
Ask HN: this is core business for YCombinator startups, why isn't it solved? - andrewstuart
Is there a SAAS handling user registration, oauth signin and Stripe subscriptions?<p>I don&#x27;t want to write all that stuff yet again.<p>I&#x27;m not enthused about http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.signupasaservice.com&#x2F; since their login link leads to a dead page, not inspiring confidence.<p>EDIT: why isn&#x27;t this a solved problem by all the ycombinator genius folks? Remember - build something people WANT.
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shankscoder
My 2 cents on this.

You need to think ahead a bit on how you might use the user management layer
down the line. Even if you decide to move away from XYZ service that you
started with, you need to at some point replicate all the functionality that
made you want to go with them in the first case. Ideally, your best bet is to
use this kind of service for as long as you can to minimize service disruption
to your users. As you pointed out, "A dedicated third party company is going
to do this better than me."

A better approach, IMO, is to go for an authentication service that is
flexible for a longer term and satisfies your core requirements today (ie user
management functions). The payment stuff is anyway custom (as the nature of
your plans are unique to your business) and can be easily achieved a 3rd party
platform where the user layer is integrated via OAuth.

One simple approach here is to use Wordpress with WooCommerce (ready packages
exist) as your "sales" layer + an integration module to Stormpath/Auth0/etc to
sync the user auth layer. This is a solved problem for Wordpress sites, and
you just need to link it to an OAuth layer that does what you need. I get that
you don't want to write any code, but no two businesses are alike especially
in the subscriptions game, and you're better off spending a little time to get
this setup the way you want, instead of having to live with what someone else
gives you.

We just went through a similar exercise, and this is the understanding we
arrived at. We're using Auth0 (www.auth0.com) instead of Stormpath as we plan
to deploy quite a few micro-apps linked to a single login, and we don't want
to be charged by the number of apps we have, but by our user volume.
Otherwise, the service feature-sets are quite similar.

Hope this helps.

P.S We're using ChargeBee (www.chargebee.com) to handle our subscription
billing management and we're writing some minors scripts to automate our user
layer based on the payment status.

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WestCoastJustin
My personal view, is that the cons significantly outweigh the pros in a
situation like this. I know your pain, as I recently went through the
subscription hell (confirm emails, error checking, change credit card,
valid_until, webooks, accounting stats, etc), but this is the core of your
company and it needs to be right. Stripe was actually the easy part, it is all
the scaffolding around it to make subscriptions work, which is extremely
painful. If this out-sourced saas goes out of business tomorrow, you are
royally screwed, has a security issue, screwed, hardware failure with data
loss, screwed, bad service, customers are screwed, you are screwed, etc, etc.
There needs to be a better way I know, I'm just not sure this is the answer,
and it is just way to risky.

Having said all that, I think
[https://www.ccbill.com/](https://www.ccbill.com/) does something close to
what you are looking for.

~~~
andrewstuart
I just want to get a subscription product out there fast, not spend three
months building yet another user registration database with oauth and
payments.

What I really need is something like shopify - but allowing subscription
payments via Stripe. I also need Shopify to provide an API so I can query my
user database and do stuff with it.

I want someone else to be taking care of user interface stuff. I should be
able to pay and get a gorgeous looking site that works well on mobile and
desktop, facilitates user signin via oauth, allows me to set up products and
prices, lets people purchase my services on a recurring basis, doesn't try to
own my user base and lets me write code to access all the relevant user and
account and product data.

I do agree that there is a level of risk of the provider going bust but I'm
willing to take that risk at least in the initial stages of a project. To
offset risk I need to be able to get backups or replication of my user
database out of the Shopify system.

Surely it's an opportunity for someone.

Here's what needs to be melted together:

\-- Shopify

\-- Stripe

\-- StormPath

\-- oauth.io

\-- and maybe something like Strikingly or Squarespace.

Put it all together and you basically get a digital subscription goods
business in a box. I could immediately get going writing code to provide my
digital service, not wasting my time building shops and user databases and
login systems AGAIN.

~~~
WestCoastJustin
Preaching to the choir ;) If someone reputable built it, I would also highly
be interested, as it is such a pain re: subscriptions. It would be nice if
Stripe just had a spinoff that handled all this as there is major overlap in
skills required.

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mehdim
Hi, co-founder of OAuth.io here. We have a full OAuth.io + Stormpath
integration already

[https://oauth.io/home/user_management](https://oauth.io/home/user_management)

and the set up is quite straightforward if you go in our User management API
documentation.

[http://docs.oauth.io/#user-management-api](http://docs.oauth.io/#user-
management-api)

We are built on stripe so we could do something there to fulfill your need.

Thanks for your feedback and hope this helps,

~~~
andrewstuart
Nice to see you in person commenting on this!

To help you understand the background. I have built a web service that I want
to sell.

Unfortunately I'm now faced with writing a whole bunch of code that is not my
core business. I can do it and have done it before many times but it's really
just a time consuming barrier to getting my product to market.

I really need a "business in a box" and I really don't want to write code.
Here's the requirements:

\--> Website

users need to be able to come to a gorgeous looking site (or at least clean
and professional anyway) - must work well on mobile. The website is a very
substantial part of the requirements. It should look like my website and not
show any signs that it is actually constructed using something else. No
"powered by Shopify" or anything on it.

\--> Authentication

users to be able to sign in and create an account using whatever the common
signin services are (i.e. oauth)

\--> Authorization and user management

the back end must save the user data into a database and should handle all the
crap involved with sending out confirmations, password resets etc. the back
end must provide me with an API. the back end must provide me tools for
backing up my user and account data cause I don't trust that they won't go out
of business one day the back end company must exude the sense that it's my
customer base, not theirs. if I get the sense that I don't trust them then I'm
outa there.

\--> Commerce

the website must allow me to set up a very simple schedule of service levels
and present it in that well known pricing table format that almost all
websites seem to use

\--> Payments

MUST allow me to do subscription payments through Stripe - nothing else will
do here

\--> integrated

all the above must be nicely integrated.

\--> API

stripe have shown everyone how to do API's well. Must be incredibly thoroughly
documented with lots of practical examples and wide language support. Python 3
please as well, not just Python 2.

\--> Setup and configuration

hard to see why it should take me more than half an hour in an admin interface
to set up all the above.

Seems to me that various companies are "best in class" for each of the above
areas, but nowhere is it all integrated into the smooth end to end complete
experience that I want. That leaves me needing to write code and damn I really
don't want to - it's completely pointless to be writing all this stuff yet
again.

~~~
mehdim
And how much would you pay for that? What would be your prefered model? per
number of users? per number of API calls? a % transaction fee on top of
existing stripe fees? Something else?

~~~
Nilef
As someone else looking for the same thing, I'd pay a monthly subscription on
a per number of tiers. I'd likely pay around $10-15 for every 1,000 users,
probably a little more. I wouldn't ever do a "% of revenue" or a fee on top of
existing transactions.

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prostoalex
[https://www.dailycred.com/](https://www.dailycred.com/)

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namenotrequired
I think this is exactly what you need:
[https://www.userapp.io/](https://www.userapp.io/)

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mappu
WHMCS? Hostbill? Clientexec?

