ROUNDTABLES ★ 13 upvotes 2016

Ask HN: What payment provider today for a side project?

The Founder's Submission

Direct narrative and submission text authored by @_Codemonkeyism on Hacker News:

Hello,

for a SaaS B2B side project I need a payment option. What do people use today, still Recurly?

Thanks for your opinions!

Retrospective Overview & Key Insights

Distilled analysis of the business dynamics, operational challenges, and strategic takeaways:

An open Ask HN community consultation from 2016 where @_Codemonkeyism convened hundreds of developers and bootstrappers to share real experiences, hard numbers, and tactics.

Core Principles for Independent Builders:
1
Participants share raw revenue figures, churn rates, and stack decisions that corporate PR never publishes.
2
Recurring answers reveal that distribution, not coding skill, is almost universally the rate-limiting step in developer businesses.
3
Practical recommendations on bookkeeping, payment gateways (Stripe vs Paddle), and freelance-to-product transitions.
Community Debate Themes:

Hundreds of active indie hackers contributed case studies, pricing heuristics, and pitfalls to avoid when moonlighting on side projects.

Community Discussions & Critical Reviews

High-signal perspectives, counter-arguments, and peer founder insights debated on Hacker News (9 total discussions):

RU @ruler88 Peer Contributor

It really depends on the volume and size of your sale.

If you have high volume and low cost, you are better off going with something simple like Stripe/Braintree. The fees are relatively high, but the ease of implementation could be worth it.

If you have low volume and high cost, you should consider something that supports ACH payments. Like Dwolla or Stripe ACH. Stripe ACH only charges $5 max per transaction. That is great is you are selling $1k+ per unit.

EN @endswapper Peer Contributor

I have no connection to Dwolla, but their API is easy to use and I have not had any problems. It took a few days to get an active account.

It's ACH-based so the pricing is different than credit card payments.

https://www.dwolla.com/

AR @arisAlexis Peer Contributor

I woud tell you stripe until they turned down my project because they thought it was not in their interest and their investors could be unhappy?! After totally missig my idea point they redirected me to a pdf with a clause about "unclear" projects.

DE @dexterous811 Peer Contributor

This should help: https://www.g2crowd.com/categories/subscription-management

MA @MalcolmDiggs Peer Contributor

I'd recommend Stripe. Braintree is also popular.

HISTORICAL ERA Cloud & Mobile Era (2014–2019)
COMMUNITY SCORE ★ 13 points
TOTAL DISCUSSIONS 9 comments
TOPICS & TECH STACK: