Ask HN: What's the best service for sending money to your users?
If a start-up wants to support either paying its users or facilitating payments between users (possibly keeping a percentage of the payment), is there an alternative to PayPal?
Are there gotchas associated with this process? For example, ebay has buyers send payment directly to sellers and then bills the seller for ebay's fees after the fact. Is there a reason for this approach? Are there other online businesses that facilitate transactions, and what payment services/approaches do they use?
3 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 21.9 ms ] threadFacilitate transactions between a buyer and a third party seller, take a cut of the transaction, and have control over who pays the transaction processing fees
This is the payment system used by KickStarter...supporters pay through the site, and when it reaches a certain threshold, KickStarter initiates payment to the project owner, keeping a percentage. Note that the money goes directly from the supporter to the project owner (and 5% to KickStarter) and not all into KickStarter's account first.
I think the eBay approach is good if you want to accept more payment methods, such as money orders and checks. This model ensures that you can always bill a seller's credit card even when the transaction takes place outside of your payment system.