Forge - an easy way to accept payments online, powered by Balanced (YC W11)(blog.balancedpayments.com)
blog.balancedpayments.com
Forge - an easy way to accept payments online, powered by Balanced (YC W11)
http://blog.balancedpayments.com/balanced-powers-forge
28 comments
You are correct. We are more expensive than Stripe if you're just looking at money.
But we look at it from a time and capital perspective. With Stripe, you have to code and maintain your own payment solution on the backend and your own checkout form. You also have to worry about a million other things like emailing your customers when they place an order, and handling refunds. If you don't have the coding skills to build that yourself, you have to hire an expensive developer to build and maintain that for you.
If that extra 2% cost savings is worth it to endure the hassle above, then Forge isn't for you. We're aiming at people who don't want to deal with all that and would rather concentrate on growing their business doing things like launching a new product and marketing their current ones.
But we look at it from a time and capital perspective. With Stripe, you have to code and maintain your own payment solution on the backend and your own checkout form. You also have to worry about a million other things like emailing your customers when they place an order, and handling refunds. If you don't have the coding skills to build that yourself, you have to hire an expensive developer to build and maintain that for you.
If that extra 2% cost savings is worth it to endure the hassle above, then Forge isn't for you. We're aiming at people who don't want to deal with all that and would rather concentrate on growing their business doing things like launching a new product and marketing their current ones.
If you want to stay competitive, you'll probably need to drop your fee down to 1% to match https://spacebox.io/ (which is powered by Stripe)
We're purposely not trying to compete on price. There are always going to be cheaper solutions out there.
We're aiming to be the best. We're aiming to be the absolute easiest checkout process and the simplest experience for the merchant.
We're aiming to be the best. We're aiming to be the absolute easiest checkout process and the simplest experience for the merchant.
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Understood. Good luck :)
Point taken. You're right, it's a different market. Good luck!
Thank you for the feedback :-)
The extra 2 percent - that is 'only' 2 percent of revenue but for a webshop it is easily 20 percent of profits.
Absolutely. If you're doing enough business, that 2% really adds up. At that point, it is financially worth it for you to build your own backend payment solution using Stripe or Balanced to save money.
But when you're first starting out selling something, it's a huge capital investment to build that payment processing code on top of Stripe/Balanced, likely $5,000+ if you do it right. We're trying to make it as easy as possible to get started.
But when you're first starting out selling something, it's a huge capital investment to build that payment processing code on top of Stripe/Balanced, likely $5,000+ if you do it right. We're trying to make it as easy as possible to get started.
True. So do you offer lower prices for clients with higher volumes? I mean, you don't want to loose clients just as their business takes off...
In any case, I like to see competition in the this market so good luck :-)
In any case, I like to see competition in the this market so good luck :-)
We cap our Forge fee at $500 a month. You'll always pay the 2.9%+30 cents per transaction, but you'll never pay Forge more than $500 a month.
The word "forge" seems to me an odd choice for a company that deals in finance. Three of us here independently saw negative connotations when it comes to money, security, trust, etc. but nobody else has brought it up yet so perhaps it's just us. Best of luck to them.
That's certainly a valid point. We're trying to convey that you're forging a lasting online business and doing the hard work to be independent from a corporate job.
If the name turns out to be losing us business, then we'll have to address it.
If the name turns out to be losing us business, then we'll have to address it.
A few points:
Why is this different (in a worthwhile way) from existing payment options? Like Stripe?
What else can you cite that Paypal does wrongly that you can implement correctly?
I don't mean to be critical, just asking hard questions. "Taking on" big companies like Paypal has been a de facto way to bring attention to projects since the early 2000s, but it's hard to actually achieve that level of eminence and market share. Being good isn't enough.
Why is this different (in a worthwhile way) from existing payment options? Like Stripe?
What else can you cite that Paypal does wrongly that you can implement correctly?
I don't mean to be critical, just asking hard questions. "Taking on" big companies like Paypal has been a de facto way to bring attention to projects since the early 2000s, but it's hard to actually achieve that level of eminence and market share. Being good isn't enough.
