

Ask HN: I have users, I have traction, How do I get paid? - g0atbutt

Hi HN, first let me say thanks in advance for your suggestions and insight.<p>I was hoping to get some advice on a side project I'm looking to monazite. I've built a social tool that is starting to pickup traction, and I'm looking at building a "pro" version which users would have to pay a monthly fee to use (it's a service). It would be great if they could just fill out their payment info and a few other pieces of data we would need, and then be on their way.<p>I'm not expecting a ton of monthly subscribers at first, and I'm trying to figure out the best way to charge users. Essentially I'd like to test the market without a huge investment.<p>I'm looking for the lowest barrier of entry. I've been considering using Paypal as it is incredibly easy to setup, and I won't have to mess with a merchant account. However, I've seen people completely bash Paypal around HN, and I'm not entirely sure why. Is there a better tool I should be using here?<p>Thanks for your advice.
======
dasil003
PayPal is the easiest, so you should start there. As soon as revenues are
significant I would go directly with a real payment gateway and merchant
account. I've used both authorize.net and Braintree extensively, and both have
a secure vault that allows you to build your own recurring payment
infrastructure without PCI compliance issues. I have nothing against any of
these billing startups—I've never used any of them, and I've set up a lot of
payment gateways over the last decade, so take my opinion with a grain of
salt—but I have to assume that they charge a significant premium for what
isn't that significant of a sunk cost for a web-based startup. In other words,
building a recurring payment system is not very hard once you remove PCI
compliance from the equation. If you're really short on developer resources
then maybe one of these services is a nice stop-gap, but I can't see paying
the premium once your revenues are significant.

Again, I'm not really familiar with the value proposition of these services,
so anyone with experience (especially a founder of one of these services!)
please chime in with a counterpoint.

~~~
bigfudge
Google checkout is a nice alternative/complementary option... I always choose
this in preference to paypal when shopping - perhaps because I can remember my
google password by heart, but not my paypal one?

~~~
points
Afaik google can only do one time payments not subs yet.

~~~
eduardo_f
Google Checkout can do subscriptions for sure. It's in beta, but works very
well:

[http://checkout.google.com/support/sell/bin/answer.py?hl=en&...](http://checkout.google.com/support/sell/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=63440)

~~~
points
ah cool thanks :)

------
jsankey
The silent majority are using PayPal without problems. They support recurring
payments like this, and eliminate the need for you to directly handle credit
card details at all.

Just don't leave piles of money sitting in your PayPal account. And once you
have things started, assuming it's working out, consider adding additional
payment methods as a backup (even if PayPal mostly works, some customers may
have trouble with, e.g. their credit cards not being accepted).

~~~
duncan_bayne
When I last checked (a few years ago mind you) PayPal didn't support recurring
payments if the merchant wasn't US-based. I was angry to discover this part-
way through integrating with their service, as I'm based in Australia.

~~~
jsankey
I'm in Australia too, although I don't accept recurring payments myself.
However, I do make a recurring payment to a New Zealand based company. And by
logging into the PayPal Australia website I see an Australian freecall (i.e.
1800) number that I can contact to help set up recurring billing. So it seems
things may have changed.

That said, it would be best for people to check more thoroughly first, to
avoid any wasted effort!

------
mgkimsal
paypal's likely going to be the easiest. To some extent, whatever your initial
results are, factor in a few % who aren't buying _solely_ because it's Paypal.
If you have profit, expand in to using Google Checkout as an alternative
(though I don't think they have recurring) then look at getting a full
merchant account that support recurring (or investigate spreedly or other
services).

