Implement PayPal Payments for Subscription and Marketplace

Riley D. said: for the benefit of our international users and those who just may not have access to a credit card. The main question I see is what other alternatives are available? Something that would generally be available worldwide.

I like many others would love to see. I'm sure your subscriber base would increase and I'm sure some of your customers would switch from cc to PayPal.

llothos said: I'm sure some of your customers would switch from cc to PayPal. That would be unfortunate, since PayPal generally charges the vendor higher fees than the credit card companies do.

I assumed it had a reason behind it. But if it's purely technical that Paypal is not offered, I want it.

And Google Wallet?

Brian said: llothos said: I'm sure some of your customers would switch from cc to PayPal. That would be unfortunate, since PayPal generally charges the vendor higher fees than the credit card companies do. Actually paypal is rather on par with credit card fees. Depending on what their contract is the average credit card fee could be anywhere from 1%-3% and their could also be a flat monthly fee they pay as well. while paypal generally is 1.9%-2.9% +.30c (or less) for standard fees but it looks like it could be up to 3.9% for international (outside Canada and US). Now they also have something called Micropayments (if your payments are generally below $12 your rate would be 5% +.05c which could be a little cheaper for them for those that pay monthly. Yes the % is higher but they don't get charged the extra .30c, $5 mentor level they would be charged between .40 and.45c at the 1.9-2.9% or .30 with micropayments. It would likely end up not being much of a hit to their bottom line by accepting paypal and even if people switched the extra influx of subscribers they would end up getting would likely offset any minor additional cost if there is one.

llothos said: It would likely end up not being much of a hit to their bottom line by accepting paypal and even if people switched the extra influx of subscribers they would end up getting would likely offset any minor additional cost if there is one. If I remember the other discussions and the GenCon Panel correctly, the bottom line is not so important as the forecasting and reporting capabilities, and the general screw-everyone policies of PayPal.

llothos said: Brian said: llothos said: I'm sure some of your customers would switch from cc to PayPal. That would be unfortunate, since PayPal generally charges the vendor higher fees than the credit card companies do. Actually paypal is rather on par with credit card fees. Depending on what their contract is the average credit card fee could be anywhere from 1%-3% and their could also be a flat monthly fee they pay as well. while paypal generally is 1.9%-2.9% +.30c (or less) for standard fees but it looks like it could be up to 3.9% for international (outside Canada and US). Now they also have something called Micropayments (if your payments are generally below $12 your rate would be 5% +.05c which could be a little cheaper for them for those that pay monthly. Yes the % is higher but they don't get charged the extra .30c, $5 mentor level they would be charged between .40 and.45c at the 1.9-2.9% or .30 with micropayments. It would likely end up not being much of a hit to their bottom line by accepting paypal and even if people switched the extra influx of subscribers they would end up getting would likely offset any minor additional cost if there is one. PayPal costs 2.2-2.9% + $0.30 (and you need to make $10,000/mo or more to get the 2.2% rate). Credit card companies charge based on the service or product type rather than sales volume, as well as the specific card being used by the customer. An "eCommerce Basic" transaction with a Visa Signature card is 1.95% + $0.10. Assuming Roll20 is in the range for PayPal's 2.9% rate and the Roll20 service is charged as eCommerce Basic with Visa, the Visa Signature user costs exactly half as much as the PayPal user over the course of one year if they're both buying a monthly Mentor subscription. That is a huge difference. Whether Roll20 can afford that difference is a different question entirely, and one I'm not equipped to answer. It also costs $20/mo to have recurring payments (such as Roll20's subscription model) at all with PayPal. Finally, beyond the standard monetary charges, PayPal charges extreme fees for chargebacks. Their merchant customer service is also spotty, and their seller protection does not cover digital goods.

