

Ask HN:With the talk of Chargify recently ... - jbhelms

There are several products like Chargify, but now Google checkout is about to start recurring payments and subscription billing.  It is currently in Beta, but I am integrating it into one of my sites, and it seems nice.  Google is well trusted by people, so it may be better than a company like Chargify that most people probably haven't hear of.  it also allows for item purchases at the same time as a subscription.  So a customer can order Widget 1, and a 1 year support subscription for Widget 1.
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thecoffman
My only hesitation with going to Google with this is how notoriously difficult
it can be to reach a real support person if you have a problem. There are all
sorts of horror stories on the internet of people who had their accounts
frozen or other issues and were unable to find any way to contact a human
being. I dare you to try and find a contact phone number for support, unless
its changed recently you won't be able to. IMO this isn't acceptable for
someone who's handling my hard-earned money. If I have a problem I should be
able to call them up and talk to a support person about it.

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raerae7133
Agreed 100%. I spend a lot of time on the Google Help Forums, and I feel
terrible for the people who need immediate access to something stored in
Google, and have no way of getting help.

Imagine a customer of your company experiencing a billing problem that can
only be solved by Google. Their lack of responsiveness could be interpreted as
YOU being unresponsive. Until Google offers you dedicated support, I would be
wary of selecting them.

Disclaimer: I work for a recurring billing provider today, but I've had a lot
of experience dealing with different billing solutions.

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tworats
Not to hijack the thread but I also ran across <http://www.opengateway.net/> ,
an installable (as opposed to SaaS) recurring billing solution. Was wondering
if anyone had tried it or had feedback.

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moe
I asked the same question on both of the chargify threads but was
unfortunately only met with deafening silence...

Edit: I started an "Ask HN" on this =>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1792799>

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rpheath
Google is definitely a trusted source, however, they're a monster in size and
that sometimes leads to the inability to contact them should something come
up.

I had a pretty severe Gmail problem once and I remember trying to contact
someone or report the issue, a nearly impossible task. All I found were static
help documents. Of course, that was ~4 years ago. And their support for Google
Checkout may be handled entirely different from that of Gmail, but it's still
something to consider.

Then again, I got burned by the Chargify pricing hike recently, so I can't
really advocate to go with the smaller "Chargify-ish" companies, either.

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jread
You could also try PayPal's website payments standard which offers similar
recurring payment functionality and identical transaction pricing. Customer's
aren't required to have a PayPal account to purchase through it either.

Both of these services only offer checkout capabilities. They don't offer
product/subscription management or other advanced features like dunning which
gateway wrapper services like Chargify, Recurly, Spreedly and ChettarGetter
offer.

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cullenking
If you want to not worry, can spend a week cooking it up and testing it, using
a service like braintree (or the like, I have enjoyed only braintree), is the
only way to go.

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duck
_Google checkout is about to start recurring payments and subscription
billing_

Source?

~~~
jbhelms
[http://code.google.com/apis/checkout/developer/Google_Checko...](http://code.google.com/apis/checkout/developer/Google_Checkout_Beta_Subscriptions.html)

