Basically, it's for efficiency reasons. Some of our sites have well over 40 pageviews per second and updating the numbers that frequently would put a huge amount of load on our servers and also crash the browser or make it go incredibly slow.
We also like to use the very same API that's available to our users in the Now and Trends dashboards as it encourages us to ensure response times are quick and that everything we track and display can be used programatically in custom integrations (such as the trending section on http://carthrottle.com).
I can't wait for Stripe to get over here - fingers crossed this will happen soon. And from what I'm hearing, it may not be too far off. We've integrated with Recurly (with Sagepay as our gateway) for our recurring subscriptions at GoSquared, but the experience has been one I would hate to endure again. Thanks for sharing your experience James!
What are you hearing that suggests Stripe may not be too far off?
I'll soon be in the process of adding payment options to a new UK-based startup and really really really want to believe that Stripe will be an option for me in time.
I wasn't expecting this response, as I had heard from other sources previously that their best bet for UK / European expansion would be to buy out someone else, but I can't really argue with this: https://twitter.com/cjc/status/292350613939953666
I asked only a few days ago how soon is soon, to which no-one will actually answer. But the Stripe guy did say that he agreed that we shouldn't wait... go implement something else, and then they will help people move to them post-launch.
So don't not launch something in the UK because you're waiting for Stripe. Launch with GoCardless, launch with PayMill, hell... launch with PayPal if you have to.
Getting money through the door should be the only focus, not waiting for other people.
Once you've launched with another service, you've already done the integration work, and Stripe's main value proposition seems to be its simple sign-up and integration process.
Once you've launched with another service, you may well be tied to them anyway, if they lock in your subscribers' card data. At best, you're running multiple services in parallel until all your early subscribers quit, or you're asking everyone to resubscribe and surely losing a significant number of people during that process.
And once you've launched with another service, you've permanently accepted their legal terms, which may or may not be a smart thing to do with some of the things these guys hide away in their contracts.
I certainly wouldn't wait for a company that says "soon" forever, but it's also not as simple as just signing up for any alternative you can find and hoping you'll move later. Of course you want to start bringing the money in, but as the saying goes, if you get into bed with the wrong partner for a night, the consequences can still last a lifetime.
That's exactly what I did, I launched in December with PayPal. Moving to Stripe as soon as they launch, although I am now tempted to keep PayPal as a payment option for people who feel more comfortable using it. I will be an interesting experiment to see if anyone would still use it.
This is what I'm currently planning on doing for handling monthly (possibly annual) subscriptions.
Do you handle subscriptions and if so do you have any plans for handling moving the subscriptions from PayPal to Stripe?
If I were just to be handling one-off payments I'd not particularly care who I chose to go with (within reason). With subscriptions this gets, I believe, a bit trickier.
If I were doing subscriptions I would still go with paypal and wait for stripe (unless I have investment and going to be big). You then just prompt your users to move over at some point. Its a little more work to maintain the paypal code for existing user who don't move but with some encouragement like a month free you may be able to get them all over.
I'm thinking of using PayPal, but only for a one-off 1-year (or N-years) subscription payment, so there's no legacy to deal with once Stripe arrives, and a simpler integration. At the cost of losing some of those early subscribers later on.
At the risk of being repetitive check out Spreedlycore as another way to work with or switch between gateways as solutions you prefer become available. https://spreedlycore.com/
Their have been rumours and hints and lots of "soons", that said even if they do launch in the UK you may want to wait a few months for them to solve their teething issues.
Braintree which have an amazing reputation in the US, when they launched in Europe did so with their support still in the US, prices on demand and with paperwork requirement not even a bank would ask for to be emailed to them. Other then the support and pricing the other bits were sorted out quite quickly but for the initial customers the setup and initial period was a little choppy.
That said now I would wholeheartedly recommend Braintree in the UK based on a couple of clients more recent feedback. I suspect when Stripe launches a similar scenario will occur, so for them other then regulatory issues, I suspect the biggest issue is getting the support infrastructure in place, trained and modifying their processes to deal with different regs, as much as getting approvals and bank backing.
