@veda_sticks: I don’t think you need a paypal account in the UK - our ecommerce provider uses paypal as a payment processor, and you can still checkout using a credit card without having a paypal account (in the UK at least).
Hello.
I add my voice to it.
After testing ARDOUR 3. - not easy to get for a free/opensource software by the way, too much workaround, clicks etc… - I wish to pay for it.
Can’t use paypal - i’m in France. It ask me to create an account. I do not want to use paypal.
It’s says on the website that :
«If you don’t wish to use PayPal as a payment processor, you will need to: […]» No matter the amount of my payment, always paypal appears.
How to proceed with alternative - credit card directly for instance ?
Paysafe card maybe one day ? Can be bought almost everywhere wish cash.
Hope you’ll find a solution.
Sorry to be a ‘cheap’ user… 
Best.
ps: sorry if there is solution i’ve missed the search engine gave me nothing else.
There are no viable alternatives for me at this time. I do not have a way to create a bank account within the EU. Any alternative credit card payment processor would almost certainly present a different but equivalent set of problems as PayPal. The banking industry is not doing the right thing here, and neither are our governments.
Hello.
Sad to read that.
Best.
Hi Paul,
I’ve been keeping my eyes open the last months for Paypal alternatives that you (but also other smaller projects) could integrate, and just yesterday I came across something that now finally seems worthy to suggest to you: https://stripe.com/
I was buying/donating to http://blendernpr.org/, an initiative both younger and smaller than Ardour, and was amazed to see such a small project supporting credits cards without account hassle, with Paypal as an additional option, and they’re even supporting Bitcoins, just as a sidenote. So I went and asked, and they told me: “AH-- we use @stripe! (http://stripe.com ) Excellent service and very great UI for dashboard too.”.
I took the time to do a bit of readup and it seems entirely plausible, there are lots of good reviews out on the net, fees are mostly the same as Paypal, BlenderNPR shows that it works in a small project context like yours. Please take a look, and see if it’s an option for you to integrate. After all it’s your funding, and ultimately in your interest.
Thanks and keep up the good work,
Simon
simonrepp: i found several alternative credit card processors. I did the work to integrate with braintree who i judged as having the best API. things were working. the next day, paypal bought the company.
the problem is not really just finding a credit card processor. PayPal offers a lot more than that, including subscriptions (which braintree also did, with a very nice API) and also the ability to pay without a credit card (just a linked bank account). in addition, i managed to get a micropayment account at paypal which is used for all transactions under $12, where the rates are very much better than almost anything else (this is worth nearly $0.25 for every $1 transaction, and a very substantial fraction of my transactions are $1.
the search continues.
Bummer, that with Braintree … If you’d rather have a “perfect” alternative than none at all, that’s of course your decision. I hope you financially weighed it off against the current income percentage coming in from Paypal despisers like me: 0% (of every [you-name-it]$) … And I’m certainly not plaguing you with this so I can in the end donate 1$ 
… (But put a http://flattr.com button here somewhere and I will gladly microdonate as well … if that’s what most people do anyway, why not … penny saved is a penny earned …)
@linuxdsp: Well, let’s say I’m not fond of their political agenda, freezing, for instance, Wikileak’s assets, or the assets of the german Wau Holland foundation back in 2010 … They’ve also got quite a monopoly going, also something I’m not exactly happy about - I think their buying Braintree is about the best example that can be given for why this is a problem in terms of stifling innovation … I don’t even want to think about what kinds of nonsense you could do with that outreach and data pool on money flows on the internet …
Critically evaluating my argument you will of course find that my points also apply to credit card companies to the same extent (also the asset freezing stuff), and in that way Paul is in fact right to demand something that also eliminates them from the equation, but for the time being I think that any alternative, and even just one dubious company eliminated from the money supply chain, is still better than none at all! 
A good place to start might be here…
Paypal has very little benefit over anyone else in as far as consumer protection, in fact most consumers in the US probably get far more protection from their credit cards(Can’t comment much on other countries but I have heard the EU is much better than the US in regards to protections outside of Paypal), but this is far from the impression you will get if you read their site. And since in many cases you can have money in a Paypal account that isn’t protected by said protection laws and rules, it is a far more dangerous way for consumers to pay for things, and honestly a fairly dangerous way for people to accept payments, as indicated below as well.
