[rshm]

> What's the OP/your alternative?

Reach out to local credit unions or even smallish bank. They usually are middleman to firstdata, chase paymentech etc. But you get a dedicated account rep at cost of nominal monthly fee. Rates usually are competitive often lower than what stripe and paypal offers.

[carom]

Implement it all yourself and have the UI be awful is not a good solution. Stripe takes about 1 day to set up. Getting a meeting with an interested bank or credit union could easily take 1 month.

[mobiclick]

I'd take a shitty ui over a shiny ui backed by an unpredictable algorithm any day.

That people would prioritize ui and initial setup costs over payment processing reliability is insane to me.