a savings $430,0…

UPDATE: I originally thought it was a savings of $430,000 a year, but it is actually a savings of $430,000 a month. ORIGINAL: I think I just talked myself out of my own argument. That $430,000 savings is basically the cost of one Netflix engineer. The technical debt to maintain separate Amex billing easily would exceed $430,000 a year.

I think you mean 430k / month?

Re: Amex for Developers

#42

Post by ryan-c »

mgkimsal wrote: post #40
nodesocket wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UPDATE: I originally thought it was a savings of $430,000 a year, but it is actually a savings of $430,000 a month. ORIGINAL: I think I just talked myself out of my own argument. That $430,000 savings is basically the cost of one Netflix engineer. The technical debt to maintain separate Amex billing easily would exceed $430,000 a year.

why does the "cost of an engineer" continue to keep going massively up whenever these comparisons are made? $430k? are netflix engineers that special? glassdoor shows sr engineers around $200k - i can't tell if they're including stock/bonus in that or not. Range start in $120k range. Yes, taxes, yes benefits, but... $430k?

Salary + health care + payroll taxes + equipment + space + other overhead, etc.

Re: Amex for Developers

#44

Post by [deleted] »

mgkimsal wrote: post #40
nodesocket wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UPDATE: I originally thought it was a savings of $430,000 a year, but it is actually a savings of $430,000 a month. ORIGINAL: I think I just talked myself out of my own argument. That $430,000 savings is basically the cost of one Netflix engineer. The technical debt to maintain separate Amex billing easily would exceed $430,000 a year.

why does the "cost of an engineer" continue to keep going massively up whenever these comparisons are made? $430k? are netflix engineers that special? glassdoor shows sr engineers around $200k - i can't tell if they're including stock/bonus in that or not. Range start in $120k range. Yes, taxes, yes benefits, but... $430k?

[deleted]

Re: Amex for Developers

#45

Post by nodesocket »

yellowbeard wrote: post #41
nodesocket wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UPDATE: I originally thought it was a savings of $430,000 a year, but it is actually a savings of $430,000 a month. ORIGINAL: I think I just talked myself out of my own argument. That $430,000 savings is basically the cost of one Netflix engineer. The technical debt to maintain separate Amex billing easily would exceed $430,000 a year.

I think you mean 430k / month?

Ahhhh your right. The revenue per subscriber is per month.

Re: Amex for Developers

#46

Post by [deleted] »

contingencies wrote: post #12
OliverJones wrote: post #4

Hmm. For the typical card-not-present (online) use case, stripe.com and paypal do a pretty darn good job of processing AMEX payment cards, as well as the others. Tokenization is vital in this age of cybermiscreants. Ya don't want customer payment card data in your dbms. The stripe.com API offers tokenization, and it offers the ability to send and validate data like zip/postcode, cvv and street address to cut fraud. T…

offers tokenization s/tokenization/lockin/ # devil's advocate

[deleted]

Re: Amex for Developers

#47

Post by tedunangst »

nodesocket wrote: post #39
nodesocket wrote: post #37

I'll play devils advocate. If your Netflix and this direct Amex integration saves you 1/2 percent per transaction that makes a huge difference to your bottom line. Netflix current subscribers 83 million and average revenue per subscriber per month is $10.32. $83M * $10.32 = $857M total revenue per month. Assume 10% of transactions are Amex. $857M * .10 = $86M per month. Finally 1/2 percent of $86M is a savings $430,0…

UPDATE: I originally thought it was a savings of $430,000 a year, but it is actually a savings of $430,000 a month. ORIGINAL: I think I just talked myself out of my own argument. That $430,000 savings is basically the cost of one Netflix engineer. The technical debt to maintain separate Amex billing easily would exceed $430,000 a year.

Even annually, this is a 40 hours per week non stop engagement? There's no possible way the existing billing team could absorb the load?

Re: Amex for Developers

#48

Post by tedunangst »

cstejerean wrote: post #18
matt4077 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably cheaper. If it saves you 1/2% it may be worth it if you're doing >$1mil. (Note that I have no idea how much cheaper it is because they don't seem to have prices anywhere. Which makes me irrationally angry and looking forward to their all-but-inevitable demise over the next decade).

I would bet it's more expensive than Stripe. AmEX is known for being much more expensive than Visa and MC, and I wouldn't be surprised if Stripe loses money on every AmEx transaction (but makes it up on other cards).

This would imply one might negotiate a better rate with stripe by promising to never send Amex their way.

Re: Amex for Developers

#49

Post by SyneRyder »

20years wrote: post #15

Less than 10% of our customers pay with Amex. Can someone shed some light on why a developer would implement this for Amex payments vs just using Stripe, Auth.net or another payment gateway that supports Amex? I am trying to understand the value here and how this will benefit the developer and/or consumer.

The Pay With Points feature could be interesting, allowing customers to buy products online using their Amex Membership Rewards points. I didn't see if it was possible to implement just that without also implementing the other payments processing.

Re: Amex for Developers

#50

Post by SyneRyder »

cstejerean wrote: post #18
matt4077 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably cheaper. If it saves you 1/2% it may be worth it if you're doing >$1mil. (Note that I have no idea how much cheaper it is because they don't seem to have prices anywhere. Which makes me irrationally angry and looking forward to their all-but-inevitable demise over the next decade).

I would bet it's more expensive than Stripe. AmEX is known for being much more expensive than Visa and MC, and I wouldn't be surprised if Stripe loses money on every AmEx transaction (but makes it up on other cards).

Stripe used to charge a higher fee for AmEx cards, until August of this year. (Or at least, they did in Australia.)
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