Avoid Authorize.net if you are a growing business looking to leverage customer data
Updated August 15, 2016
Avoid Authorize.net if you are a growing business looking to leverage customer data
Score 4 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Authorize.net
Authorize.net was used to process and store donations taken through the company website for our non-profit organization. It was used primarily by our fundraising department, with support from the IT department. Authorize.net was used to collect one-time donations, as well as process recurring (monthly, quarterly, yearly) donations. Our organization also used Authorize.net to collect tuition payments for our in-person classes.
- Authorize.net does a great job of storing customer information in a simple, easy to find way. I could easily search for customers by name, email address, mailing address, or customer ID and find all previous payments they made.
- Authorize.net's customer support team was always helpful and quick to fix issues. Whenever I emailed and contacted them, I was confident that I would get a response that same day. They provide support through both email and live chat, which is great.
- I found Authorize.net to be competitively priced and even cheaper than many of its competitors. The fees were reasonable and in line with industry standards and there were no "hidden fees".
- Authorize.net's user interface is far below average and feels like it has not been updated since the early 2000s. It's difficult to find the needed tools. It takes a lot of training to get new users up to speed and using the platform. In general, Authorize.net is in need of a major site re-design.
- Authorize.net's Recurring Billing feature is unreliable. There is not a way to filter by time-frame (monthly, yearly, etc.) and canceling subscriptions is only possible one at a time. The platform would often duplicate customers instead of adding billing details to the already existing customer.
- Importing, exporting, and uploading content into Authorize.net is difficult. Content must be formatted in a very specific manner. Because of this, I do no recommend Athourize.net to anyone who has large amounts of data it wants to transfer to or from the platform.
- Positive: Authorize.net's low fees means my organization can keep about 1% more from credit card transactions. With a large volume, this adds up quickly.
- Negative: Authorize.net's poor user interface means that I need to spend more time training my staff, which takes time away from other projects. I estimate that it takes about 4 hours of training to be fully fluent with the platform.
- Stripe
Authorize.net does not stack up well against Stripe. Stripe is much simpler and easy to maintain. Stripe's recurring payment platform allows the manager to easily associate subscriptions with customers.
Where Authorize.net takes about 4 hours to learn, Stripe takes about 1 hour. Stripe also integrates well with other platforms, such as Salesforce, which gives it a leg up over the competition.
Where Authorize.net takes about 4 hours to learn, Stripe takes about 1 hour. Stripe also integrates well with other platforms, such as Salesforce, which gives it a leg up over the competition.