They also have a history of shady business practices, listed on Wikipedia currently is a long list of frozen accounts with little to no explanation given beyond, something seemed wrong, reversed transactions with no warning causing overdrafts etc. and just in general non-caring about either the consumer or the seller, or running an agenda of their own by trying to control payments. Along with this the only way something changes with them tends to be a huge public outcry that makes them look bad, if you are a small fry you are out of luck.
Oh yea, and forced arbitration (Read the ToS)… need I say more?
And of course you get the long list of issues Paul has had with them as well.
SeabladeI know that the example i ll post is not exactly appliable to ardour at all, but think for the future of open source projects as well as small businesses it is important to accept a wide range of money transfers. thinking about mullvad a relatively small company for vpn with some linux connection: they accept from cash over paypal and bank transers to bitcoin everything… (https://mullvad.net/en/buy-now/) I dont know how they handle that stuff and definitely it is A LOT / TOO MUCH if Paul has to deal with all these things, but theres also not a real alternative to deal with it I guess…
@seablade: Interesting - I’m currently in the same situation as just about any other online commercial business (always assuming the numbers mean that payment processing for linux downloads continues to be, er, necessary… )
Obviously handling payments direct is not an option, so, the only real alternative (unless people want to put a cheque in the mail) is to use a third-party payment processor. I have to say (and I hope I’m not tempting fate) my experience with Paypal has been good so far, and the only problem I did have was resolved promptly.
I’m also considering other additional payment processing options, so I thought it would be useful to try to get a sense of how much this would improve things for prospective customers, and / or whether the objections to Paypal are based on certainties, actual bad experiences, purely technical issues, (or just online myth and rumour and / or political / ideological posturing). My feeling is that, like most things, it’s a mixture of all of the above, to a greater or lesser extent.
(And, its also worth noting that for a lot of small businesses, even if they use another payment processor, its highly likely Paypal will be involved at some stage in the process - they’re just more likely to be a few steps removed from the actual paying customer, so its equally likely that even those who object to Paypal actually end up using them at some point in a purchase, even if not directly…)
Hello.
What about paysafecard ? Not working for you ?
Or i dont know…make a wish list on Amazon ! Books, cd, dvd whatever…
I just downloaded the last version, and still can’t support for it ! - sorry…Paypal allergic - i feel bad…
Thanks you again for Ardour !!
So whats wrong with flattr? They do support subscriptions and act more in the spirit of open source (in opposite to paypal). flattr actually only exists to support open projects! I have a paypal account though, but they won’t let me do subsciptions without a credit card…
flattr is just another middle-man in the transaction game. PayPal’s policies regarding subscriptions vary from country to country, based on banking laws in each country. You still have to get money into and out of flattr.
If you live in the eurozone, you have a distorted idea of how easy it is to move money in and out of a bank account in the rest of the world. I wish the rest of the world was like the eurozone, but it isn’t.
ah, it’s interesting to learn how cash flow works in other places of the world.
But: with flattr I can have just one tool to fund many projects and have only to get monthly money to one place and not to many…
here is an interesting article about crowdfunding with paypal on hackaday: http://hackaday.com/2015/01/22/when-paypal-and-crowdfunding-dont-mix/
Before you could deposit money on your paypall acount without conecting a bank acount or CC.The removed that option. So thats the end of using paypall for me.Living in the netherlands.
I’ve tried to subscribe several times in the last year or so. I have a Paypal account that I use regularly for on-line purchases, but as others have reported, it doesn’t seem to want to let me do a subscription without adding a credit card to the account. Thing is, I already use a credit card to pay for most Paypal purchases - okay, it’s a Paypal credit card, but AFAICT there’s nothing special about it. It’s a regular credit card that I can (and do) use anywhere; it just happens to have Paypal’s logo on it, rather than a bank’s or some other organization’s. The credit card company interacts with me directly - I get a regular bill for it, etc. But for some reason Paypal wants another one, or bank account info, to consider the account “complete” somehow, and I’m reluctant to do either of those.
More recently I’ve tried to use the credit card option to pay for a subscription, but I get connected to a Paypal form that wants me to either create an account or (since I already have one) log in. And when I log in, I’m right back in the situation where it insists that I add a credit card or bank account info – ie, to the account, not just for the transaction.
Am I missing something?
The previous time I tried this (~3 months ago maybe), I gave up, put the subscription idea on hold, and fell back to doing another one-time donation. That time Paypal wouldn’t let me do a one-time payment either. (Maybe this is what aardbewoner is referring to?)
You should probably talk to PayPal about this.
Again, I reiterate: PayPal is far from ideal as a solution, for several different reasons. But it really is the best we’ve got right now.