Hacker News Reader

Now that payment processors like Stripe and Balanced are providing very similar services, what serves to differentiate them? As each of these companies release features, they become closer and closer to converging to the exact same product. I'm seeing the same fees, the same abilities to payout, the same ability to act as a marketplace, with only a few very minor differences. Why should someone pick Stripe over Balanced, or vice versa?

View on HN

I think you should pick based on your primary use case, i.e. whether you are a merchant (stripe) or a marketplace (balanced).

IMO in a couple of years the offerings from these two companies will be so close that this distinction won't matter, but for now they are converging in from different directions so you should choose appropriately.

(I feel this is a lot like Box vs. Dropbox. One started from the team/enterprise side, and the other from the personal/consumer side, but now Box offers free 5GB for personal use, Dropbox offers dropbox for teams etc. A couple of years back, it mattered which one you picked depending on your use case, but these days not so much.)

Support and transparency.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com