I'm surprised it took this long and cost that much to get the merchant account and recurring billing setup.
We have an Authorize.Net merchant account, use Recurly for subscription billing, and found our merchant bank using FeeFighters (ended up going with Merchant Focus).
It took us less than 2 weeks from start to finish, paid $0 in setup fees, ended up with a transaction discount rate from 1.75% to 3.1% depending on card type (Merchant Focus uses interchange-plus pricing), and we accept all major card types. Not only that, there is no delay or holds placed on our account. We were able to accept paying customers within 2 weeks of setting up our accounts, and we only pay the Recurly monthly fee, a $15 Authorize.Net gateway fee, merchant account transaction fees, and a $7.95 a month Amex fee (their monthly minimum). All in all, I think we ended up doing well and wasting little time.
I'm not sure why it would cost a few hundred dollars and take as many weeks/months as it did in the OP's case. Perhaps because it was a non-US company?
It's a different kettle of fish in the UK. It's a lot easier to get a merchant account for a non-established business in the US. While the British banking system has become incrdibly liberal in the last 20 years, it still lags in the merchant account department and you have to do a bit of legwork. It's not uncommon to need to send a business plan or spend time on the phone convincing a provider of your worth, for example.
It's different in the UK but it's even worse for mainland Europe. Many subscription billing services don't support businesses that don't have a registered bank account or address in the US or UK. Many payment gateways won't work with you unless you're located in the US or UK, especially the larger American ones like Braintree or Authorize.net. And unfortunately, it's these larger ones that have solved most of the integration and vertical problems that you end up still having to face in Europe. So you end up having to settle for a second-rate, customer-unfriendly, enterprise-oriented, backwards payment gateway like Ogone or Atos Worldline (both of which we had to settle for). The only reason these guys are still in business is because the American services haven't spread to Europe yet.
Thankfully, Spreedly does support European payment gateways, and that's why Spreedly kicks ass.
I remain stunned that neither Google, Amazon, or PayPal have brought serviceable solutions to the continent yet. It's 2011, for Christ's sake!
Maybe it's European banking regulations and laws that are the reason for a) the current sad state of affairs and b) the inability for Google and others to enter the marketplace? I don't know much about the situation, but given the size of the market, I wouldn't be surprised if that's what's getting in the way.
The fact that there's such trouble in handling something as fundamental as getting payments from customers really imposes a significant impedance on tech startups in the region. I can see why some Euro companies are compelled to relocate when they want to seek significant, unimpeded growth.
We techies live in a borderless world, but alas, the rest of the world doesn't. Sigh.
I wholly agree, certainly don't try to obtain a merchant account for an online travel agency, we were viewed alongside porn and gambling.
On a more recent note though I have been looking for a marketplace merchant solution, Braintree and Amazon flexible payment service are pretty much the only real solutions out there for my needs. Braintree requires I have a US registered company and a US office (I'm working on that part for the application) and Amazon has no plans to extend FPS to the UK (the answer coming direct from the horses mouth at the AWS conference I attended last week).
Is it any wonder with constraints and lack of VC funding in the UK that the country cannot garner growth and has lost it's ability to be a leading entreprenuerial force.
Agreed. Though I don't find it too surprising. The UK is merely a fifth of the size of the US, has localization requirements, and has a conservative populace in relation to tech issues (where's the UK's Reddit, Facebook, or Y Combinator that has gathered serious traction or name recognition?)
* We used FeeFighters to find a merchant account (ended up going with Merchant Focus). FeeFighters gets you a bunch of competitive bids. We only looked at the top three recommendations, read the reviews, and ended up going with the #1 recommendtion
* The application took one hour to complete, and was done entirely online. We followed up with a phone call to Merchant Focus to help expedite the app. It was approved and completed within 24 hours. No set up fees. Very competitive rates. No monthly minimums. Just a gateway fee and an Amex minimum plus the per-transaction fees.
* We had our Authorize.Net login within another 24 hours. We got any holds removed. I forgot how this happened, but it didn't seem that it was a huge hurdle.
* Once we had the Authorize.Net login, we signed up for Recurly. It took one hour to sign up.
http://feefighters.com - choose a merchant account (merchant account will set you up with a better deal with Authorize than you could get by going to them directly)
(disclaimer, I'm with FeeFighters). Also though, I can help... drop me a line (email in profile) for more personal service.