Designer at Forge here.
Those are both great questions. We're aiming Forge at people who cannot write their own backend payment processor to use Stripe, and only know basic HTML. If you have the skills and the time to code and maintain payment processing and a checkout form, then Forge isn't for you. We're aiming it at non-techies who want to sell something online.
PayPal certainly has its advantages, but we're trying to solve two main problems: the checkout experience and the withdrawing of funds. The checkout experience on PayPal has 5 or 6 steps and redirects you away from the merchant's site to complete a payment. Ours is on one page and is embedded directly in the merchant's site. Click "buy product", checkout form pops down, fill out 6 or so fields and click "buy now." Done.
Also, we automatically deposit your profits into your bank account every Friday. Our goal is to get this down to the next-day. You sell something Tuesday morning, ship it Tuesday afternoon, and the money is in your bank account on Wednesday morning.
Those are both great questions. We're aiming Forge at people who cannot write their own backend payment processor to use Stripe, and only know basic HTML. If you have the skills and the time to code and maintain payment processing and a checkout form, then Forge isn't for you. We're aiming it at non-techies who want to sell something online.
PayPal certainly has its advantages, but we're trying to solve two main problems: the checkout experience and the withdrawing of funds. The checkout experience on PayPal has 5 or 6 steps and redirects you away from the merchant's site to complete a payment. Ours is on one page and is embedded directly in the merchant's site. Click "buy product", checkout form pops down, fill out 6 or so fields and click "buy now." Done.
Also, we automatically deposit your profits into your bank account every Friday. Our goal is to get this down to the next-day. You sell something Tuesday morning, ship it Tuesday afternoon, and the money is in your bank account on Wednesday morning.
Thanks for the quick reply Kevin.
Will you also be implementing a hardware system for the iPhone/iPod like Square? Or are you going entirely online?
Paypal has a card reader as well. Just a thought.
Will you also be implementing a hardware system for the iPhone/iPod like Square? Or are you going entirely online?
Paypal has a card reader as well. Just a thought.
We don't have any plans to make a hardware system for taking payments. Only online.
Square is not a business I want to be up against right now :-)
Square is not a business I want to be up against right now :-)
Are you guys doing the exact same thing as Stripe Checkout?
https://stripe.com/docs/checkout
Stripe checkout button only sends a charge token to a backend that you have to write. A backend that needs to trigger the actual charge and everything that goes along with that, like generating emails and receipts.
Forge takes care of all of that so you don't have to worry about it.
Forge takes care of all of that so you don't have to worry about it.
Ah. Thanks.
Yet another Payment processor which doesn't work outside of USA/Canada. I hate being in Europe.
Believe me. We're bummed about that too. We're working as hard as we can to get into other countries, but we had to start somewhere.
Stripe is going to be a tough organization to compete with. I wish you the best of luck.
I don't see us competing with Stripe. If you're a developer and have the time to write and maintain a payment solution around Stripe, then Forge definitely isn't for you.
We're going after the people who don't want to code all of that themselves and just want to sell something and get money deposited into their bank account.
We're going after the people who don't want to code all of that themselves and just want to sell something and get money deposited into their bank account.
Forge and Stripe are technically not applicable to the same audience.
Developers are attracted to Stripe for extensibility and customization through coding.
Non-technical users will like Forge because it's non-technical and quick to start up, in a "just works" sort of way.
Developers are attracted to Stripe for extensibility and customization through coding.
Non-technical users will like Forge because it's non-technical and quick to start up, in a "just works" sort of way.
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Gumroad might be a better analogy (I think built on top of Stripe) They're 5% and 25 cents.
And of course once you back out the overhead and direct costs of selling, the amount of your potential profit that eats up is some multiple of that.
They charge 2.9% + $0.30, and then 2%.
Stripe charges 2.9% + $0.30.
So they are approximately 65-70% (2/2.9 = 0.69) more expensive, depending on your average charge.