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Stripe is cancelling our services in 5 days. What should we do?

Hey guys.

Anthony here. I'm the founder of HodlBot.

Just to give you some context, we're a software-as-a-service company that offers a portfolio management software for our customers. Customers pay $10 per month for our software which enables them to execute an indexing strategy on their own exchange accounts.

We launched our platform around a month ago and have seen a decent amount of traction ($~3k MRR) ~300 customers.

It was brought to my attention that Stripe reviews businesses at $10k MRR, so I wanted to be as transparent and pro-active as possible by explaining the nature of our company to Stripe - that we are a software provider, not an exchange nor a currency broker. We do not take a % fee or hold any fiat or crypto. We only sell software.

I e-mailed the Stripe support team about our situation and was surprised to hear back that they had decided to terminate our services in 5 days.

Although I tried to appeal the decision, it seems that anything even remotely related to crypto is something that is considered off-limits despite the fact that we only use Stripe to collect a subscription fee for our software.

For founders here that have run into the same issues, what have you done? We really like the dev-friendly subscription-based payment option that Stripe offers.

Are there any other alternatives that we should consider? Or will we likely face the same issue? Are there any crypto-friendly payment providers?

We are also exploring the possibility of only accepting crypto payments.

Thanks guys

  1. 15

    @dilbocabins I work at Stripe. Our financial partners have set some restrictions on crypto (https://stripe.com/us/prohibited-businesses#financial-and-professional-services), but I'd like to dig into this more. Could you email me at edwin@stripe.com?

    1. 3

      Thank you for reaching out Edwin!

      I just sent you an e-mail :)

  2. 4

    Well that sucks, and pretty shortsighted coming from stripe.

    Maybe @patio11 can weigh in on this.

    1. 2

      Thanks man. I get why Stripe would do it. They have a lot of pressure coming from their financial partners and probably don't care about a few false positives.

      Even if we had a few extra days to move off, it would be a huge help.

  3. 3

    Just use Paddle: https://paddle.com. Been using them for the past year and their support is great. Was using Stripe previously but unfortunately, they are still (inexplicably), not available in South Africa.

  4. 3

    Why don't you accept crypto payments? 🤔
    Seems ideal for your audience!

  5. 1

    I guess this explain why Stripe stopped accepting Bitcoin as a form of payment. Good luck, hope you get this resolved.

    Recurring payments with Crypto are tough, but you could look at:
    https://bitpay.com/

    For one time (perhaps annual payments) these might work:
    https://commerce.coinbase.com/
    https://www.paybear.io/

  6. 1

    I had an idea about a crypto-related app and I e-mailed Braintree to ask if I am allowed to use their service for it and they said no as well.
    I guess the only thing to do is to accept crypto-payments.

  7. 1

    Whats the website?

  8. 0

    If Stripe maintains its decision, just go to paypal and only tell them you are a software company, what you are.