Actually if you run the numbers, while it may be double it would basically work out to be roughly $3.50 for the 12 months that they would get charged extra for using paypal at the 2.9% and at 1.9 it would be only roughly $2 more. I would also gather to guess that they could easily fall in the 10k/month category, In september they reported 600k accounts and lets say 10% of those subscribe in some form or another and out of those 60k 10% of the subscribers use paypal. That would be from 30-60k/month depending on sub plan (they would have to have less then 2k subscribers using paypal to not hit the 10k). I have absolutely no idea how many people are currently subscribing I always hear the horror stories of using paypal as a merchant but i have never used it in that form but it is definitely one of the more popular forms of payment and a lot of people use it. To setup the re-occurring payments at $20/month would work out to less then half a penny in additional fees based on my rough example of 6k people using paypal. I can only comment on what I see on their website and what other's say about using CC's/paypal and my sub numbers are of course not 100% accurate they are just examples. The % numbers with paypal were retrieved directly from their website (NA) and represent their fee's.

Even if the fee's of Paypal were higher than credit cards, it's not like they'd lose money. The people (like myself) that do not have a credit card wouldn't give them any money otherwise. So they'd at least be getting some cashflow from a place where they were previously gaining none. Whats wrong with that?

Perhaps this isn't an option outside the US, but debit cards linked to one's bank account can be used in the same way as credit cards can. I wonder how much volumn is required for a vendor to do stuff like 'pay by adding to phone bill', and how hard it would be to set up paying by international money order.....

The debit card for bank accounts seems to be much less common outside the U.S. I'm going to guess that working with the phone companies is also a regional problem. International money order could work, though it might be a clerical burden on the Roll20 staff. Interesting idea though!

Qedhup said: Even if the fee's of Paypal were higher than credit cards, it's not like they'd lose money. The people (like myself) that do not have a credit card wouldn't give them any money otherwise. So they'd at least be getting some cashflow from a place where they were previously gaining none. Whats wrong with that? Yep I totally agree with this. I am am sure that the extra influx of subscribers would out way any additional costs they would occur. Even then the fees are only a little more and they just would be making a little less per sub then those using the CC.

llothos said: Qedhup said: Even if the fee's of Paypal were higher than credit cards, it's not like they'd lose money. The people (like myself) that do not have a credit card wouldn't give them any money otherwise. So they'd at least be getting some cashflow from a place where they were previously gaining none. Whats wrong with that? Yep I totally agree with this. I am am sure that the extra influx of subscribers would out way any additional costs they would occur. Even then the fees are only a little more and they just would be making a little less per sub then those using the CC. We don't know Roll20's profit margins. They may be able to eat that difference, but maybe not. An analysis like that requires knowing all of the costs associated with the service, as well as the exact subscription numbers. Guessing "10% and 1%" doesn't do us much good.

Working with phone companies would definitely be a regional problem, and likely a linguistic problem too. The international money orders would also be a terrible way to run a subscription based business. Having to handle potentially hundreds or thousands of money orders every month, and matching them manually to an account to update its status would be a huge burden, and probably a full time job in and of itself.

Restrict money orders to Year Mentor memberships? :> Just trying to think outside the box for the international users.

I'm a fan of outside the box! :)

I think money orders are probably still too time intensive for a company as small as they are. However, restricting paypal to minimum 3 or 6 month memberships, and not having them auto renew would allow Roll20 to bypass some of the stupid of dealing with paypal, and help keep processing costs down. Or even having it be a set minimum($25? $50?) that you load to your roll20 account, and you can use it for your subscription, art purchases, whatever else Roll20 might start selling in the future, could be a great work around for the hassles of dealing with paypal. Roll20 would have to set up a notification system to remind people to load more money before their subscription expired though.

Roger A. said: Roll20 would have to set up a notification system to remind people to load more money before their subscription expired though. If that were the case --- which I would +1 being able to do a 1-time payment via PP that does NOT auto-renew --- there wouldn't be a major problem with subscriptions expiring. The way subscription works on Roll20, it doesn't hurt you to unsubscribe, or expire, and later resubscribe. When you unsubscribe you may lose access to certain features temporarily (dynamic lighting etc), but your features will be restored when you re-subscribe (such as things you uploaded at the subscriber-level storage capacity, or custom character sheets created as a mentor). Nothing is lost permanently if there is a temporary lapse in subscription. So, worst case, if you didn't see the notification that you were supposed to re-up your subscription money, you'd just log in later and see that you don't have the Subscriber features. At that time you could pay again and it would be turned back on.

I'd be willing to pay a premium to help offset this cost and be able to use PayPal.

