In the near future, before end of 2015, LicenseQuote CTO plan to switch to Stripe to manage the monthly and yearly subscription billing collections. This article takes a closer look at Stripe, what it is, how it works and why it’s a great alternative payment collection solution.

Stripe for individuals and businesses

Stripe is an American company that allows both private individuals and businesses to accept payments over the Internet. It enables them to accept payments and begin processing credit cards with only a few lines of code that can be embedded on a website as easily as one might embed code for a YouTube video. Stripe “takes care of fraud prevention and currency conversion for a 2.9% cut [and] pulls a $0.30 charge per transaction”, Mashable reports.

Stripe’s easy-to-use concept has been crucial to the development of other startups and developers. What Stripe did was simplify that process and really cater to developers. It said, “You go develop you application and we’ll take care of the payments.”

What Mashable says about Stripe

Mashable says that 2014 was the “breakthrough year” for Stripe which scored high-profile partnerships with companies such as Apple and Twitter, and raised $70 million in venture capital funding at a $3.5 billion valuation. The company has invested to expand internationally and its services are now available in 18 companies.

Stripe’s most recent funding round took place in March, 2014, which put it at a valuation of $3.57 billion Their next round of funding is proposed to be at a valuation of $5 billion.

Unlike other payment services, including PayPal and fully integrated e-commerce solutions such as Shopify, Stripe specifically focuses on providing the technical, fraud prevention, and banking infrastructure required to operate online payment systems. Notable online companies that use Stripe as their default payment processor include Fitbit, Kickstarter, reddit, Twitter, Wired, Salesforce.com, Squarespace,Encyclopedia Dramatica and The Guardian^.

Payment logistics and features

Payment logistics: With Stripe, web developers can integrate payment processing into their websites without having to register and maintain a merchant account. Stripe, in line with its competitors, charges a fee of 2.9% + $0.30 per successful credit card charge. Unlike most of its competitors, however, Stripe does not charge setup fees, monthly fees, validation fees, card storage fees, or failed payment fees. Furthermore, there is no minimum monthly payments volume required to use Stripe.

Stripe has a seven-day waiting period for transactions, during which time it profiles the businesses involved to protect against potential fraud. Stripe then transfers the funds directly into the bank account linked to the payee.

Features: According to Wikipedia,  Stripe’s back-end API supports a variety of programming languages and environments, including: Go, Java, Node.js, PHP, Python, and Ruby^.
There’s also an SDK for .Net and other platforms that connects to their Rest API In addition to one-time payments, Stripe allows its users to charge their customers on a recurring basis at annual, monthly, weekly, or custom intervals. Customers can also offer trial periods of arbitrary durations, with recurring payments commencing immediately after this period completes. Further, coupons can be issued in a variety of configurations.

Checkout: Stripe’s checkout product consists of an embeddable payment form that developers can quickly integrate into their websites without having to undergo extensive technical implementations.

Connect: Connect is a tool that allows Stripe customers that operate marketplaces or payment platforms to provide their users with seamless payment processing. Connect verifies the identity of the sellers and ensures they are compliant with their local laws. Stripe also handles paying the sellers. It is currently only available in the United States and Canada, but Stripe plans to expand to more markets. Notable clients include Doordash, Instacart, Kickstarter, Lyft, Postmates, Shopify, Squarespace and Skiddle.

Apple Pay: Stripe’s Software development kits support Apple Pay integration in iOS apps. Stripe’s Apple Pay enables one-touch credit card payments on iOS devices equipped with a Touch ID sensor.

Security: Stripe’s payment processing meets PCI-DSS requirements, reaching Certified PCI level 1. No sensitive customer data reaches client’s servers, removing clients from potential liability issues.

Story behind founding of Stripe and industry competitors

Story behind the founding of Stripe.

Industry competitors:

• PayPal
• Intuit GoPayment
• Braintree
• Square
• Zuora

All around, we are looking forward to switching to Stripe to enhance our subscriptions collections platform to help our publishing clients more easily manage plans switching and upgrading, and also find ways to improve their options to collect license sales payments from their registered store users and licensing clients. If you have questions or would like to explore this further, please feel free contact our custom support service for more details. We’ll be happy to respond ASAP to help you manage your upcoming music licensing sales plans and related logistics.