More payment options

xooshin

Yes Monero better. CC are not acceptable forms of payment for search. Glad you got good fast grab subscribes but I live in country that makes this too easy target. Sorry. Very cool skin for Google and Bing but cannot use pay.

Andriamanitra

I would prefer to pay with Paypal. I refuse to type my credit card details anywhere except payment processor's sites that I know I can trust. I am aware that the payment details input is inside an iframe but having to check page source to see that it's actually stripe is not something I think websites should expect their users to do. And I'm sure there are ways websites could still trick users, even if it appears to be a legitimate iframe in the page source.

Completely anonymous payment options would also be appreciated. I know Kagi promises not to associate search data with the account, but relying on trust is not a good model long term. It would be better to have an option to avoid providing any personally identifiable data in the first place.

Vlad

Andriamanitra We are rolling an update soon where checkout will be done on Stripe.com

karakum

+1 for payment by gift card or at least paypal. would love to continue using Kagi but i won't enter into a credit card agreement just to use a search engine lol..

Vlad

karakum Why not?

naruto

If you like to further go down the privacy route, I highly suggest having a look at what Mullvad is doing: https://mullvad.net/en/pricing/

Accounts with no e-mail requirement
A variety of payment methods

I'm happy to pay for Kagi, but it feels a bit backwards to give you my full name + address, while I'm trying to gain back my privacy.

carl

Imperator_of_all

You can use your German debit card as a credit card everywhere.

But since Kagi is using Stripe for payment processing, they should have the option to enable direct SEPA payments, as well as those other weird systems that central European countries have.

Jaron

Hello,

Now that Stripe is the payment processor, it would be nice if you supported all/more of Stripe's payment options, and other currencies.

For example, Stripe supports iDEAL, the payment method I would prefer to use.

Vlad

Jaron Unfortunately the additional payment methods are avaialble only for EUR payments, and Stripe does not support multiple currencies for Subscriptions.

Jaron

Vlad what a strange limitation. thanks for explaining!

Vlad

We are happy to announce that Kagi now accepts payments through PayPal and Venmo, as well as EUR payments via iDEAL and Giropay.

In addition we accept Bitcoin and Bitcoin Lightning through OpenNode.

Read more in the announcement:
https://blog.kagi.com/accepting-paypal-bitcoin

ruihildt

Vlad

I have just paid for a yearly renewal, and my bank announced me I need to pay 1.68% conversion fee, since the payment is in USD.

Any way you could allow SEPA payments? Ideal and Giropay are limited to specific countries.

carl

The problem is your bank in this case. There are many EUR banks that don't scam their customers with such fees.

The problem with SEPA with Stripe is that they have big fees ($10) for any failed SEPA payment , which means it is risky for small payments like the Kagi subscription.

So your better option is to open an account with an honest bank, that you can use for online payments.

Kagibeh

Imho the payment options are still lacking.

#1 Stripe

To me, they're simply a lousy payment provider, and not suprisingly, as I live in the jungles of central Europe, they've refused to accept my debit card payment. This only happens with Stripe, ever.

https://docs.stripe.com/disputes/prevention/advanced-fraud-detection

Their docs pretty much confirm what I've been suspecting all along: They have a crappy AI model of human behavior and will push everyone under the bus who doesn't live up to what a standard human should be doing. Then they'll go ahead, boast with how many millions of "fraudulent" payments they've prevented and use those stats to promote their "services" further.

Is there any chance you can turn their "advanced" fraud detection off (provided you're using it) and see how it goes? I'd assume that their fraud detection is tuned towards shops where a single case of credit card fraud can be very damaging, and when you're selling Ferraris, it probably makes sense. But if I stole a credit card, using it to pay for search would be the last thing that comes to mind, and given all their false positives, you simply might be better off without it.

#2 Paypal

It's great that you're offering Paypal (I've used it for now), but it seems like you're charging 5.5-10% extra for any payment handled via Paypal (which includes SEPA). Add to that the extortionate, mandatory exchange rate charged by Paypal, and you're at 10-15% extra costs for anyone who doesn't have USD in their Paypal accounts. Fine to pay for a few months, but less than ideal for long-term members.

