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Ask YC: Payment Processing

11 points by scribblewiki ↗ HN
I know this has been talked about before many times; but, looking through it still haven't been able to find a good one.

We currently use Paypal which has most of the features we currently want - no monthly fee - monthly subscriptions - not needing a merchant account

The problem is for a lot of business users and some consumers, going to another site Paypal looks a little "un-professional" and doesn't always just let you put in your credit card information.

I've looked at - Authorize.net, needs merchant account - Amazon, for the U.S. only - Paypal's PayFlowPro, for the U.S. only

I've been looking into 2checkout and they seem to look good.

Any other suggestions?

12 comments

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simonw
Google Checkout?
scribblewiki
Also, looked at that; was hoping for something again that I could either keep users on my site or have it look similar to my site. Google Checkout doesn't do any of that.
green
no recurring payments with Google Checkout
agotterer
If this a "serious" project, there shouldn't be a second thought to setting up a proper merchant account (authorize.net). Its a very small investment in the realm of things. Especially if you want to appear as "legit" or "professional". If that not an investment you are willing to make yes, I think you can get away with PayPal for the time being. Take a look at Express checkout, it's a lot prettier then some of the previous PP integrations.
vaksel
I like http://cdgcommerce.com/

They have very good rates, and customer service is top notch.(look on sites like webhosting talk and everyone raves about them)

+ if you plan to store people's credit card info they have the vault for that.(so you won't have to spend thousands on compliance with the credit card companies)

bufferout
For cushycms.com we offer a choice between PayPal and AlertPay when paying for plans.

They both do subscriptions. PayPal for quick and easy. AlertPay for a more traditional credit card style gateway.

Being based in Australia really limits our options though.

jasonlbaptiste
if youre doing subscriptions, zuora is the way to go. let me know if you want an intro.
Shooter
Amazon FPS?

I'm told this is a cool service, but I have no firsthand experience. We own a payment processing company, so we've never had to deal with third-party gateways before.

johns
FPS requires your users to have amazon accounts which introduces a similar break in the checkout process as PayPal.
umangjaipuria
Amazon's Checkout By Amazon and Amazon Simple Pay are complete solutions - much simpler to use than FPS.
johns
I use and recommend www.merchantplus.com