
Tell HN: I Hugely Regret Using Stripe Atlas - mikob
I signed my company up through Stripe Atlas thinking it would be more convenient and save me time, boy was I wrong. It&#x27;s been a time suck dealing with this company and their banking partners, I would recommend other founders who value their time to avoid this service. I&#x27;ve created an LLC in Delaware before using certain other googleable companies and it&#x27;s gone completely smoothly, so this isn&#x27;t my first rodeo.<p>First problem, Stripe will create a new, separate Stripe account for you to use with Atlas. So if you already had some transactions (hope you do if you&#x27;re forming a company) then you&#x27;re going to need to migrate them. For my company, they just created another account with exactly the same name and just one capitalization difference, pretty confusing. Migration is likely automatic with a cool company like Stripe, right? Nope, they only can migrate your customers -- everything else, subscriptions, coupons, tx data you need to write a script and DIY! Have fun wasting an afternoon updating all your API keys and re-testing too.<p>Side note, if you had special things like the Stripe startup school discount applied to your account, you&#x27;ll lose it on Atlas. Unless you open up another support ticket with Stripe and wait for a couple weeks.<p>Second problem, if you form a c-corp Stripe will create an account through SVB (Silicon Valley Bank) for you. You can go ahead and read the reviews on that bank yourself, but the biggest annoyance for me was a $25&#x2F;mo account maintenance fee. OK, not atypical for a business bank, but most banks don&#x27;t have a $25k+ min. balance for that fee! I do care about $300&#x2F;year for my company when I specifically payed for Stripe Atlas thinking it would be more convenient and save me money.<p>Third problem, want to switch to Azlo bank so that at least you don&#x27;t have to pay monthly fees? That&#x27;s great except Azlo will tell you that you need to talk to Stripe to do that, and <i>surprise</i> Stripe will tell you that...  <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gist.github.com&#x2F;mikob&#x2F;3cd3d141c60596ee50c0ab2603b5bdb9" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gist.github.com&#x2F;mikob&#x2F;3cd3d141c60596ee50c0ab2603b5bd...</a>
======
markonen
1) It makes perfect sense that a new account is created and that transactions
pre-incorporation are not automatically imported. Your new company is required
to have accurate books; you can't pretend that transactions executed before
the company existed (ie. by you personally?) were actually executed by the
company you've later incorporated.

2) SVB seems to be nobody's favorite bank, but it's quite clear to me that
they have been chosen for their willingness to bank for _every_ Atlas
customer—including companies founded and operated by non-U.S. persons—without
requiring an in-person visit. If this is not a problem for you then consider
yourself lucky for having other choices.

3) Your third problem sounds like you've identified a better bank, but they
have not accepted you as a client. How is that an issue with Stripe Atlas?
They have simply identified and worked with a bank who was willing accept you.

~~~
mikob
1\. OK, that makes sense, but it's not just the transaction data that wasn't
imported, it's charges, invoices, plans, subscriptions, coupons, events, logs,
and of course API keys.

2\. There are other business banks that don't need in-person visits, eg. Azlo
and Capital One Spark business.

3\. You should be more careful about victim blaming. Azlo is willing to accept
me as a customer, they just asked me to go through Stripe since I am a US
Citizen that lives abroad and since I have Stripe Atlas.

~~~
vertex-four
Technically, your customers have never agreed to be charged by this new
company you’re setting up - it’s an entirely separate legal entity from
yourself. There’s no way to start charging them from a separate legal entity
without their consent, so a bulk import is probably not what you are permitted
to do.

~~~
ensignavenger
Businesses get acquired all the time- in this case, the new entity has
acquired the assets and customers of the old entity. Thus the contract you
have with the customer has been transferred to the new entity.

~~~
hosh
In this case, the new entity is a limited liability company and the old entity
is a sole proprietorshio with no liability protection. Part of the protection
comes from acting as if the limited liability entity is a legal “person”.
Failure to do so can be used by creditors to “pierce the veil”.

There is usually some sort of document transferring the assets of the sole
proprietorship into the C-corp or LLC in return for shares for membership
interest, as part of the capitalization.

