Ask HN: What are you using to accept payment for a simple SaaS? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What are you using to accept payment for a simple SaaS?

25 pointsjohntiger118 comments

Setting up a new project and looking to add recurring billing for users. What's the fastest/easiest way to set this up?

Just a heads up: If you're not using a Merchant of Records like LemonSqueezy or Paddle you're 99,9% certain of committing tax fraud. Even within the US different states require you to collect sales tax, international sales make this even more tricky.

does stripe cover this? how come lemonsq and paddle dont?? curious ty

I chose Stripe 8 years ago. And I'd probably still use Stripe now. I'd probably use Stripe Payment Links + webhooks if I were starting an MVP today. After the first few customers ask, I'd add a way for them to manage their subscription via Stripe Billing Portal.

Never used stripe. Does that mean you set it up so it's totally independent from your SaaS? So you just send them a link, they pay, and you activate their account or so?

If I was doing an MVP today, yes, I'd use payment links to start. I wouldn't "send them", but I'd have my "buy" button link to it, and then have a webhook activate the account on successful purchase.

But yes, full manual flow would also work depending on the product. :)

Ok thanks. Sounds like more than enough for the first few customers.

Look at InvoiceNinja, you can use Stripe for card and bank account payments with it, and avoid the invoicing fees Stripe charges while maintaining your data on a separate platform you control even if Stripe decides to pull the rug on you.

Why not Square? Seems to be cheaper. Is the developer experience that much better with Stripe?

Stripe is still the easiest way especially for developers. Now they even have a Stripe hosted checkout option where you don't code much but just send a request to their hosted platform and setup payments/subscriptions. I would love to hear alternatives but doesn't seem like anyone else still beats Stripe when it comes to getting started the fastest.

Paddle but I'd try lemonsqueezy if I were starting.

Support is not great in paddle and I suspect some users can't pay me because of technical failures.

On the pro side handling of refunds/ chargebacks is painless and I don't have to deal with European VATMOSS or any other sales tax, albeit the rest of the world is not as awful as Europe (sales tax in the states has a sales threshold, at least)

Stripe has support for this, just use that. I have not done recurring with Stripe before but I’ve used it heavily and had a good experience.

I use Shopify to accept recurring payments for my B2B SaaS, highly recommend and very easy to integrate.

How?

im using lemon squeezy. the api is super easy to work with

chargebee is good for easy to set up recurring billing.

Fastspring is a bit expensive, but another good one for recurring billing.

(And as others have mentioned: Stripe)

Fastsprings api docs looked really bad compared to stripe for me especially for subscription . Lack of examples are another problem . How did you integrate it ?

Stripe is a good for this.

buymeacoffee, gumroad

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