In the long run, maybe opening a SEPA account in Europe would be an option? Then 740 million potential Kagi customers could wire their money for free, and you'd simply incur a small fee to cover the costs of handling the account.

carl

There should be no cost for the customer when paying with Stripe or any other serious payment provider. These costs are paid by the seller. Are you sure that the problems with paying by Stripe is actually with Stripe and not with your bank? Every time I have a client that has had a problem to pay, I've checked the payment in Stripe and the payment has been denied by the customer's bank without explanation (such as lack of funds, wrong CCV etc). Some banks are simply behind the times and there's not much Stripe nor Kagi can do. The best solution is to switch bank.

As for online SEPA payments through automatic systems, I wouldn't touch them with a ten foot pole if I was a seller. Many European banks are set up to automatically deny all such payment and Stripe charges heavy penalty fees to the seller for that, which will happen a lot. The adaption is not there yet among European banks.

But if I stole a credit card, using it to pay for search would be the last thing that comes to mind

Criminals use cheap online services to first test stolen credit card numbers they have purchased from other thieves. Kagi and other services that cost just a few dollars are vulnerable to this.

Kagibeh

carl

Carl, you're getting me all wrong. 🙂

I never said that there's any cost for the customer when paying with Stripe. There's a surcharge for Paypal is what I said. Try for yourself.

I am very sure it's Stripe and not the bank. Bank asks for tan verification. Bank gets tan verification. Bank approves payment. Stripe says: Card was denied (and not: payment was denied).

How can Stripe charge a heavy penalty if Stripe is not involved? I suggested to open a SEPA account with a bank. European banks automatically denying SEPA payments? How? Why?

And in which way is Kagi vulnerable? To what? If a criminal pays ten dollars but doesn't actually use Kagi, what harm is there? And if a legit user is not being able to pay ten dollars and therefore unable to use Kagi, what harm is there?

Vlad

Kagibeh We currently lose 8.5% on payment processing fees for every $5 transaction we make. So yes Stripe is not ideal. But what is even less ideal is us spending more time on billing when there is so much to be done on the search side of things, as this forum confirms.

carl

Kagibeh

I've never used PayPal, so I didn't know they charged the customer as well. Weird, why would customers want to use it?

It could be Stripe and not the bank, as you say. From all the failed transactions I've seen from the Stripe Dashboard, it's always been the bank that blocked the transaction. Except for in some cases where the customer entered the wrong CCV and the bank let it through, but Stripe blocked it.

How can Stripe charge a heavy penalty if Stripe is not involved?

Who else offers automatic SEPA payments similar to a card payment like Stripe does, where the customer doesn't have to login to their online banking system to make a payment? If anybody else offers this and it actually works, then it's a great idea. Tell me if you know of any such service, because I'm interested.

And in which way is Kagi vulnerable? To what? If a criminal pays ten dollars but doesn't actually use Kagi, what harm is there?

Vulnerable was the wrong word. "Attractive" is better. If a company has too many chargebacks because criminals are using them to test stolen cards, then Stripe or any other payment provider will close out the account. So let's say Kagi disable all security features in Stripe if they can. Then this might be a consequence.

Kagibeh

Vlad Does that mean Stripe is actually more expensive than Paypal?

Kagibeh

carl Do you happen to be from Europe? There are quite a number of services who will simply give you their SEPA code for payments. Since you can enter it manually in your bank's payment interface, I'm fairly sure there's no payment provider involved. Takes a bit of trust from the customers end, but seems fairly safe for the company receiving the money. Takes a day, so this method doesn't work for instant purchases, but for topping up prepaid credit, it's perfectly fine. My domain provider offers it as well. I guess there's software to match the incoming payment with the customer's account/name, so most of it should be automatic as well.

I have no experience using Stripe as a payment processor. If I get you correctly, Stripe will close out the account because the chargebacks cost them money? Makes sense in a way, but still I think you need a problem before applying a solution. Rather than have Stripe scare you into denying your legit customer's payments, you should find out if there's a problem with chargebacks to begin with. If there's no problem, you can skip the solution. Of course, if they did have major issues and this is the solution, then that'd be a different matter, but somehow, I doubt it.

@Paypal: They don't charge the customers, but it seems like Kagi does. If you pay 10 USD through Paypal, you will be charged 10.99.

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