Perhaps talk to a CPA or a lawyer about all of this ...

------
rememberlenny
I can't disagree more with the OP. I went through Stripe Atlas with an
existing problem and didn't have any issues.

I found the customer support incredible helpful. Whenever I had questions, I
would always get a response within 24 hours. Even more so, I had times when I
would get follow ups to on-going issues, making me feel like their customer
support process was really solid.

I originally signed up as a C-Corp, but realized I wanted to change to an LLC
before the process was completed. The support staff helped me and got me on
the way very quickly.

I didn't have any issues with my banking partner. I was actually able to get
my Azlo account started even before my incorporation documents for an EIN
number were completed, which was very helpful.

I'm not saying all of this other than because I strongly feel Atlas is a very
good product. Similar to OP, I have incorporated before, and personally it was
a total mess. The first time, I registered a Delaware C-Corp through another
legal service I wont name, and found myself paying various costs to a
Registered Agent, which was misleadingly introduced. Atlas does a much better
job explaining the financial requirements around taxes, which I also didn't
have properly explained the first time.

Overall, I would strongly recommend Atlas - especially if you can get a
discount through some startup program.

------
tptacek
_and surprise Stripe will tell you that..._
[https://bit.ly/2HhbXjZ](https://bit.ly/2HhbXjZ)

... they'll do anything they can to help you, will support you over live chat
and email, but they're not Azlo Bank and can't open an account there for you?
That sounds pretty... reasonable?

~~~
mikob
I never said customer support was bad, in fact they're very responsive. I am
pointing out how Azlo (Stripe's partnered bank) is telling me it's a Stripe
problem and Stripe telling me it's a Azlo problem. It makes more sense to me
that if I'm opening a bank with Stripe Atlas, that I should go through Stripe,
as they're the ones who created my SVB bank. Azlo asked me to go through
Stripe.

The Stripe Atlas _product_ has some very rough edges as you'll see others also
experienced in the comments.

~~~
mrunkel
I'll be accused by GP of victim blaming here, but this generally occurs when
one organization is being told something slightly different than other
organization.

Methinks you are probably overcomplicating things at Azlo. Open the account
with your org that was created via Atlas at Azlo, stripe should have nothing
to do with that. Inform stripe this is the new bank account.

You have the controlling interest in the org that was created via Stripe Atlas
don't you?

------
arihant
If you're in the US, you can just walk into a bank of your choice and open a
account. Stripe doesn't care what you do with your SVB account. Just replace
it with your new account number in Stripe payment settings and you're done.
This is not an endorsement, but I've been hearing good things about First
Republic Bank.

If you're not in the US, let me first point out that Azlo doesn't even support
international transfers. They do not have login system for multiple founders.
I'm very sure they don't work with ITIN and require SSN to open an account.
Also, only one debit card. No checkbooks.

It appears that you somehow expect every step of the process to be smooth as
butter. But nothing about running a startup will be like that. Transferring
subscriptions from one Stripe account to another should be the least of your
problems when porting an existing business with transactions to a c-corp. Talk
to a lawyer and an accountant to understand what you got yourself into. Since
you're trying to migrate transactions before the incorporation into the
company account, you should talk to them earliest you can.

~~~
trapexit
First Republic's customer service is top notch. My accounts can't possibly
generate much revenue for them, but they still treat me like royalty whenever
I call/email them or walk into the office.

The only thing I have to complain about is that (as of a year ago) they don't
offer an overdraft line of credit for small business accounts.

~~~
BostonEnginerd
Their student loan refinancing products are pretty fantastic. I highly
recommend anyone with a large student loan to look them up!

------
lettergram
I personally went through the Stripe Atlas beta, no regrets. At the time the
AWS credits saved me thousands of dollars. (On year 2 or 3 now, I don't
recall)

In terms of what you're discussing though, I agree. Faced those same two
issues.

What I did:

1\. Keep utilizing my other stripe account(s). I have multiple web fronts, and
each has it's own stripe account. No issue there, actually zero funds go
through the Stripe Atlas account. All the accounts are merged through one
login, which is easy enough to see.

