Ask HN: Best way to accept payments online? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Best way to accept payments online?

10 pointsjeggers511 comments

I'm launching an App soon that People will hopefully pay for. What is the best way to implement an online payment system? Best as in ease of use, reliability and scalability.

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Ask stripe.com for a beta invite. I recently implemented their billing solution quickfast. 3.5% + $0.30 on each transaction, but no need for a merchant account. Get in contact via http://twitter.com/#!/stripe

I recommend Stripe as well. I am very happy with the integration process, the simplicity of the API, as well as their exceptional customer service.

There have been times during all random hours of the day and night when I have had a question and they have always gotten back to me promptly.

I triggered an error on their website one day and received an e-mail from them about 10 minutes later telling me a work around to avoid the problem and letting me know that they were in the process of pushing out a fix. A short time later I received another e-mail saying the fix was in place.

Ah ok. I that case I'll try them first :)

I wouldn't recommend a payment system that's still in beta. There's lots of things you can screw up that won't seriously damage your startup, payment isn't one of them.

I'd recommend starting out with one of the major "easy-to-get-started" providers like Paypal or 2co and then switch to a merchant account once the volume of sales make it worthwhile.

That is a good point that I failed to make in my excitement. Thanks for bringing that up.

Also stripe seems to be US only as well. As are most of these new payment gateway solutions.

As long as it is not pay-pal. The company I work for, which shall remain nameless, had much of its staff "cannibalized" by pay-pal. One manager of mine mentioned to me he turned down an offer from pay-pal because of its total lack of security, he basically felt it would be unethical to work for pay-pal, given the total lack of attention to security of people's bank accounts that it had. So, not sure the answer to this one, but at least, from "inside" knowledge here, do not use pay-pal.

Thanks for the Tip :-) will likely go with @stripe then :)

It depends on which country you are in and what platform you are using I suppose. If it's in the US then Braintree is a good and easy to setup payment system. I haven't personally used it but have heard about their ease of setup. Of course, you could use paypal if you are elsewhere but you might have to spend some effort setting it up.

+1, thanks I'll likely use paypal, I'm not in the US.

You may want to check out FastSpring, which is all-inclusive, enabling you to focus on building and marketing your app.

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