Missing from this analysis is which options are available outside the US. I've tried to quicky figure this out for each provider, please correct me if I'm wrong:
- Braintree: only if doing 3 million+/year.
- Chargify: in theory yes, if you can find a merchant provider that accepts you with reasonable terms, which isn't easy.
- Recurly: "Recurly supports SagePay and PayPal in the U.K. and Ireland, as well as Wirecard throughout the broader European Union."
- Saasy: Yes.
- Strip: Not yet.
Although it makes sense to start in the US market, it's getting to the point where all most alternatives are US-centric, and there's a big world of us out here that would also love better payment gateways!
I think there's a huge market of non-US startups that would love to find a Stripe equivalent that they could use. Much easier to compete than going head-to-head with the US crowd, whose customers are spoiled for choice.
That's what Shuttleworth in effect did - fulfilled a demand outside the US for a service that US companies couldn't legally fulfil. Got him into space. Not bad.
I've just checked their page, featurewise they look like very interesting, but their pricing is far from being cheap:
"Pricing is 5.9% plus $.95 or 8.9% flat per order, whichever you prefer. The minimum order fee is $.75 per order."
EDIT: according to http://saasy.com/matrix.php it includes also the merchant fees, unfortunately in their comparison Stripe is not cited
That sounds like how 2Checkout approach it. They are a reseller of your products/services, and you must state so on your sales page. It's also the reason 2Checkout give that they don't allow 'vendors' to customize their checkout pages.
I'd also mention 2Checkout.com which offers recurring subscriptions with an API. I use them from Ireland, it just about works, but they lack innovation.
