> Yup. Thats well worth pointing out. Pin is awesome for Australian facing businesses, but if you want to trade in USD, better off elsewhere.
"Better off elsewhere" - where? Braintree seems like the only similar option, and as discussed elsewhere in this comment thread: you need a merchant account if you want to engage with them.
(I'm happy to take suggestions, but there's just a dearth of them!)
At the low end (transaction volume/amounts), you just get murdered on costs. If you've got a niche or high margin business this might be fine.
At the higher end. Well. It seems that a US entity is the way to go. If you structure the vehicle according to some strict rules, you don't incur any US tax. The fixed costs are much, much higher, but the breakpoint is probably lower than people think. This is especially true if you have any kind of cost-base in the US.
There are a few other hacks too. If you're a SaaS business you might consider deeper discounts for annual payment. This is good for cash flow & bumps up your individual transactions. This can change the equation a little - and it's probably better for the $ to be in your customers' pocket rather than a bunch of intermediary financial institutions.
As you say. I'm open to hearing constructive suggestions too! It's frustrating how complex this still is.
Edit: One of the biggest bugbears is AMEX. Even if you get yourself a NAB USD account - AMEX only ever process in the home currency (i.e. AUD). It's easy to be ignorant of this in Australia as AMEX is considered reasonably rare. However, it's pretty much a requirement to operate in the US... So you get this expensive facility, then half your transactions come in AMEX and get processed to AUD anyway (damn). Very open to hear better solutions!
> At the higher end. Well. It seems that a US entity is the way to go. If you structure the vehicle according to some strict rules, you don't incur any US tax. The fixed costs are much, much higher, but the breakpoint is probably lower than people think. This is especially true if you have any kind of cost-base in the US.
Yeah, absolutely. There are Australians out there with US entities so they can use Stripe; that ultimately seems the way to go if you are doing volume/have thin margins.
I'm (about to) run a niche, high-margin service so Pin isn't too bad, esp. at the intro pricing. The good thing is that their API's are so similar that porting across isn't a lot of work if you need to do so down the track, and/or if Stripe launches a local offering.
I really like what Pin is doing, but clearly they only have so much push with the bank(s). Perhaps in time (when they get more volume) they can pass on some savings to end-users.
