MicroISV Digest returns next week…

by Bob Walsh on October 12, 2009 · 4 comments

Between launching StartupToDo, and immediately finding myself in need of a new subscription processing system, MicroISV Digest will return next Monday.

Popularity: 3% [?]

{ 4 comments }

1 Jeff Lewis October 12, 2009 at 7:26 pm: Please tell about your subscription issues, I’m looking for one now…
2 taylor October 13, 2009 at 6:04 am: I’m interested in what you find for handling subscriptions, and why you’re switching from the current one (Spreedly?).

Have you looked at the SaaS Rails Kit? (http://railskits.com/recurring_billing/)

Chargify looks kind of interesting as well, but still in beta. (http://chargify.com/)
3 Tom Markiewicz October 13, 2009 at 9:56 am: I thought you were using Spreedly. How are they not working out for you? I’m interested to hear as I’ve been planning using them soon.
4 Nathaniel Talbott October 13, 2009 at 9:00 pm: I feel really badly for Bob – he’s had a tough couple of weeks fighting with PayPal. What it boils down to is that Spreedly requires a certain risk level of PayPal account to work, and while most of our clients have either started out at the necessary level or have been able to achieve it through talking with PayPal, for whatever reason they stubbornly refused to extend it to StartupToDo.

I totally understand why he’s looking for other solutions, and wish him the best of luck in finding one that works for him. At the same time I can tell you that Spreedly’s working without issue for scores of other clients, and in the rare case other businesses have run into this issue with PayPal they’ve been able to get around it by going with a different gateway.

FYI I am in discussions with PayPal about both making this issue more visible to their customers (the risk level is completely hidden at this point), as well as lowering the barrier and make the necessary controls accessible to more accounts. Unfortunately it’s going to be too little, too late for StartupToDo, for which we’re very sad.

Thanks for giving us a fair shake, Bob – we wish you the best! And if anyone has any followup questions, don’t hesitate to fire them off to support@spreedly.com.