[JacobAldridge]

For the uninitiated, is there benefit in using Stripe (etc) over a bank merchant facility, when your business is already transacting $80,000+ per month?

Working with an Australian client at the moment about moving more sales online - I don't want to hold back information about other payment processors, but can't see any benefit over their existing bank facilities. What am I missing?

[netcan]

I'm not sure what your conclusion would be, but don't assume that your client is correct about their real cost of transacting.

In Australia, banks will usually offer an online merchant account and a payment gateway (you can also use a third party like eway). When I worked in Australia I usually found that using a third party payment gateway worked best in terms of price. The UI can also matter. Some clients spend a lot of time in there manually processing, reviewing, refunding transactions, running reports, etc.. I had good reports from clients using Eway. Bad reports from clients using NAB. (This is 5+ years ago, so YMMV).

If the difference in price isn't really relevant in absolute terms to the overall cost of the project, I would always strongly recommend the option with better software & customer support.

The pricing structures can be complicated. If you really want to understand them, it's better to run it as an audit. What did it cost the client in the last 12 months. What would it cost them using stripe. Take into account monthly fees, per transaction fees (depends on transaction size and on volume), any anti-fraud fees, chargeback fees. You can actually send the info to stripe (or another third party gateway) aand they'll probably do the analysis for you.

You will probably find that your client is actually paying a little more than they think they are.

[JacobAldridge]

Thanks netcan, that's a lot of really useful information.

[te_chris]

It all comes down to money right? Doing that volume probably doesn't make sense to use stripe as px and a merchant account is probably much cheaper due to leverage against the banks. I'm ecstatic about stripe though as it's so hard to start taking payments well here in Australasia. It's a massive boon for small operators.

[JacobAldridge]

Thanks Chris - I absolutely agree about small operators, and am looking forward to integrating it with some of my other businesses that (sadly) aren't yet anywhere close to turning over a million bucks a year!