2\. Closed the SVB (Silicon Valley Bank) account month two of the company.
Opened an account with Capital One Spark Business, no minimum fees and the
customer service has been good. Moved all my stripe accounts to dump into that
account.

Honestly, Stripe should really partner with a better bank.

All Stripe does is provide an easy way to setup the C-Corp and help with some
information. You're still in charge of your business. I did enjoy the
suggestions and reminders from Stripe Atlas regarding filings.

~~~
mikob
About 1, I think Stripe Atlas will help me handle accounting if all my
transactions come through there. No? That's one of the reasons I bothered with
the migration (other being just having a nice consolidation)

Actually I use Capital One Spark Business for my other business. They're great
but unfortunately not taking any new customers right now.

------
ed
Just wanted to chime in because I've been using Atlas for over a year and am
very happy with both the service and the team at Stripe.

SVB sucks, true. But $300/yr for a bank account should not be a deal breaker.
You'll pay way more than this just to operate the corporation and stay alive.

I think I pay around $800/yr just to keep the corporation running (almost non-
existent accounting, filing fees and franchise taxes to Delaware). And now
that I'm a C Corp I have payroll taxes in addition to salary (~$2k/mo). As
always, be sure you really need a corporation before you create one. Most of
the tax benefits you get with a corporation (e.g. write-offs), you get as a
sole proprietor too.

Atlas also made filing 2017 taxes trivial, I never even spoke to an
accountant, it was a very smooth process.

~~~
mikob
I don't think 300/year for a bank is itself a deal breaker. Just if it's a
crappy bank and I can spend a couple hours fixing that, then it's well worth
the 300/yr savings + having a better bank.

The trouble is Stripe Atlas has not really been working with me and adding an
extra layer of complication. Support team is responsive but issues remain with
the product.

------
burlesona
I've had a good experience with it, except that I agree the migrating to a new
Stripe account was a big pain. It's really not clear to me why Stripe couldn't
either (a) add Atlas to your existing account or (b) migrate your old account
to the Atlas account. Either of those would have been very much better than
the manual migration I did.

However, now that it's long behind me, I do feel it makes things easier for
tracking tax implications of stuff. The work I did testing things before
incorporation is all sole-proprietor schedule C, whereas the stuff after
incorporation is not. I imagine this is why Stripe has this rule, but it would
have been nice if they'd just said so up front.

------
abcd_f
Mods, can you patch the post to expand the bit.ly link?

[https://bit.ly/2HhbXjZ](https://bit.ly/2HhbXjZ) ->
[https://gist.github.com/mikob/3cd3d141c60596ee50c0ab2603b5bd...](https://gist.github.com/mikob/3cd3d141c60596ee50c0ab2603b5bdb9)

~~~
dang
Done now.

This kind of thing is best sent to us at hn@ycombinator.com. Random-access
mentions in the threads get random access by us, meaning we don't see most of
them.

------
edwinwee
I'm really sorry for all the confusion. I work at Stripe and would like to dig
into this more. Could you email me at edwin@stripe.com?

~~~
haisch
In defense of OP I don't think his problems with Stripe Atlas are born out of
any confusion.

~~~
crankylinuxuser
Indeed. The "confusion" bit is pretty condescending.

It reminds me of the similar bit of "I'm sorry you're upset." With that,
you're not really sorry, and you're fake-apologizing for someone else's
actions.

~~~
everdev
I think it's awesome a company cares enough to respond to dissatisfaction.
Sometimes written words can land differently for different people, but I think
it's a bit harsh to judge someone's attempt at help because they assumed
there's some confusion.