Craigers said: I'd be willing to pay a premium to help offset this cost and be able to use PayPal. Honestly there really shouldn't be a "premium" for using PayPal, the amount that it would cost extra wouldn't be that much in theory. I would also imagine that they would get an increase in paying subscribers due to accepting paypal which they wouldn't have had if they didn't...Of course we can only speculate.

I personally, would be go Mentor indefininately if paypal were an option. It not being an option is the only reason why I am still a basic member.

I got a prepaid card to try out some of the paid features but as soon as it ran out I haven't got a new one to apply to my account. I may wait until the bag of holding update comes and see if it's going to be worthwhile getting another pre-paid card.

PayPal would be a nice option, I really don't like using my card online. Based on how cool this utility is, I would def subscribe long-term if I was using a pay source more secure than a cash card.

I will once again reiterate my strong support for paypal.

Super hoping paypal is coming in the update

Considering roll20 pays us via paypal; it would only make sense for them to accept paypal transactions themselves.

Sadly i was at the twitch chat, and paypal isn't coming in the next update, but it is being slowly slogged towards, with the main hurdle being recurring subscriptions. I personally had a hard time trying to figure out why this was a problem, as I figured it could be worked around simply by not being recurring, and allowing people to purchase a sub which could just run out, or purchase another sub while theirs was still active to extend it, but then again I'm sure that already occured to them and it did not work for their business model for whatever reason. I am mostly happy its being worked on, but I would love for it to come soon. Paypal not being an option is really the only reason I am not a mentor.

I would really like having a paypal option for a subscription. Both the dynamic lighting and larger storage space would very much help out with my campaigns and credit card just is just impossible for me.

Not really sure what the resistance is. My wife set up PayPal for her occasional photography in twenty minutes.

I second this ... I'm eager to be a subscriber but I can't because of no creditcard. So it would be awesome to pay with paypal.

IN DEVELOPMENT!!!! PRO STATUS HERE I COME!!!

Yes finally, I've been waiting so long for this.

I bet their subscriber count jumps tremendously after it finally goes go through

Omnius Magnari said: I bet their subscriber count jumps tremendously after it finally goes go through I bet it will too without their costs going up very much.  The amount of extra revenue they should get should more than compensate since we wouldn't be subscribing normally. 

Mhm, I have 8k hours into roll20, and I would have been a subscriber for the past 2 years, but it just is not possible for me with credit cards

Omnius Magnari said: Mhm, I have 8k hours into roll20, and I would have been a subscriber for the past 2 years, but it just is not possible for me with credit cards That...that's like 11 hours a day for the last two years?!  You need to stop leaving your tabs open :D But yeah, at this point the PayPal will be a welcome revenue addition i'd imagine.

Can I get an AMEN! Finally, after wanting to subscribe for a couple of years. After needing to log in the day before to clear the library from one campaign so I could run another. Thanks Devs. You've made my gaming.

Jake M. said: Omnius Magnari said: Mhm, I have 8k hours into roll20, and I would have been a subscriber for the past 2 years, but it just is not possible for me with credit cards That...that's like 11 hours a day for the last two years?!  You need to stop leaving your tabs open :D But yeah, at this point the PayPal will be a welcome revenue addition i'd imagine. 12 hour sessions (with small breaks) are a common thing for me. I once played for 12 hours took a 4 hour nap then came back for 12 more. (i tend to do 1v1s) But yes, I have a problem with leaving tabs open. If I had to estimate my actual play time it would be closer to 5k. my profile says 8k however.

ITS COMING VERY VERY SOON WOOOOOOOOO!

Craigers said: Not really sure what the resistance is. My wife set up PayPal for her occasional photography in twenty minutes. My understanding is the setting up PayPal to allow subscriptions is more complex. Plus as a full company they have to deal with a bunch of legal stuff.

ITS HERE, PRO HERE I COME

This suggestion is now complete and live: <a href="https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/2445162/new-update-9-slash-22-jukebox-playlists-tabletop-audio-paypal-macro-renaming-tutorial-and-more" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/2445162/new-update-9-slash-22-jukebox-playlists-tabletop-audio-paypal-macro-renaming-tutorial-and-more</a>