Requirements:
1- has recurring payments
2- invisible to end user
3- accepts canadian companies
4- (nice to have) easy to set-up
5- (nice to have) does not require a merchant bank account.
Ditto. We're with PayPal now, but we'd like to change. The UI for tracking down payments is horrible, plus, it seems like they could just take our money at any point, and we'd need a million people on the Internet to cry out to get it back.
One of the best services out there is http://www.braintreepayments.com/ but you can also look at http://www.2checkout.com. Both of them have great solutions depending on what you need. We are migrating from PayPal to BrainTree this spring.
Contact William Ready, he is the CEO of BrainTree and very accessible. There are many Global companies using their service so it might be worth dropping him a message just to clarify. http://www.linkedin.com/pub/william-ready/b/203/1b1
PayPal standard is not, but PayPal Pro is. With Pro, the user doesn't need a Paypal account, would never get redirected to paypal site, and their credit card doesn't show paypal.
I think WePay deserves mention here, though AFAIK they don't yet support Canadian businesses. They don't require a merchant account, support recurring payments, and can be made fairly though perhaps not completely invisible. I've found their API quite easy to use.
Go with Beanstream as the payment gateway, and either Chargify or Recurly for the recurring payments. I've personally had no problem with this combination on many projects, and all of my clients are canadian companies.
His clients are the ones accepting payments though, so they need Canadian merchant accounts. Beanstream accepts Canadian merchants. We just started the sign up process with them last week, from Victoria BC.
I've said this before (for which I've been roundly criticized), and I'll say it again.
The reason there is no good alternative to PayPal, and especially an alternative that works internationally, is the regulatory environment around money transmission in the United States. If startups expect to solve this problem, there needs to be a coordinated effort to change that environment just as there was a coordinated effort to combat SOPA.
To head off the most common objections: PayPal is grandfathered in at this point. You can only get away with breaking the law and hoping no one will notice for so long. The penalties for violation are criminal (federal felony), not civil. And yes, I'm biased as the head of a payments company affected by the law, but I'm not the only one, and I'm not wrong.
Hi Aaron I'm interested in this space too, especially around the latter. The issue with money transfers U.S & regulatory practices hindering any innovative development on the international front. What have your experiences been with facecash in that area?
Since you mention recurring payments as a priority, I'd recommend Chargify. They give a list of gateway options here: http://chargify.com/payment-gateways/
One of my businesses is an online retailer. We use PayPal Standard (but don't require a PP account) simply because the UI for generating postage and tracking shipments is very easy. USPS has an open API, but I've yet to find a payment processor that integrates shipping.
I second this, http://chargify.com has many more features than Braintree, Spreedly, and Recurly. Also, they work with international merchant accounts/gateways.
Using them right now - pretty easy to implement. Sadly, my product has not seen any purchases yet so I can't comment on the whole money part of it yet.
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[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 61.6 ms ] threadAlso check out Dwolla - http://dwolla.com
Full service launch due in early 2012.
check it out
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Payments
I can't say if they support international payments though (but they're a good "for US customers" option!)
We're going with Beanstream + Chargify. You might want to take a look at this: http://expletiveinserted.com/2011/10/02/stripes-new-online-p...
The reason there is no good alternative to PayPal, and especially an alternative that works internationally, is the regulatory environment around money transmission in the United States. If startups expect to solve this problem, there needs to be a coordinated effort to change that environment just as there was a coordinated effort to combat SOPA.
Exhibit A - http://www.thinkcomputer.com/corporate/whitepapers/heldhosta...
Exhibit B - http://www.plainsite.org/flashlight/case.html?id=716056
Exhibit C - http://www.plainsite.org/issues/index.html?id=1
Exhibit D - http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=fin...
To head off the most common objections: PayPal is grandfathered in at this point. You can only get away with breaking the law and hoping no one will notice for so long. The penalties for violation are criminal (federal felony), not civil. And yes, I'm biased as the head of a payments company affected by the law, but I'm not the only one, and I'm not wrong.
One of my businesses is an online retailer. We use PayPal Standard (but don't require a PP account) simply because the UI for generating postage and tracking shipments is very easy. USPS has an open API, but I've yet to find a payment processor that integrates shipping.
Unfortunately, Stripe is for USA-only.
An alternative is, as some people already mentioned, http://saasy.com/, which is a FastSpring service.