All transactions under $10 are now free. +1 for small business.

I’m pleased to announce that as of today transactions under $10 carry no fee.

I know there has been speculation lately about that fee going up, but the rumor mill can be a dangerous thing

Dwolla is hell bent on a core vision and value set:  moving money safely, quickly, easily and as cheaply as possible. It’s what has fueled our growth over the last year since going national, and to commemorate the anniversary we’re saying thanks in the only way we know how… by making your life better.

Why are we doing this?

Three reasons.

1. Small businesses are something we genuinely care about. In our heads, the idea of Dwolla getting 25 cents for a 2 dollar coffee just sounds silly… It’s like using an AmEx card to buy a banana.
2. There are a lot of costs besides the $50 billion interchange fees incurred by businesses when they take credit cards (e.g. a “short” list we found). Let’s talk about that, too.
3. Micro transactions have never had a payment platform that allowed them to be valuable. Our API now allows anyone selling goods for $1 to actually keep its $1. Money should not depreciate in value as it changes hands.

Who do we think this is going to help?

• Coffee Shops – Getting that $2.15 coffee or cookie will actually fetch you $2.15 now
• Food Trucks. Lets get the first ones on board!
• Micropayment platforms – Want to get paid $1 for an upgrade or virtual good inside your app? Just build the Dwolla into your code.
• Paywalls – Hey, they’re working for New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Newsday. Why can’t you get compensated fairly for your content? (Hint: Checkout our express payment method to make it easy for your readers)
• Developers – If you’re building something awesome and want that 5 cents via facilitator for your services, have at it.

How do I get started with this?

Sign-up or sign-in!  This new fee structure has been automatically applied to all Dwolla accounts starting today. It affects everyone in the system and it’s active now.

How can we do this?

I think this will become apparent come December 15, so we don’t want to spill the beans yet.

Does this have anything to do with December 15?

Bigger things to come.

Developers – The API just got better.

We finally had a chance to revamp our API end-points with some much needed love. In this update we took in as much developer feedback as we could and tried to make all of our APIs eaiser to use. Most of these updates were included to standardize the API Responses, include better Error Responses, and just trying to be more Restful in general.

All of the new updated API endpoints have been documented are out in our developer section and you can feel free to direct any of your questions to our forum.

Standardizing the Responses:

We have standardized the results! These will now return (in JSON) if the request failed. No more parsing both JSON and XML. Below are examples of both a successful response and a failed response. If the response is successful it will return the following:

(more…)

I signed up for Dwolla. Now what?

So, you heard about this cool new company called Dwolla, and you set up your personal account. The question is obviously now, what do you do with it?

We’re working on a lot of personalized messages and ways to improve the Dwolla experience / help you discover people and places around you using Dwolla. For the time being this is a good primer on how to start using Dwolla and get the most out of it.

Now what?

1. Add a bank account to your Dwolla account.

Under “Add Bank Account” you will have the option of adding your U.S. checking or savings account. This allows you to deposit funds into your Dwolla account, which you can use to pay merchants that accept Dwolla, as well as your friends and social network contacts.

2. Link your social networks.

If you haven’t already linked your social networks, head over to “Settings” and then “Social Networks.” Here you will be able to connect to your Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts. After connecting your social networks with your Dwolla account, you will be able to send funds to those contacts via Dwolla, regardless if they have a Dwolla account set up or not. However, in order for them to retrieve your transaction, they must create a Dwolla account or the funds will be returned to your own Dwolla account after 30 days. You will also have the option to connect to Foursquare, which allows you to check  in at the business that you do a transaction with.

It’s also important to note that you can remove access to these networks by disconnecting them at anytime. However, if you disconnect them your account will be unable to send funds via social networks.

3. Upload an avatar.

Don’t want a shadowy grey profile to represent you in the Dwolla world? Upload an avatar. An avatar is just a picture that will show up when you transact with a vendor or another user.  To upload your avatar, go to “Settings” and then “Change Avatar.”

Who can I pay? 

1. Merchants.

Check out our Dwolla Spots map online at www.dwolla.com/spots to see which businesses in your area accept Dwolla. You can also do this on your smartphone by downloading our most recent application in your devices’ respective marketplaces (Android and iOS only). From here, you can select “Spots” within your app and it will bring up a map displaying those businesses in your immediate location that accept Dwolla.  If you know a business that accepts Dwolla, but they aren’t displayed on the Spots map, encourage them to turn on this feature so that users like you can easily find them. They can do this by going to “Add/Remove Features” and enabling the Spots option. Check out our video of Dwolla Spots in action!

We also have a feature available for the iOS applications that we call Proxi, which is simply becoming a movable Spot on our Spot map. This works well for people or businesses that may not always be in the same location, like a travelling food stand or taxi cab. Users can customize Proxi by defining who can see their Spot, as well as the distance from which their Spot can be seen and for what amount of time they will be available. Read a great article and watch a video about Proxi, here.

*By the way, we know that not having a complete directory sucks. We’re working on it

2. Friends and family.

Do you owe your friend money? Do they owe you money? Easily send and request funds from your friends, without going to the ATM to grab some cash, or writing a check that they won’t cash for two months. Just type in their name or Dwolla account ID number from your computer or by using the Dwolla app, and you’ll easily and instantly be paying back your share of Thursday’s happy hour tab. Have a kid in college and they need grocery money? Send it to them via Dwolla!

3. Encourage those who you want to use Dwolla with, to start accepting Dwolla.

Do you have a favorite organization, charity, or church that you like to donate to? It would be pretty cool if you could send donations to them on your smartphone or the Internet without them having to pay the high credit card processing fees. You could easily send donations from your phone or online. Have them check out the HUB page for a quick and easy way to start accepting online payments.

Do you regularly stop into a coffee shop or restaurant that you would like to see start accepting Dwolla? Let them know about us! We’d be happy to talk with them about how Dwolla can work for them.

A new Drupal commerce plugin

Drupal is a stellar open source CMS platform. You can do everything from building blogs, to enterprise applications, to shopping carts.

Last week we were pleasantly surprised when we were informed that someone had developed a Dwolla integration for Drupal Commerce.

Huge props to Pradeep Saran!

You can find it here.

/ / This plugin is still a work in progress //

Merchants – Accepting payments in your retail store is easy. Here is how to do it.

We’ve seen great support and adoption from small businesses this week and lots of questions about how do I know when someone pays me? How will I know how much they paid? As long as you have a web connected browser or a iPod Touch / iPad it’s incredibly easy.

Getting paid with Dwolla in your retail store isn’t all too hard. You really only need two things.

1. A Dwolla account.
2. A way to recognize that you’ve been paid.

This video demonstrates the merchant experience:

1. Use an iPod touch by your cash register. Download this app and just leave it open.
2. Use the online Kiosk to view incoming transactions. Log into this web site and just leave it open.

Here is how fast those payments show up:

When a consumer pays you, it will instantly show up in the recent payments screen in real time and you can hand them whatever they’ve purchased We’ve noticed Dwolla is pretty popular at coffee shops and small restaruants.