I've heard all the horror stories about PayPal and they probably do deserve the bad rep they get, but I've never had one issue with them. I've had business accounts setup within 48 hours with website payment pro with no problems, no faxes, no further proof of identification. I'm guessing a lot of this has to do with geography. We're in Canada and maybe PayPal deems us Canadians low risk? But I find once you give them your bank account details and you confirm it with them (they deposit two small charges to your account) then you're in and they have no problems with you.
But alternatives are always nice and glad too see PlayNice.ly being able to get things up & running.
Sigh. I wish someone would solve this problem already. I mean, some startup to do to payments what heroku did to rails deployment.
All the recurring-billing systems only solve half the problem: the logic for recurring-billing, but it is still fairly problematic to get the other pieces in place. There should be a way to collect payments on your site without having to setup a merchant account, et. al. Does anyone know what the regulatory hurdles to something like this are?
We're working on it. The hurdles are state money transmitter licenses and federal laws including but not limited to the USA PATRIOT Act and the Bank Secrecy Act, plus ad hoc regulations that come from the U.S. Treasury / FinCEN.
Seems really expensive (5.9% plus $.95 or 8.9% flat per transaction).
I've been getting setup with Stripe. They just lowered their rates to 3.5% (from 5%) plus $0.30 per transaction. Good API and no other fees. Seems great so far...
Stripe looks promising but based on their FAQ they are available only to US based companies/persons for now, so they are not an option I can consider, at least in the near future.
That looks very interesting.
Receiving payments is such a huge hurdle for small projects outside of the U.S. (for example, PayPal doesn't provide Website Payments Pro in Ireland, banks are pretty difficult for new businesses, etc)
Saasy looks like it might work.
I've posted this on HN before but in case there's someone here who's not in the UK or the US, but in mainland Europe and facing the same challenge: we've been there, it was a headache, and we came up with Spreedly/Ogone/Atos Worldline. It can be done. Here's our writeup: http://blog.quplo.com/2011/01/looking-back-on-the-quest-for-...
Thanks for sharing Adam, there should be more articles like this!
I've read your post recently, it is pure gold. I wish there were more resources for EU startups, including handling VAT issues/invoicing/taxes. If you have any insights for those areas, please, do share!
I'm not sure about the UK but in the US the major credit card companies are requiring merchants to pay for quarterly security scans on their site in order to stay PCI compliant. Personally, I think PCI is racket designed to collect more money while deferring losses to merchants but in the US it is another thing to think about when accepting payment. If you go with an off-site processor (like paypal express) you don't need to worry about PCI compliance because the card is not actually handled by your web app.
Related, but not about the actual article.
I had quite a headache trying to find something affordable a while back: http://breefield.tumblr.com/post/849621934
I'll be reading through these comments and links thoroughly to hopefully find something with no setup fee, and approx. $15/mo fee.
We are just starting this process so this is a really useful article for us - thank you for sharing your experience. Payment systems are a minefield and a recommendation from a company that has 'been there and done that' really helps. We are PlayNice.ly customers and love your web app!
I think rexreed's comment may reflect the difference between the US and UK systems. We want this set up within a month though so I'll see how quickly we can do it!
rexreed is right, it shouldn't take long to set up the system. Most of the time is wasted waiting to get approved. I integrated Braintree api in half a day, while the application process was taking a few days. We had to drop them and go for paypal because it had a masspay option, otherwise we are looking for ways to avoid using paypal.
We have an Authorize.Net merchant account, use Recurly for subscription billing, and found our merchant bank using FeeFighters (ended up going with Merchant Focus).
It took us less than 2 weeks from start to finish, paid $0 in setup fees, ended up with a transaction discount rate from 1.75% to 3.1% depending on card type (Merchant Focus uses interchange-plus pricing), and we accept all major card types. Not only that, there is no delay or holds placed on our account. We were able to accept paying customers within 2 weeks of setting up our accounts, and we only pay the Recurly monthly fee, a $15 Authorize.Net gateway fee, merchant account transaction fees, and a $7.95 a month Amex fee (their monthly minimum). All in all, I think we ended up doing well and wasting little time.
I'm not sure why it would cost a few hundred dollars and take as many weeks/months as it did in the OP's case. Perhaps because it was a non-US company?