Sure, there are better words to use, but this outreach still puts their
customer service at an A-level for me.

~~~
ovao
And, to be fair, the OP’s situation with getting the runaround between Stripe
and the bank is “confusion”. It’s just that the confusion appears to be either
on Stripe’s end or on the bank’s.

------
qrush
I've just started to use Stripe Atlas and currently waiting on an EIN thanks
to the govt shutdown.

So far their support has been very responsive and helpful, and even managed to
hook up a referral code to a friend's account AND to a separate account of
mine that is processing payments via Stripe Connect.

I'm sorry you had a bad time, but just wanted to provide a counterpoint here.

------
hberg
This is the reason I created the startup checklist
([https://github.com/leonar15/startup-
checklist](https://github.com/leonar15/startup-checklist))... so founders
could know step by step what needs to be done to set up their companies.

Since you'll eventually have to understand all the legal aspects of operating
a business, you might as well start off that way.

------
eeeeeeeeeeeee
I completely disagree with this post. I setup an LLC late last year and it was
a very pleasant experience via Atlas. They clearly show a checklist of what
you need to do, or what you're waiting on. They email you along the process,
or if they need anything from you. If they need additional verification (IDs)
they reach out to you.

I would definitely do it again through Atlas and I've told others to do the
same.

------
spectre256
Fellow Stripe Atlas company founder here. SVB is a bit annoying, but really
$25/month is probably not worth your time to worry about unless the company is
VERY small.

Even in our situation, where we are a 2-person consulting company that isn't
taking any outside investment, and have to run pretty lean (since we only get
to eat and have a house every month if we do enough business to cover it),
it's not worth our time to switch.

But at a higher level, the Stripe Atlas (and Stripe in general) people have
been SO responsive and helpful that I'm surprised they haven't sorted this out
yet. It looks like they've even popped up in this thread, so I hope and
suspect that will happen soon.

With the AWS credits and how generally easy it was, I would definitely
recommend it to others who are looking.

~~~
coleca
I looked at using Stripe Atlas to start up a consulting company and they told
me not to bother because that would fall into the category of "computer
services" which they consider a high risk business and they aren't interested
in dealing with it. How were you able to get them to accept you?

~~~
spectre256
Well, we are bootstrapping a SaaS as well, which is much more Stripe-friendly
(we take payments via Stripe). Either that, or I got lucky and they didn't
notice.

If you are doing purely consulting you probably don't need Stripe Atlas, as
the Stripe integration and AWS credits likely won't help you. But if you are
doing consulting, I also recommend turning your consulting expertise into a
SaaS somehow :)

------
eries
I’ve probably helped ten people start a company using Stripe Atlas over the
past two years. I know some of them have grown frustrated with SVB and
switched banks, but I don’t know any of them who’ve had a bad experience like
OP did. Just thought I’d offer these extra data points

------
allenleein
[Foreign founder]

As a foreign founder. I personally went through the Stripe Atlas last month,
no regrets at all. The whole process took longer than I expected but it's not
their problems (passport name, pic issues...), and I have to say they have
pretty solid customer service. Every time I have any issues, they replied my
email within 12 hours.

------
ryanmercer
>So if you already had some transactions (hope you do if you're forming a
company)

Erm, I wouldn't take a cent from a customer without being a proper company.
Lack of legal protections, unnecessary tax complications etc.

>Third problem, want to switch to Azlo bank so that at least you don't have to
pay monthly fees? That's great except Azlo will tell you that you need to talk
to Stripe to do that,

Um, I'm not sure why you you thought Stripe or Azlo should do this for you, a
random company can't close your company's bank account for you and open
another account at another bank for your company. You open an account with
Azlo, make the minimum deposit. Transfer the rest of the money from SVB and
ask SVB to close the account, fill out any necessary paperwork.

As far as banks in general, you can go to any bank of your choosing "I'd like
to open a small business account" or "I'd like to open a business account" and
they'll say "Great, sit right down! Do you have your..." and rattle off a list
of paperwork and identification you need. Small business accounts rarely have
minimum balance requirements or monthly fees either.

------
briandear
That’s nonsense. I switched my bank to Chase in my Stripe account settings, it
took seconds.

~~~
ryanmercer
OP doesn't understand banking.

They want Stripe to close their company's account at bank A (that is not
Stripe) and create a new account for their company at bank B (that is not
Stripe) not realizing that is THEIR responsibility.

------
bborn
Just want to disagree here. Atlas has been great for us, and we had some of
the same issues ... moving accounts, closing SVB and moving over to Azlo, all
of it went smoothly.

