Also, I've used PayPal API, and found the Fastspring API comparatively easier to use once you figure it out.
It's still a good idea to have a second payment processor, in case one has downtime or a customer has a problem charging their card. I've never had problems with Fastspring, but I occasionally had problems with others - I have a switch in my backend where I can flip to a second payment processor instantly.
(Paymill is Europe-only, and when a US bank detects a payment going out to Europe, it flags it as fraud. Thanks, US banks!)
What do you mean with "Requests for updates are ignored"?
The current documentation has been around for a while and is currently being entirely updated. I would be happy to hear your thoughts to ensure the new version will be satisfying for our users.
Feel free to contact me, I'll help you with that.
yann.irbah[at]paymill.com
Would love to see how we can help you out (we're a little cheaper than FS too if that's a deciding factor for you).
1. Too much hidden information. The main page should specify the pricing because that's the first thing we all look at. Yes, I know about the pricing page. But a click away is one too many. And I couldn't find a list of supported countries. If I don't know the cost and if I can get it, I'm not going to waste time asking.
2. You're cheaper than FastSpring now. But when FastSpring started it was a lot cheaper and more dynamic. You're competing with PayPal, not FastSpring. And PayPal is charging 2.9% + $0.30. So start where FastSpring started, not where it is after a couple years of growth. A bonus would be to find cost-effective ways to handle different price points. A 5% fee is ok for a $5 sale, but for a $1000 sale it's a bit too much.
3. Not sure how to say this in a more diplomatic way, but your store forms look spammy. Maybe the cluttered elements, maybe the asymmetrical design. You should talk with a designer and create something cleaner and nicer. The purchase forms are the last step of a sale. If they are not perfect, the client can easily change his mind. At least this is how I feel as a seller.
Good luck. And find ways to do things better. Innovation always attract people.
1. Interesting, we don't usually get that, and maintain a fairly detailed pricing page + FAQ (https://www.paddle.com/pricing) perhaps we should link to this from the homepage.
2. I don't agree that we're trying to compete with PayPal on price. Paddle is intended to be a premium product (and thus we charge a premium over PayPal for example). Paddle handles: VAT/ Tax collection + remittance, digital product delivery and all order-related customer support for you (plus a bunch of other features and tools). We don't aim to compete with PayPal, however there is a crossover in our services. In terms of the pricing aspect, we're flexible/ open to different pricing scenarios. While a $1,000 transaction size is certainly uncommon, I do agree that this requires a little more thought on the pricing front.
3. On the checkout side of things, I find that incredibly surprising! :) We're typically told how beautiful our checkout process is (and it typically converts 2-3x higher than a usual checkout page). Could you ping over a purchase form that you're looking at? (or email me: christian@paddle.com) as I'd love to get a slightly more detailed critique.
Feedback can only make us better.
I'd say Stripe, but it depends what you're selling: https://stripe.com/us/prohibited-businesses
If what you're selling in any way touches any of the things on that list, then you should get your own merchant account and handle it directly. It's messy, it's work you don't want to do, but the list of prohibited businesses put on you by your bank is much shorter than the list put on you by Stripe, PayPal, etc.
We wanted to set up a payment flow where a consumer would transfer the money to us, and after the delivery of the product we would transfer it to the seller. Strripe offers something that can accomodate this flow, but not internationally. It is only available in the US.
There seems to be a huge gap in the market here. Is there something missing from my exploration of alternatives?
Do you have any idea for how to ensure that the person has the funds when we need to charge the card?
And do you know how vendors like Airbnb handles this?
(As if the guy on the front page didn't give it away)
For moving money internationally and between currencies there is TransferWise, which I personally mainly use for c2c payment but they also support business accounts and I've used it to pay companies on occasion too.
With a TransferWise invite link you can transfer up to £3000 (over $4.5k) for free, here's mine: https://transferwise.com/u/5d78
Where I work we use mangopay, which is specifically for marketplaces. http://www.mangopay.com
We have higher fees then PayPal but we also support payment by mobile phone (SMS) in a lot of countries and of course also payment by credit card.
You can read more about our service here: https://www.bizify.me/hacker-news/
If you would like to try out our service, just contact us and we'll give you a great rate if your products are "normal" products. Adult related content is a little higher risk so we can't give you as good rate on adult as we can on "normal" products.
PS: You can check out our WordPress plugin if you are running a WordPress blog: https://wordpress.org/plugins/bizifyme/
Although we are obviously aware of Paypal's mood swings, we haven't been the victim of any. So far all of the above have worked well for us. They've all been easy to integrate.
It can be used together with Stripe as a gateway (much recommended, the setup is much faster than on other gateways), and provides a full-featured setup with PCI SAQ A, VAT handling, PDF invoices, coupons, dunning etc.
I have tried shareit, bluesnap and avangate.
Avangate checkout flow peformed best.
I am currently working on switching to cleverbridge, ping me if you want stats on them when I have switched.
I also use Stripe and accept wire transfers.
Have used them for 7 years without issue.
paywithatweet.com (pay with twitter)
chargebee.com
adyen.com
afex.com
securetrading.com
credorax.com
ccavenue.com
moneybookers.com
2checkout.com
chargebee.com
For India (stricter rules of double authentication:
payzippy.com
paytm.com
zaakpay.com
citruspay.com
payupaisa.com
indiapay.com
payu.in
Failing that, 2Checkout and http://www.fastspring.com/ are really good and 2Checkout works in many countries.
The other option would be to just get your own merchant account and use something like WorldPay
Another huge elephant in the room.