Good luck.

~~~
eduardo_f
Google Checkout does have recurring:
[http://checkout.google.com/support/sell/bin/answer.py?hl=en&...](http://checkout.google.com/support/sell/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=63440)

------
dh
PayPal might be very quick and easy to get going just like Google Checkout or
Amazon Payments but you need to think about what is best for actually serving
your customers and making it easier for them to pay.

\- Standard PayPal Your customer must have a PayPal account which could lower
your conversion and for sure does not give a professional image. You can
schedule a payment to happening each month but it is an amount not a
product/plan, making managing customers very difficult and reporting almost
impossible. Similar issues apply with Google Checkout and Amazon Payments

\- PayPal Website Payments Pro This is a gateway and merchant account
combination that they offer as a package to try and attract merchants. There
are some simple recurring payment options but nothing really. The bigger
problem here is errors and support. Try calling PayPal when something does not
work, good luck. We have a senior level account manager and direct contact
with the Director of Support for this product and this bug has been open for 3
weeks and they still cannot fix.
[http://support.chargify.com/discussions/support/3296-decline...](http://support.chargify.com/discussions/support/3296-declined-
transaction-the-reason-given-for-the-declined-transaction-was-failed-
with-500-internal-server-error)

\- Real gateway and merchant account Your best option and not a lot of effort
if you are in the US or have a US bank account. Overseas it is a little more
effort but nothing crazy. If you are concerned with getting the best rate and
quickly, we have a few partners for this at <http://chargify.com/merchant-
accounts/>. And you can use this and not use Chargify, so it is just there to
help you.

While there are many reasons you might want to use Chargify or a similar type
of service rather than doing this directly you can of course build it
yourself. Just think about what you would prefer to spend your time on. I
encourage you to talk to actual customers of any product you pick, look at the
community around the company and who participates and then make a decision.

As a founder at Chargify, I would love to see you working with us, but more
important I want you to make the right choice for your business so I would say
almost anything is better than PayPal.

------
callmeed
PayPal definitely is the easiest way to start–and you _will_ want to move up
to something better. We did it for the first few years. We never really had
any horror stories, but you need to think about how you'll handle the
transition.

If you don't want PayPal, I wrote up some details about why I recently did for
a new venture (and some other options). Here:

[http://callmeed.posterous.com/choosing-a-cmbb-stack-for-
my-s...](http://callmeed.posterous.com/choosing-a-cmbb-stack-for-my-startup-
corporat)

I like Chargify and use them at our main company ... but they don't support
BrainTree's newest version and I don't really like the other merchants they
recommend.

------
necrecious
As most people have said, PayPal is incredibly easy to get started. I am still
using their website payment standard which involves no coding to get started
taking payments.

You'll need code later for doing IPN and customizing and encrypting the
buttons. But it is definitely the lowest barrier to entry. It is also probably
the cheapest option, at least when starting out.

I added Recurly for credit card payment for flexibility and credibility. The
costs are much higher per paying user than PayPal. Each credit card
authorization costs about 30cents, and if a customer input bad credit card
info and you have dunning on, it can cost more than a dollar to have a
nonpaying customer.

~~~
raerae7133
Hi necrecious,

Recurly only charges for successful purchases and refunds - we don't charge
you for bad credit card data. I hope this helps :)

Rachel - Recurly Support

~~~
necrecious
You guys don't but the credit card companies does. Perhaps I am reading my
statement wrong from my processor, but I got a lot more authorization charges
than transaction charges.

------
karzeem
No first-hand experience with these guys, but I've heard good things:
<http://chargify.com>. It's free until the 50 customer mark, although you'll
still have to mess with a merchant account.

~~~
g0atbutt
About how long does it take to setup a merchant account at a reputable place?
I assume they take a 3% cut or so?

Would you have any recommendations for merchant accounts, or are they all
pretty much the same?

~~~
drm237
Start with website payments pro by paypal. It's the easiest to get setup and
approved for and has reasonable rates. Later, once you have more paying
customers, you can switch if you really think it will make a difference. And
using something like Chargify or Spreedly allows you to change your merchant
account without affecting the recurring billing. Paypal isn't always perfect
and they certainly screw up, but for the handful of issues you hear about,
there are millions of transactions that work out just fine.

~~~
damoncali
My experience with WPP is exactly the opposite. Total clusterfuck. And
Chargify doesn't support Paypal, last I heard, because Paypal was so
unreliable. YMMV.

~~~
drm237
I've been using it for over a year with Spreedly without any problems at all.
What sort of issues were you having?

~~~
damoncali
Terrible customer support and a buggy sandbox.

------
bap
PayPal is _ok_ but I don't feel like they're really pushing the innovation
envelope (and haven't for a long time.)

You might consider Recurly <http://recurly.com/> as an alternative.

~~~
dangrossman
I have used PayPal for about 10 years now, and process six figures with them
per year. I also have merchant accounts and other 3rd party payment system
integrations, but there's no reason to exclude PayPal based on fears of future
problems. With over 90 million active accounts, the occasional problem you
read about isn't unexpected or more extreme than you'd get processing anywhere
else.

Regarding Recurly, my opinion of that company is much lower, but maybe I am
one of the few with a bad experience:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1678143>

~~~
raerae7133
Hi Dan,

We're sorry to hear you had a bad experience with Recurly - in that same post
we had replied to you (which you can see at
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1679599>). If there's anything we can do
to change your opinion of Recurly, I'd love to hear it!

Rachel - Recurly Support

------
bosch
If there's even a chance this takes off do you want to be at the mercy of
PayPal?

Man up and set it up properly from the start. It costs more but in the end
you'll be happy you spent the time and money to do so.

------
jaddison
Have you checked out <http://beanstream.com/public/index.asp>? Payment
processing with great customer service - I'm pretty sure they can help you
achieve what you want... but it would probably be better to look to a service
like their's once you had a serious number of paying users. Still, look into
them.

------
cloudkj
E-junkie is decent, and cheap ($5 for lowest plan). Not the best interface,
but it's simple to set up and works well if you're not looking to do too much
customization of the checkout pipeline.

------
glenngillen
Chargify. No additional cost to start, flexible back end options for you
moving forward.

------
chunkyslink
Can you tell us what your service is ?

~~~
seancron
g0atbutt created the website <http://finishshit.com/> which harasses people
into actually finishing what they're procrastinating doing via Twitter.

It's sorta like an alternate Awesomeness Reminder. Except it rudely reminds
you what you should be working on.

