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Comment by grok2 | Hacker News Reader

You need to worry about everything mentioned as a feature at https://cheddargetter.com/features. No, I am not associated with them, but I have been researching subscription billing and found CheddarGetter's list of features a good template to compare other providers.

Why are you considering Braintree? They seem a little more expensive for starting out (though probably they are more robust and have better support than the rest -- Spreedly/Chargify/Recurly/CheddarGetter/Vindica/Zuora/Aria are some I researched).

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I haven't looked exhaustively.

After the chargify free account fiasco, I'm staying away from them. I would have started with the free account there and moved up, but now I'd be too nervous to look at them. Not familiar with the others, but I'd be nervous to go with anyone who doesn't have serious momentum, or size in their favor, as I don't want to rewrite my code if a startup fails or deal with stranded account information.

That happened to my co-founders and I on our previous product (the one visible at the website in my profile). The only thing our payment provider ended up being serious about was getting acquired.

We had to change providers about a year after we launched, and it ended up costing us nearly half of our early customers.

Interesting that the data didn't transfer over to the acquiree. Is that a rule in terms of PCI I wonder?

My understanding was that it was a low-dollar tech acquisition. The acquiree had no interest in existing customers beyond the fact that they validated functionality.

changing from Chargify or any other recurring payment service to another provider shouldn't be too hard, considering all your customer data should be stored in your Payment Gateway(Authorize.Net, Braintree, etc.).

Changing your gateway however would probably cause significant difficulties though.

They seem a little more expensive for starting out

I've also been looking at various payment gateways lately, and Braintree looks awesome. However, the $75 monthly minimum in fees is way too much to start out. Sadly I think I will either be locked into another provider or have to make the painful migration once revenue reaches the point where it makes sense to switch.

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