------
cue232s
Stripe Atlas was pretty good for me. The most organized corporation I've
created yet. I also stopped using and paying SVB, because I forgot about the
account and actually never used by account for a whole year so they closed it.
I opened an BOA account without issue. My only problem is that the mobile app
isn't great for ATLAS yet.

------
imroot
I've went through Stripe Atlas as well -- and didn't have any issues
whatsoever; When we decided that we didn't want to be a C-Corp in DE, we made
it before the actual setup, however, when we ran into issues with our process,
their support folks were very very helpful and it was zero hassle switching
banks.

------
nathan_f77
I totally disagree with the conclusion, although I've struggled with some of
these issues. The $25/mo fee is annoying, and I had to manually migrate some
of my subscriptions. But none of these issues have been dealbreakers, and the
process has been very streamlined and easy in general. I would highly
recommend Stripe Atlas, especially if you're starting a company for the first
time and don't really know what to do. Going through Stripe Atlas was like
having an advisor who helps you with every step, and it's definitely worth any
extra costs.

I'd like to switch to a different bank in the future, but I'm not a US citizen
and I'm living in a foreign country, so the $25/mo fee isn't too bad.

------
osrec
I think Stripe's API is great, but the support has certainly suffered in
comparison to the early days. More automated, unhelpful emails than I'd like.
Maybe it's inevitable that support and general helpfulness suffer when you
grow as quickly as they have?

~~~
edwinwee
Our CSAT metrics have shown support has been improving over the years
(particularly since we rolled out 24/7 phone + chat)—but if there’s any case
that we’ve felt short on, I’d love to investigate. Can you share some more
about those unhelpful emails? If you can forward those to me that’d be useful
(edwin@stripe.com).

~~~
Silhouette
Would those metrics give you any sort of warning about merchants who no longer
tend to contact Stripe support when they have problems? Seeing fewer or no
support requests from a merchant could mean everything is working well, but it
could also mean that people aren't telling you any more when things are not
working well.

------
nailer
> Stripe will create an account through SVB (Silicon Valley Bank) for you. You
> can go ahead and read the reviews on that bank yourself

As an SVB customer:

\- Their UK experience, was, until recently, not updayted since about 2002. 8
point font, the entire width of the page, totally separate from the rest of
their banking

\- They want things confirmed on 'company letterhead'

\- They have four different versions of 'balance' which makes things super
confusing

\- No 'find as you type' search for transactions

\- No analytics

\- Their mobile app is incredible limited

\- They alerted me to a 700 USD fraudulent card charge, which, after I spent a
week investigating, turned out to be a 7 USD card charge

The people are great, but SVB sound like a new generation business bank, but
they're really not. Pick Starling or Monzo or anyone else.

------
nubela
Can you recommend which other company you used to incorporate an LLC in
Delaware?

~~~
ctdean
[https://zenbusiness.com/](https://zenbusiness.com/) will create an LLC (I
don't know what state) and then create a bank account if you want with Radius
Bank in Boston. I've never used Zen myself, but they and Radius have been good
partners.

------
joss82
Did you try using [https://priceur.com](https://priceur.com) ?

It simplifies stripe account migration (and also multi currency pricing).

It's free for now. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I built it.

------
vkaku
I would stop using Stripe if they start dictating what bank I can use.

I use Stripe Atlas. I agree that the SVB minimum checking account fee is quite
high. So I will look to move to Azlo. If Stripe tells me I can't do that, I'll
start asking customers to wire my payments to the bank directly.

I think that I am happy with Stripe handling the paperwork and basic payments
for me (and to compensate them for that), but I'd always want my freedom to
run things without extraneous terms.

~~~
ovao
Stripe does not require you to use any particular bank. Setting up an account
for you is simply part of the Atlas process.

------
shafyy
I've had a couple of friends use Atlas without any problems. I guess your's is
also a kind of an edge case with all the switching etc. Hope they resolve it
quickly!

