Credit card processors
Currently, Stripe is the only supported credit card processor for the planroom. There a several reasons why we have integrated Stripe as the credit card processor for all planroom transactions, most of which are detailed on the Stripe overview page. Here are two primary reasons why most processors wouldn't work for the planroom.
1. PCI compliance
Taking credit card payments online typically involves quite a bit of headache maintaining PCI compliance, including scans on the web server. PCI compliance scans have become more demanding in recent years, to the point where we have been told that it is impossible for our cloud-hosted planrooms to be fully PCI compliant since they operate in a shared hosting environment. (We have our own servers for cloud-hosted planrooms, not shared with anyone else. However because our servers power multiple planrooms, it is still considered 'shared' by PCI compliance companies.)
Why would the webserver need PCI compliance scans in the first place? We use SSL to securely transmit the credit card data, and we would never think of store credit card information on the servers. That used to be enough.
As PCI compliance requirements have developed, many merchant providers now require scans of the server if credit card data so much as touches the server for an instant, just as it is passing through to the credit card gateway. This is how it typically works:
How does Stripe change this? By providing a unique method to submit credit card details from the user's web browser directly to Stripe, without passing through the planroom server at all. This removes the planroom server from the equation, it never touches the credit card data at all, and is not subject to PCI compliance scans, greatly simplifying your compliance.
These diagrams are a bit simplistic, but show the essential difference that allows you (and us) to avoid PCI compliance issues when taking credit card payments on your planroom.
2. Vault for storing credit cards and charging later
A second requirement that limited our options was the need for credit card storage. This comes into play when handling payment for print orders.
Typically credit card payments submitted online are charged immediately. This is true for how the planroom handles downloads. When all the costs are known, the card can be charged right away, nicely and simply.
When print orders are submitted on your planroom however, all the costs are not known. You may have a customer discount to apply, or a delivery fee/shipping/tax to add, or other fees. We've learned that in this industry there are a whole number of reasons why a print order total might change, and you need to be able to apply these changes before a customer's card is charged.
Stripe provides a solution by allowing us to take a customer's credit card up front when the order is placed, store it securely with Stripe, and then giving you the chance to modify the amount before charging the customer's card.
Many credit card gateways don't support this type of short-term storage, which makes it non-suitable for the planroom. PayPal is one notable example where this requirement is not supported.
Note: we do not receive any kickback from Stripe for referring them. Many processors do have referral partnerships where we could get a small cut, Stripe does not offer this. We simply believe they are the best solution currently to handle credit card processing in ReproConnect.