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by ilurk 3847 days ago
How does Dwolla differ from Stripe?
1 comments

Dwolla is an ACH transfer platform, Stripe isn't. Two completely different things.
Stripe is currently in ACH beta.

When Balanced shut down, they encouraged users to go over to Stripes private beta.

https://www.balancedpayments.com/stripe/faq

Stripe ACH service has been in "beta" for at least two years. I contacted them that long ago and was told it would be available by the end of 2014 and it is still in "beta" and not generally available. As the co-founder of an enterprise SaaS app startup where our average per use charge for a customer to use our app (we charge on a per use basis not straight subscription) starts in the hundreds of dollars and can run into the thousands paying the standard 2.9% + credit card fees for every payment vs. $.10 - $.50 max for an ACH charge is a complete non-starter for us and our customers. All of Stripe's competitors have had ACH forever including Balanced who we talked to but Stripe continues to drag its feet and not provide ACH. Clearly it isn't for technical reasons but because they make significantly more revenue and profit by not offering ACH where their transaction fee is much less. So while I respect what Stripe did early on to make integrating payments into an app much easier than the previous generation payment providers requiring a lot of up front fees, merchant accounts, etc. we will never consider them again unless and until they offer ACH and I'm sure there are lots of other enterprise app companies who won't use them either without ACH because customers demand it vs. having to run up huge monthly charges on their company credit cards. Too bad that Stripe management is proven to put their profits (and greed) ahead of providing cost effective solutions for their customers.
I would turn that around since Dwolla is a non-starter for e-commerce: Stripe processes credit cards, Dwolla doesn't.