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Feature Request: Native integration for USAEpay (and other payment gateways)

  • 16 November 2019
  • 7 replies
  • 3021 views

Its becoming commonplace for Stripe and PayPal to sort of 'rule' the online payment arena, but there is a slight catch 22 in that PayPal and Stripe have such easy integration built in by design where other gateways such as USAEpay, Authorize.Net and NMI are reasonably popular with more traditional businesses and many people are unable to learn to integrate them.

I'm not sure I have a whole lot of use for USAEpay integrations beyond 1 single project I'm working on now- but I know dozens of people who could benefit significantly from that particular integration.

I just wanted to voice my request on that particular Zapier integration


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7 replies

alex
Userlevel 7
Badge +2

@Bob Zapier integrations nowadays have to be spearheaded by the company (rarely built by Zapier now).

Noticed back when doing a client project that Authorize.Net had a page, but the truth of the matter is that it's not likely to come anytime soon (because I doubt Authorize.Net cares enough to do it, and the "request interest" page has been up for years now).

But there's not even a landing request page for USAEpay or NMI that I could find. So it seems more likely that a connector would be built for Authorize.Net over USAEpay or NMI, but it doesn't seem likely for either.

Zapier would either need an absurd amount of customer demand for it (I'm guessing tens of thousands of requests), but even then, they probably wouldn't want to invest the resources in building it (in recent years they have been pushing that off more and more on the software company):

image.pngYour best bet would be to reach out to USAEpay/Authorize.Net and push them to actually build the Zapier connector.

There are some 3rd party companies that build connectors though (e.g. the QBO connector was built by a 3rd party company), but Zapier/QuickBooks essentially paid this company to build it on their behalf (and it probably cost them $10k or more).

Then you have instances where Zapier will actually build the connector due to demand (like Asana was built by Zapier, not Asana, and because of that, doesn't get regular updates), but that was also built a while ago before Zapier got as big as it is now.

I have been trying for a year now to get Asana to take over their connector, and even with interest from their community, and Asana's team saw and responded to the request, yet they don't really seem to care, which makes me feel like the Authorize.Net's of the world won't care either. Which sucks honestly. Not sure what else we can do though.


Alex (efficient.app)
ChrisP
Userlevel 7
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@alex Companies that underestimate the value of good pro-active APIs and interoperability with iPaaS platforms going forwards do so at their own peril. Eventually it will catch up with them.


alex
Userlevel 7
Badge +2

@ChrisP couldn't agree more, it's not surprising why Stripe & Plaid have been dominating the market as compared to some of the legacy solutions like Authorize.Net. Stripe realized that building a kickass API is what developers need.

Used Authorize.Net on a client project not too long ago and it was painful to work with. Their back-end UI and sandbox environment is so difficult to work with and not at all user-friendly. It genuinely feels like some of these companies have just given up.


Alex (efficient.app)
AndrewJDavison_Luhhu
Userlevel 7
Badge +10

Paging @ikbelkirasan - maybe they'd like the challenge of building an integration here?

Going slightly off topic at my peril... @Danvers / @jesse - I've always been curious. What's the criteria where Zapier will step in a built an integration themselves? Is it where an app gets so successful, but efforts to encourage the app to build their own integration have just failed? Sounds like this is a risky move where you end up in a situation like @alex highlights - you build their integration for them, but have no time to keep it updated - but the app itself no longer has as much incentive to develop themselves 🤔 Sticky situation!


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ChrisP
Userlevel 7
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@AndrewJDavison_Luhhu it must be a nightmare for the Zapier dev team. They are in a tricky situation. Do they sunset problematic apps? Could cause chaos with existing automations. I've never heard of any app integrations being dropped but maybe @jesse or @Danvers could enlighten us on this.

Personally my biggest requirement (by far) for automations is resilience and reliability which is why I always look at the rankings of apps on Zapier and always try use a top 100 app if possible. Its a pity because I sometimes see awesome startup apps but other than playing around with zaps with them I'm reluctant to build them into busy workflows (unless a unique and needed use-case which I cant get anywhere else).


Bob
Userlevel 3

The online payment industry is very interesting because unlike Taxis vs. Uber/Lift, I'd argue that the payment industry has a Legacy Advantage because of complex laws.

The benefit of a USAEpay integration is that it is widely used in Insurance, Finance, Healthcare and pretty much anything else that contains sensitive user data. They have high standards for compliance with HIPAA and PCI which will likely ensure that it stays around for the foreseeable future because its not an area that many Gateways want to get involved in or specialize in.

Authorize.Net and NMI on the other hand are a bit different. Authorize.Net is big on being the go-to for processors that don't want to build gateways, and NMI is big in the world of re-seller partnerships.

I can see Authorize.Net and NMI becoming quickly antiquated but I think it would take a lot more than that to get USAEpay to stop being relevant. They're so much more widely used than most people realize.

It's similar to when you look at a website and know 'This is a WordPress site', I've been exposed to enough of USAEpay over the years that when I'm cashing out online, I always notice 'This is a USAEpay checkout form'. It has that distinctive look about it.

I wonder if there is a good way to measure how widely used these services are.

With my background, I feel like everybody uses them, but someone who has been more involved with SaaS than myself may feel like Stripe owns the 'checkout' space. In reality USAEpay to Stripe is a false equivalency because Stripe requires that you use their processor.

FALSE EQUIVALENCIES

Stripe = Square (Low barrier to entry and Modern all-in-one payment solutions)

*Even PayPal recently separated it's processing from its gateway so arguably its no longer part of this group

USAEpay = Authorize.Net (Processor Agnostic/Universal Gateways)

Plaid = Microbilt (Bank Verification)

So I think it's less about {Gateway} will die if they don't compete with {AIO Solution}, or {Verification Service} is beating {Gateway} in terms of API- because they all serve vastly different purposes. They are all different tools for the job.

So in an ideal world, it'd be very cool to see Stripe, USAEpay and Plaid all have good integrations.

ACH/BANK VALIDATION

On a side note, Microbilt prides itself in being developer friendly and they even white-label their services through API access which could potentially thrust them past Plaid. The Microbilt bank validation service is brand new, but the company is something like 20 years more established. It will be very interesting to see if Plaid holds the throne there or better yet, if Plaid will continue to be so widely used as more competitors emerge into this increasingly important space.

---

We're living in a very transitional time and it will take a few years for the dust to settle but I think that 2019 has been an important year for businesses realizing that it's "evolve or die". I think that it'll probably be 2022 at least before we can really see the effects of innovation vs legacy in the payment space. Innovation will always win, but when 'legacy solutions realize that they need to innovate, it's always interesting to see how a well established business holds up against a flashy, well funded startup.

PayPal is a great example of Legacy solutions evolving but in a sense, they're almost so popular that if they innovate too quickly, they risk alienating less tech savvy people who have built a reliance on their platform. The whole online-payment industry as a whole is fascinating on so many levels.

These are very interesting times we are living in.


Danvers
Userlevel 7
Badge +12

Hey folks!

First of all - @Bob if you have an app or feature request, please could you contact the support team directly? It's ok to discuss ideas/thoughts about things that would be helpful here, but if you have a specific request then the support team are best placed to record that and help with any other questions that you might have.

@AndrewJDavison_Luhhu and @ChrisP I've started a new discussion to share more about how integrations are added to Zapier, you can find that here:

How are new integrations added to Zapier?


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