Ask HN: Payment processing for micro SaaS outside USA?
I am developing a micro SaaS (not expecting to earn much from it), and I can't find a payment processor for it. I am in a country not supported by Stripe, so the obvious option is not possible.
I don't have business documentations (some of them require that), I just want to get paid via Credit Card (if they can include subscriptions that'd be great, if not I can try to code that myself), and then receive the money in my bank account or Paypal.
Is out there an option to do this without much bureaucracy? My customers wouldn't use crypto so that's not an option either.
47 comments
[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 116 ms ] thread1. Running a smaller business takes the same amount of work as running a bigger one.
2. A running a failing business takes more of the owner’s energy than running a successful one.
This thread exemplifies at least one of them because if the plan was a bigger business, you would not be spending time on alternatives to Stripe.
Business ideas can be feasible but not viable. If it does not pencil out, it doe not pencil out.
It does however, take a lot more capital to run the bigger one. From a personal perspective the opportunity cost of starting the bigger company is all the luxuries and security that cash-in-hand brings, not to mention the possibility of an even better business opportunity arising in the future.
But to be more direct, it takes as much effort to run an umdetcapitalized smaller business as iIt does to run an undercapitalized larger one and in both cases you are hoping for luck.
Not only is hope not a plan, the upside of good fortune with a smaller business is smaller than the upside of good fortunes with a larger one.
Finally, adequate capitalization is the high level bit of designing a business. Ideas are so abundant as to be worthless and cash is king.
That's the underlying risk of being an entrepreneur. If it were a sure thing, everyone else would be doing it. This isn't a comment about Stripe Atlas but about the whole thing being a gamble. If you don't have the stomach for that kind of a gamble at large, being entrepreneur isn't for you.
It's easy to buy shares of Uber on the stock exchange after they went public, it's way harder to put down money on Uber in 2008. And you could be Flywheel instead of Uber.
Paddle and Rebill also seem to support Argentina.
https://www.paddle.com/help/legal/sanctions/which-countries-... https://www.rebill.com/en/payment-and-subscription-solutions...
I say this as someone who has been selling to developers for 30 years as one of my core functions.
It's hard to sell to a group who premise their buying with "I could knock this up in a weekend , and do it better." Not to mention all the developers who have no work to do so code "alternatives" to Show HN.
I survived by finding an incredibly tiny niche - really a tiny niche in a tiny niche - plus doing a lot of other work while building a brand. My advice is - there are easier groups to sell to.
You and thousands more.
If you open a UK Ltd fully remotely, you can get bank accounts with Wise and Revolut. Don't take only one of them, always have 2 banks. Because e.g. Revolut randomly held a medium sized customer payment (one of many, from the same long term customer) in lock for months for no good reason. We could not talk to a human to resolve it. Never rely on a single bank.
Check out gumroad, lemon squeezy and maybe Paypal.
Paddle is another popular MOR option.
If you sell to consumers or non-VAT registered businesses, you will have to VAT-register with at least one EU member state and pay taxes there. Similar for US Sales Tax, which varies across US states (and feels extra unnecessarily complicated from my perspective). You also need to determine and validate from which country your customers are. This is a big pain. Stripe did not help with that. Using Paddle completely eliminates that.
The support and dispute resolution were also good so far.
No issues so far with you?
Do they only show you docs when you engage their sales team?
There are some exceptions, but registering a business is not difficult in most of the world. It's one of the more common government interactions.
No one is going to let you take credit card payments without some sort of assurance you're a real business. Fraud is common, and it costs them money when it happens.
Paddle may be an option, depending on what your SaaS will sell, but if they start pretending that your business falls into a high-risk category they will demand 3 months of processing statements before allowing you to use their platform.