Ask HN: What's the cheapest ACH payment processor for marketplaces?

11 points by apelin 5 years ago | 16 comments

I am trying to figure out the cheapest way to integrate payment processor for the following use case: User1 pays User2 by $500 1-4 times a month via ACH. Platform charges subscription fee to User1.

I looked at Stripe. Looks like their only product that can power this is Connect Express which will charge: 0.8% ACH fee 0.25% transaction volume fee $0.25 transaction fee $2/m to User2 0.15% for direct debit (subscription)

This really adds up. I was wondering if anyone found a cheaper way to do this.

m_km 5 years ago |

Your best choice would be Dwolla - https://www.dwolla.com/pricing/

You probably might want to start with the 0.5% Pay as You Go plan and as you go bigger, you can switch to a fixed-fee model. Once you switch to the other plans, you will be paying a flat ~$1 per transfer (both sending and receiving).

Handling fraud and chargebacks for ACH is more complicated compared to processing payments via cards. You probably should look into this before going live.

Source - Have built payment flows with ACH and cards for multiple marketplaces. Not associated with Dwolla at all. Just a happy customer.

EDIT:

Alternatives (that I have not tried) are Synapse - https://synapsefi.com/ach and Finix https://www.finixpayments.com/

apelin 5 years ago | |

Thanks for this. Thinking about Dwolla, but their onboarding time for Pay as You Go is 60-90 days.....

m_km 5 years ago | | |

This ‘on boarding’ process - does it have something to do with Compliance?

shoo 5 years ago |

What option is cheapest will depend on volume of transaction value you expect to process. May also depend on how risky the transfers are.

For very low transaction volume your costs to set up the integration in first place may dominate the total cost, not the per transaction fee.

If you have high transaction volume you could shop around different payment providers for customised quotes.

For sufficiently high transaction volume it might be cheaper for your business to internalise some or all of the work to process the payments, but at that point you would need to be setting up systems to solve many of the problems that payment processors deal with.

apelin 5 years ago | |

We are hoping to cut costs at the beginning where we can, before we reach high volumes. Dwolla is has interesting offers, but they have long due diligence / onboarding and approval process (30-60 days) and will lock you into a 2-3 year contract.

pbrumm 5 years ago |

It may take volume first. But you can negotiate with stripe to get better rates. You take on more of the risk though.

apelin 5 years ago | |

Thanks! That would come down the road. Looking to cut costs at the beginning :)

jblake 5 years ago |

A few years ago I was using Beanstream and paying $0.25 per transaction, no percentage points.

apelin 5 years ago | |

Thanks, just looked them up, looks like they only support "regular" online payments for purchases and such.

smarri 5 years ago |

Also take a look at GoCardless

apelin 5 years ago | |

Looks like they offer a subscription solution. I didn't see anything on theior website about marketplace transacations. Thanks for the suggestion.

kull 5 years ago |

Check Braintree

apelin 5 years ago | |

I appreciate it. I spoke with them earlier, they don't support payments in our industry (real estate).