Following up on question 2 re switching gateways, I've been told by Braintree, TrustCommerce, and Plimus that they will export credit card data to another vendor for a fee. Of course you should confirm this with them yourself before relying on the info. Some others I contacted won't export, or can't because they don't retain the card data.
SaaS Rails Kit (http://railskits.com/saas/) with Active Merchant used with gateways such as Braintree or Authorize.net seems like a flexible and cost-effective option for recurring billing. PayPal looks like a fast way to get started, bearing in mind the horror stories (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=198516 ).
Two questions:
1. What solutions are available to automate tracking, reporting and payments to channel partners (resellers, distributors, affiliates) using the gateways or PayPal? I’ve heard that Avantgate (http://www.avangate.com) supports multiple tiers of distribution, but their fees (http://www.avangate.com/help/vendor-faq.php#bottom10) are higher than the gateways, and only the name "Avangate" appears on the buyer’s CC statement. PayPal enables payments to affiliates using simple scripts with PayPal’s Mass Pay, but you have to create your own reporting. Amazon FPS appears to only support per-transaction payments, not aggregation of payments (http://tinyurl.com/l6zvkd).
2. How easy is it to switch gateway or platform vendors if they’re storing the credit card info? If you’re using Auth.net but want to switch to Braintree, how is the credit card info transferred so that you can continue billing monthly without interruption? This question has been asked before (http://tinyurl.com/mj9zgp) but not answered that I’ve seen, except that CC info can’t be transferred from PayPal (http://tinyurl.com/lyupgg).