Looking for alternative to Stripe and Braintree
I can't use Stripe because I currently live in Poland. I tried Braintree but after I spent days integrating their API, they decided to reject my application because my business is "too risky".
[They refuse to give me an explanation. My business model is a monthly subscription, where users have access to special avatars if they pay. I can't imagine anything simpler than that...]
Do you have anything to recommend that would allow me to manage recurring payments and upgrade/downgrade of a subscription that is in progress?
You can try paddle.com. Integration is much simpler. You can do it in a day.
You've just had exactly my experience. (My company is registered in Estonia.)
The risk they're talking about is: with a monthly subscription, you get the money at the start, but it's not considered "delivered" until the end of the month. The customer might demand a refund, and since they can do that through their card provider, Braintree (or whoever) might get stung for the refund. Since they've already given the money to you, that comes out of their own pocket, unless they can get it back from you.
OK, so, solutions.
Easy options are paddle.com or fastspring.com. They act as resellers, not payment gateways, so basically you'd have one customer, you'd invoice Paddle, and paddle invoice everyone else. No worries about invoicing or the hideous VAT regulations we have for digital products in the EU. Downside: you'll wait for your money, and they'll take a big cut (5% for Paddle). You might have to handle upgrades and downgrades yourself, but it's not a magnificent feet of programming to achieve.
If you want a payment gateway more like Braintree, then someone like Wirecard might be worth a try. If you want a subscription management solution on top of that, take a look at billwerk.io. Word of warning: EU providers seem to like lots of information from you, take a lot longer than Braintree to decide, and may have exactly the same restrictions.
Good luck!
Thanks for the detailed answer! I could live with the 5% fee, but the biggest problem is the static fee of 50 cents per transaction...!
My subscription options start at $1, so it would mean that 55% of my income would go to them :-O
Sure, I read that in your other reply just after I posted.
There are lots of other options, Wirecard, PayOne, Mondido, Everypay, and lots of other, all with pros and cons. Many don't publish prices, all have tedious application processes, and any or all might turn you down, either because you're in Poland, or because they don't like your subscription model. (Though, these four are all European, so will at least know where Poland is...)
I'd suggest you pick some likely candidates and get several application processes going at the same time. I made the mistake of trying them one by one, and wasted a good couple of months.
Thanks, that's some great advice :)
Residing in Albania I had the same issue. After months of searching online, I came across Paddle (shameless referral link) and 2checkout. 2CO rejected my application for a similar stupid reason.
Paddle is a little expensive compared to the other payment gateways. They charge 5% + .5c per transaction, but at least they're not "racist" haha.
The reason why they charge that much is because they're not just a payment gateway. They do all the invoicing and tax handling for you. At the end of each month they send your earnings (via wire transfer, Payoneer or PayPal) and one cumulative invoice.
They have a great UI, they support subscriptions, easy to implement API and you can accept both PayPal & credit cards.
With all what Paddle offers, I don't mind the 5% + .5c per transaction fee. I used to accept PayPal payments natively and I was paying relatively the same fee due to their cross border fees.
I was looking at paddle and I think you finished to convince me.
Unfortunately, I created an account before seeing your referral link :(
Haha no worries. Let me know if you need help with anything, even though they have great support.
Hello all
Looks like Estonia, Poland, Serbian, Latvia an more
this countries in they background check systems are with -10 sign.
I have the same issue with Braintree
After 2 weeks emailing with Braintree support i get declined my application and the reason was the same "to risky".
Of course it is not risky and looks like they think that we are in offshore untrusted zone.
Lesson learned .. grate opportunities to make new startups Alja Braintree2 or 2CO_2. For sure clients guaranteed.
We have gone through the same crap with horrible Braintree. After wasting several days integrating the platform, our application was rejected. No explanation was given. I was prepared to put down a $10,000 deposit to offset our "risky" business (which has been profitable for more then a year) but they wouldn't have any of it.
We're now in the process of switching to Fastspring. Granted, they're not the cheapest solution, but their features beats every single competitor.
"Glad" to hear I am not the only one. Should make an Anti-Braintree club :D
Unrelated question, I see that your account is linked to your product. However, I thought that you could only do this if you were using Stripe. Is it not the case?
He opened his account a year ago, when the 'using-stripe' limitation didn't exist... :(
Yep, we should. It was truly a horrible experience. Especially since we're a healthy and profitable business and were really depending on using Braintree.
We did not link to anything, we've manually put the revenue numbers in.
Hey Ryan, have you heard of Cheddar?
It's a payment-processor agnostic billing API that can help you manage recurring payments, subscriptions, generate invoices, etc. In other words, you can use any payment processor that supports Poland with it, and switch later if you find a better deal with another payment processor. I saw your comment about PayPal earlier--Cheddar would automate the manual subscription process.
I'm part of the team, so let me know if you have any questions about the features, docs, pricing (we're still playing with this), etc.
I see your basic subscription is $1--like others said, that's difficult with the standard CC fee of 2.9% + $0.30/transaction, so micropayments could be one option. We support that too.
I am looking into it, that looks quite good :)
Do you support prorating? Meaning upgrading subscriptions in between two billing dates?
Thanks :) And yep! Prorating for upgrading or downgrading, as well as custom prorating.
Have you tried Gumroad? Not sure what their restrictions are and I haven't used them but I hear good things about them.
Gumroad will require my users to create an account on their website right? I am currently using Patreon and I would like to move out of it to manage everything on my website directly
Wow, Gumroad takes 3.5% + 30cents per charge... My basic subscription is $1... so that's 33% that would go to them -_-
We had exactly the same problem. Our company is in a country not supported by Stripe, and Braintree considered us as too risky (monthly and yearly subscription).
We looked at alternatives but we were afraid other platforms would cause us the same issue and wanted to avoid losing more time. Therefore we managed to keep working with Braintree by sending them a money guarantee (we are talking about a 5 numbers figure here, so of course not possible for most of the indie hackers unfortunately).
How about gumroad.com
Have you thought about charging more and/or charging for multiple months at a time (e.g. you have to buy 3 months minimum)? At $1 a month the fixed cost of all services are going to bite you so you're not leaving yourself many options.
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I wish they would let me provide some kind of proof, instead of flat out refusing and not giving any explanation...
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That looks interesting, but my basic offer is $1... so they would take more than 33% of that with the 30 cents per transaction :(
What a lot of companies do in this case is only offer yearly packages. So one 12$ transaction instead of twelve 1$. carrd.co also takes this approach to allow even less than 1 dollar a month.
That's a good direction... I might have to look into this.
Is not possible for you to "up" this to $2?
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Yeah I realize now that this 30 cent charge is a common pattern...
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I can't do Paypal because their "Subscription button" doesn't give me any control over the subscription (I can't update or cancel them programatically - it's all manual).
They have an option with Paypal payments, but your users need to have a Paypal account. They have an extended version of that that doesn't require an account from your users, but it's only in the UK, US and Canada...