Another question: I also think that SVB sucks but is there a better
alternative to it? I've heard of Azlo, but their services offering is not as
broad as SVB's (e.g. no international transfers)?

~~~
nik736
Azlo is not even a real bank.

------
lukethomas
I've been using Stripe Atlas since the beta and I have experienced a few
issues similar to the OP. However, I've also saved a ton of time because
Stripe emails me about pending issues/changes that I probably wouldn't have
known about.

SVB is ok - the fee is annoying and their UI kind of sucks, but I haven't
switched yet.

------
feistypharit
I was looking at Atlas, but I don't live in Delaware, so I'd still have to
deal with managing the business in my home state all myself. That's more forms
and fees every year I have to do, in addition to the Delaware ones. In my view
Atlas only solves half the problem (unless you've in Delaware)

~~~
edwinwee
TBC, with Stripe Atlas, you get set up in Delaware, but you don’t have to live
there. We help you deal with all the paperwork remotely.

~~~
techsupporter
Aren’t businesses required to also register (as a “foreign” company) in the
states where they do business? So if I’m sitting in Iowa doing business with
my Delaware-formed business, Iowa still wants a registration?

~~~
zeckalpha
Yes

------
etaioinshrdlu
My biggest problem with Stripe is that roughly 50% of transactions are
declined! This is a huge business problem. Not uncommon either for Stripe
users.

I suspect (without proof) that if you are a big trusted entity, Stripe and the
whole financial system probably greases the wheels a bit to improve your
success rate...

~~~
edwinwee
Oof, that is a problem...a decline rate like that is not normal. Have you seen
our guide on reducing your decline rate?
[https://stripe.com/docs/declines](https://stripe.com/docs/declines)

If you email in
([https://support.stripe.com/contact](https://support.stripe.com/contact)), we
also have a declines team that can investigate (I'm also happy to help at
edwin@stripe.com).

~~~
Silhouette
_Oof, that is a problem...a decline rate like that is not normal._

Does Stripe publish any statistics on what _is_ normal for decline rates,
perhaps broken down by categories like payment method, whether it's a first
payment or a subsequent subscription payment, how effective the various
automatic retry strategies are at saving an initially failed charge, etc?

~~~
edwinwee
We haven't yet, but that's a neat idea...

------
etaioinshrdlu
SVB has a reputation as having really bad tech, a bit overly beaurocratic and
annoying in general.

With one saving grace, they are known to be highly tolerant of unusual
situations. Might help if you are running a weird startup.

~~~
ymolodtsov
Their online banking is probably not the greateast but it does its job and
also they tend to trust you, don’t ask tons of stupid questions about what are
you wiring and their customer support is top notch. All from personal
experience.

~~~
etaioinshrdlu
My experience is that their customer support was very very slow and rather
unhelpful. I had much more pleasant experiences with Chase which in my opinion
is the least terrible big bank in the US.

------
laverick
Anyone know good SVB alternatives that don’t require US residence? Any that
can be opened remotely?

------
aviv
Dear OP, if this level of minutiae upsets you, building a business may not be
for you.

------
monochromatic
I won’t do business with Stripe in general, due to their anti-rights stance in
refusing firearm/weapon transactions.

[https://stripe.com/us/restricted-
businesses](https://stripe.com/us/restricted-businesses)

~~~
Confusion
I hope you are trolling.

~~~
monochromatic
Payment processing should be agnostic as to the subject of payment, as long as
no laws are being broken. How would you like it if Visa suddenly decided that
you couldn’t use their cards for buying alcohol?

~~~
ryanmercer
Here's the thing, and keep in mind I'm very pro 2a. It has nothing to do with
'oh gun are bad' 'oh drugs are bad' 'oh porn is bad' it does however have
everything to do with 'high risk items lead to much higher chargeback/fraud
rates and we'd just as soon as not deal with that unpredictability and general
headache'.

That is why 'high risk' processors charge a considerably higher % and per
transaction fee and generally hold a percentage (I've personally seen as high
as 50%) of every transaction for 1 month or longer (I saw an extreme of one
holding 50%, releasing 25% after one month and the other 25% after 3 months
before releasing it to the business as you generally have 60 days to dispute a
charge).

