Hey everyone! I'm wrapping up my website, which is based on Laravel, and everything is almost ready to go. I've built a subscription service using Stripe and tested everything in development - all good. However, when I tried to go live, I got declined because they said my service is too closely related to gambling. I want to clarify that it's not gambling; it just helps people create football accumulators for betting sites if they choose to. I tried explaining that there's no money handled on my site, but they didn't budge. Now, I need a Stripe alternative that can manage subscriptions effectively. Does anyone have recommendations?
5 Answers
If your customer base is in the UK, GoCardless is worth looking into. They specialize in direct debit payments and could be a good fit for your subscription services.
We’ve had good experiences with Opayo (formerly known as Sage Pay) for handling payments in the gambling sector. It might be a solid option for your site.
I'm also in a similar boat using Stripe, and while my account got approved, I’m hesitant to rely on them fully since they can freeze accounts without much warning. Did you have to provide a detailed business description to get approved? My interactions with them included a review of my site. What was your experience like?
You might want to check out Polar.sh. It's an alternative that is open source too, which gives you a bit more flexibility.
For subscription services, consider using Clerk. It can manage authentication and subscriptions all in one place. Just a heads up though, if Clerk ends up banning your service as well, you could lose all your users too, so tread carefully!
Yeah, I had to go through that process too. Luckily, I emptied my Stripe account every day to avoid any issues. Having a backup bank account that you can quickly access really helps, especially since Stripe is quick to blame customers if something goes wrong with transactions.