Payment service Stripe has announced a few new features that will make it more customizable. Among the new features, the two most notable additions are customizable billing interval and volume purchase. Stripe is slowly filling all the holes in its offering in order to make it a more complete product when it comes to handling payments on the web and competing with PayPal.
Stripe makes it easy for developers to accept credit card payments and subscriptions on a website. Until now, you could choose between a monthly subscription and a yearly subscription. But the subscription period can now be customized. For example, you can bill your users every quarter or every four weeks like The New York Times does.
The second notable addition is volume purchasing. Developers now have the opportunity to select the number of seats corresponding to each price point. For example, it allows them to sell three products with a rebate and keep track of it in Stripe.
Other new features bring more flexibility when it comes to dealing with invoices. Developers can ensure that all old invoices are paid before letting a user take advantage of a certain feature. Finally, unpaid invoices can now be closed if you don’t think that you will ever see the money on your account.
Stripe’s strengths are still valid. The API is very easy to implement with a few lines of code. Pricing is very transparent with the company taking 2.9 percent plus 30 cents per successful charge. There are no setup fees, no monthly fees and no card storage fees. Moreover, contrarily to PayPal, which is known for freezing money on accounts, Stripe seems to work seamlessly with your bank account. The addition of those new features makes it an even more serious alternative to consider when you need to handle payments on the web.