[jasonkester]

By hours, I assume you mean months. It took me just shy of two months to get my merchant account set up a couple years back.

In theory, you could do it in less time, but only if you already have your business licensed, registered and a business bank account set up in exactly the right way.

But since that's part of the list of things you need to do to get a traditional payment provider set up that Stripe doesn't require, it's a little disingenuous to pretend that setup times are in any way comparable.

I set up Stripe for two of my products recently. In both cases, it was a matter of minutes to get the account verified and processing real charges from real credit cards and having them sent to my bank account.

[jusben1369]

I think it's fair to say Stripe solved 4 problems. i) The time it takes to get a merchant account. It is only 24 - 72 hours unless something really goes wrong through other channels but with Stripe it's immediate. ii) The probability you'll get a merchant account (not a slam dunk for startups but 100% with Stripe?) Many developers hate dealing with financial institutions and then getting turned down is a bit humiliating. All of that's removed and iii) A great API/documentation that people love (although a few others have that) and iv) Pricing that is very simple and straight forward.

In return for doing all that work for you their fees aren't as competitive as other alternatives. That's fair given the work they do.

[pbiggar]

I'm going to add a 5th: Being really simple. The first time I tried to figure out what a merchant account was, and a payment gateway, and all the associated fees, etc, was just exhausting.

[dangrossman]

That seems a little exaggerated... most merchant account providers get applications through underwriting in 2-3 business days. I'm not sure what "set up in exactly the right way" is since my merchant account applications only asked for the bank account # and routing #, and the first one I opened 8 years ago was tied to a consumer checking account. Opening a business bank account once I registered an LLC took less than 30 minutes at the local branch.