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Ask HN: Monthly billing software for SaaS site

12 points by _ud4a ↗ HN
i'm working on a project which is almost done except the payment aspect of it. I'm wondering what does the HN community use for their SaaS website to accept payments and also do monthly billings?

i was looking at chargify.com and really like what they offer. any other ideas?

cheers

10 comments

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bks
We use stripe.com
therealarmen
I like Recurly a lot. They are somewhat expensive ($70 a month minimum + fees) in comparison to some alternatives, but I've found it to be worth the extra cost.
dangrossman
Start with PayPal, add a merchant account once your volume makes it worthwhile. Billing code is really not hard to write, at least in the beginning when you're not dealing with a lot of special cases yet. With PayPal subscriptions, you basically just need two things -- some code to generate a link to start the subscription (which you can then put in a webpage or redirect to after someone fills out a form), and a script to receive the POST-backs from IPN when subscriptions are created or canceled. And that's all part of their standard service, not the Pro/PayFlow plans with monthly fees... why commit to monthly fees for Chargify or Recurly or anyone before you even have revenue?

I tried the subscription-as-a-service stuff before, with both Spreedly and Recurly, and ended up with just as much work and just as much code, while tying myself to startups that are much less stable than PP. That came back to bite me when Recurly screwed their beta users on plans/pricing and I had to rip out all their code and start over.

_ud4a
i was leaning towards using paypal as well but wanted to setup that merchant account right from the start. i feel that it gives your site a bit more credibility that way.

I've bee very hesitant to go the chargify route for that exact reason you mentioned. I'd rather rely on a long running stable company like PP than to risk it all on a startup that may not be there in a year or two.

thanks for the advice :)

jarrettcoggin
From what I've read, Stripe.com seems to be really simple, and they have a lot of documentation based on what language a user is trying to implement in.
dholowiski
I use http://saasy.com because I am in Canada, if I was in the USA I would use stripe.com. It depends on how much you're charging too - chargify looks good, but actual costs are $3.49/user... and up to almost $10.
bigohms
Chargify.com works well for us.
badkins
Go with stripe. They are the only one I have seen with no monthly fees. Great product too.
Payments_Mike
there are many things to consider when choosing the right payment solution for your SaaS website. Simple solutions like Paypal and stripe might work well if all you need is a plug-in-play solution but theses out of the box products might not give you the the full suite of tools you'll need once your business and volume grows. Recurring Billing, Secure Vault Storage, Post re-direct, Fraud Protection and management and simple PCI Compliance are going to be key to your success. We have payments pros on staff as well as developers that would be happy to answer your questions anytime just give me a call direct 310.997.0100 http://www.ndmscorp.com Ask for Todd or Mike