Ask HN: Is it still safe to use Stripe?

[lab]

I heard a lot of shaky news over the past year from Stripe's customers: [0], [1], [2]

Now there's news about the whole Stripe raising more money [3], [4], [5], eyeing an exit within 12 months.

What does this mean for Stripe customers now and 12 months from now?

I would like my payment infra to be stable, boring, and profitable/sustainable. But the news is giving me mixed impressions...

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32261868

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32854528

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34233011

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/30/technology/stripe-thrive-funding.html

[4] https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/27/fintech-stripe-tried-to-raise-more-capital-at-a-55b-60b-valuation/

[5] https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/26/fintech-stripe-eyes-an-exit/

[tobinfekkes]

I use to love working with Stripe, but it turned from being an asset to a liability. Far too risky to have my payments infra stuck behind a company that will arbitrarily cut you off with no support, or worse, actively use "terms" and "our policy" to not support you

I moved all my clients off Stripe as a precautionary measure, and now in the process of moving our last Stripe account with 100+ Stripe Connect accounts away. It eventually just got to be comical how infuriating their ability to dodge responsibility became, or even just simply being helpful; i.e. "we can't unblock those payments or that account, it's just our policy because x,y, and z", or "we can't tell you what your transaction threshold is, or where you are at in it, and we can't increase it, or let you check via the API". IF YOU CAN'T DO ANY OF THAT FOR ME, WHY AM I PAYING YOU AND WHO DID YOU BUILD YOUR SYSTEM FOR? Answer: not you or me.

Stripe is a great way to get something quick and dirty off the ground, but you better have a plan or timeline from day one for replacing it.

Treat it like eating McDonalds. It's fine as a one-off to get you through a hard time, but as soon as you depend on it, you'll be in a world of hurt with no one else to blame.

[kurtbuilds → tobinfekkes]

What did you migrate your clients to?

[satvikpendem → kurtbuilds]

Yes, also interested to hear alternatives to Stripe Connect in particular, as someone looking to make a marketplace type product.

[tobinfekkes → kurtbuilds]

I chose Gravity Payments, mostly because of their support, but also because they are local to me.

I have 4 direct contacts with their cell phone numbers and also within an hour's drive of me.

I know that sounds crazy, and it isn't like I'm actually going to show up at their house or anything. That's not the important bit; what is important is that they get my business and the context I'm working in, and they get the context of all my clients, and they personally onboard each of my clients with me, and are the same contact month after month. If that sounds like old school and friction, you're right, it is. But it makes for a much smoother experience when anything abnormal (but legitimate, or authorized) happens down the road. For example, when a client has an unusually high transaction on Stripe, their mostly useless fraud detection blocks it, and also likely puts the whole account on hold. If you can even get a hold of support within a few days, after a few more days of automated responses, you have a different support agent on the end of each response. Now, not only do you get someone every few days, you also have to rehash the whole issue over and over again. After that, you have to go through endless hoops to prove who you are, your business legality, etc. Stripe is the arbiter of truth, and they hold your money until you've danced to their jig.

Contrast that with Gravity, where I'm usually one phone call away from direct support who is in my zip code and already knows all about me and my clients and their context, and if he's on vacation or busy, I have three backups. Plus their general support line, but I've never even needed that.

It's a refreshing concept from the "good ole days" when you actually personally knew the person responsible for making sure your payments work, and can fix it when they don't. It shouldn't have to be a concept though, or even rare. But it is, unfortunately.

Also, I don't work for gravity and never have, I've just been overly pleased with their gateway for 6+ years, as I've watched the Stripe train go from "can't do any wrong" to "whoa....watch out! Let that train pass..."

[theyknowitsxmas → tobinfekkes]

I identified businesses complaining on their Reddit and Discord over the years as precaution. Mostly dropshippers, malware markets, selling brand name clothes without approval. Never mind the guy with a $100,000 fine from MasterCard. All prohibited. If you're a prohib, don't use Stripe. They're an aggregator, so anyone poisoning the pool (their merchant account) with risk will be banned.

You want a merchant account from a bank + what ever processor they offer.

[aliswe → tobinfekkes]

Where did you go?

[gorbypark]

I’m a one man dev shop but in an app I’m developing I decided to implement payments with two (or more!) processors with the ability to set a weight for each. It hasn’t launched yet but the current plan is to have about 90% or so of transactions flow through Stripe with the other 10% being a “hot backup”, more or less. If anything happens, I can just flip over to the other processor. I decided to actually have the second processor take a small amount of payments so there is less of a risk of it not working seamlessly in the event of a crisis with Stripe. It’s going to cost slightly more in transaction fees but I think it’s worth it.

[hakfoo → gorbypark]

Some gateways offer a more decoupled concept-- you can have one API account, but set it up to route the transactions to different processor accounts based either on predefined rules or an API field during the individual transaction. The nice thing about this is that you can still use the gateway's client-side stuff (i. e. the "embedded form" that reduces your PCI compliance scope) and a single API for all transactions.

I'd think that would mitigate most of the risk, because then the gateway usually is a relatively neutral middleman-- the processors are more in contact with the actual money and more likely to be the true source of arbitrary and weird behaviour, so I can concur it makes sense to be less dependent on them.

[gorbypark → hakfoo]

Yeah, I decided to more or less implement this myself so I could use Stripe as the main provider still.

[arikr → gorbypark]

Smart!

[remus]

Just a single user, but I've found stripe to be stable and boring. Just how I like it!

[rvz]

> What does this mean for Stripe customers now and 12 months from now?

It means that it will become just like PayPal. I would not sit on one payment gateway in the long run.

[gvkhna → rvz]

Ding ding ding. Stripe becomes PayPal. New stripe is born, cycle repeats.

As companies age and become more mature, they tend to become more risk-averse. They also become slower moving. The exact opposite of a startup. And why startups can and have beat incumbents.

[iuvcaw]

Why would raising another round or going public cause concern?

[jpoesen → iuvcaw]

New money comes with new strings attached. The more the founders are diluted, the less they have a say in things.

[jaundicedave → jpoesen]

why would raising money imply dilution? shares could easily come from existing employees.

[chowchowchow → jaundicedave]

I think raising money does imply dilution. How can the company raise money from employee share sales?

[aliswe → iuvcaw]

I am guessing this might cause increases in fees

[halotrope]

Just onboarded an app and had to go trough a fairly arbitrary verification process for weeks. Does not feel safe at all specially if you use their subscription. Are there good alternatives for SaaS payments?