Crowdfunding site Kickstarter is replacing Amazon’s payments platform in favor of $3.5 billion payments startup Stripe, Re/code reported on Tuesday (Jan. 6).
The move to Stripe, which is known for its flexibility and ease of setup, should help Kickstarter in several ways. By the time the transition is complete for all projects next week, Kickstarter project creators should be able to get up and running more quickly (setting up an Amazon account could take up to a week for approval). Campaign backers will be able to make pledges in fewer steps (Kickstarter was using a legacy Amazon Payments product that required leaving to pay on Amazon’s site). And Kickstarter will use Stripe to process all transactions, both in the U.S. and abroad (Amazon Payments didn’t have international support).
Kickstarter used Amazon since its 2009 launch to process credit cards for U.S. campaigns. More than $1.2 billion has flowed through Kickstarter since then.
But Kickstarter requires that backers pledge money up front but only be charged if the campaign hits its fundraising goal, a model that Amazon supported — at least until Amazon announced in 2014 that it would discontinue that service in the hopes of moving customers to its new Login and Pay product. At that point, Kickstarter reviewed its payment-card processing options and decided on Stripe.
For Amazon, losing Kickstarter won’t slow down the e-commerce giant’s effort to expand its payments reach. Amazon is currently the center of a pitch to online retailers to begin giving perks to Amazon Prime customers on their own sites.
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