Stripe

Vorteile

So you can use Stripe with invoicing and subscription software or you can build out your own system if you are a geek that is PCI compliant fairly easily. Almost everything has an integration option and if you get stuck with a problem for whatever reason you can log into the dashboard and usually figure it out from there, if you can't they have great support documentation and even a chat option. Compared to similar competitors you even save a little bit. I especially like their ACH fees, some of the lowest I've seen.
An added bonus is that I don't have to pay for monthly statement fees or pay the annual PCI compliance fee and surveys because they add that into the flat rate.

Nachteile

Only thing I'd like to see is an option to download statements in a PDF format like previous merchant processing providers, but rarely do I need it.

Vorteile

The fact that is has an enormous amount of support from most software with integrations existing for anything that can support plugins (think wordpress), most programing libraries, ORMs, application development frameworks, etc. It is the de facto for online payments and that makes it really accessible from most common scenarios.

Their APIs and models are very clear and understandable, making it easy to integrate within most tools, and the fact that they also have plug-and-play solutions makes it even easier.

Nachteile

Not all payment options have plug-and-play solutions. It is, for example, possible to send your users to a stripe webpage with a nice layout to complete the payment, but this page is not entirely customizable. Not in style and not in payment options. For instance, you can't give the user the option to select a payment type, which is a very common use case in most websites and would be great if stripe would allow it.

Vorteile

Easy to deploy and has various integrations available

Nachteile

Allocations are a nightmare. Stripe is taking out their commission and the remaining amount is paid into your account, several client transactions in one payment - reconciliations are extremely difficult and I've never received one invoice from Stripe for their commission. They simply deduct their share and transfer the rest to you without any paper trail. In addition, every time there is a dispute, it is never settled in the seller's favour even when the supporting evidence and paperwork supplied to Stripe clearly shows that the purchase was valid, agreed and approved by the buyer, signed-off by them and the service used by them. The response from Stripe is never in the seller's favour. Finally - it happens at least a few times a month that Stripe rejects the transaction as suspicious and prevents prospects from buying our products. It often happens that clients contact us outside of the Stripe's workflow and finalise payment manually because Stripe is rejecting their cards and by extension is not allowing us to close the sale.

Vorteile

I have to first commend the supoprt team from Stripe. Whether this is a technical issue, such as the developer support or technical issue, or the support for sales or management staff, Stripe put a huge emphasis on making their support second to none.

Developers can choose between tickets and email, but there is also an IRC channel to talk real time to actual Stripe developers. They're knowledgeable and extremely helpful. When you use the on-site live chat feature, you will also get a follow up email with any extra information and a log of the chat, with an invitation to get in touch if the issue still isn't solved.

The fact that it's developer first means you have an excellent set of powerful, reliable and well tested APIs. The sandbox is fantastic and the logging to help debug your software (in both sandbox and live) are truly unmatched in the payment gateway world. Every request, full request and response, and everything is deeply integrated, so you can quickly click between related data in a sensical way. The API documentation is beautiful and easy to follow and feedback and suggestions are taken on board and literally implemented more often than not if a problem ever arises or a good suggestion is made.

The dashboard for sales staff is easy to use. The interface is clean but the features are tremendously powerful. The fraud integration with Radar is a blessing to small and medium businesses that want a quick way to help keep themselves protected.

Nachteile

Having to setup multiple accounts, albeit sub accounts that appear in the same dashboard, to utilise multiple currencies.

Vorteile

Low rate, excellent security, prompt direct transfer to bank account, good analytics, embeds on website and works without making people leave my site, clear user interface, good integration with other software, intelligent processing (e.g. prevents double subscriptions)

Nachteile

Not much at all that i don't like, as long as I'm not expecting it to do things it can't do. It is better, for example, than PayPal in website processing but can't replace PayPal or Square for one on one payments.