The Dutchie Dilemma: Exploring the Best Alternatives to Dutchie Pay

These days, Dutchie seems to be attracting its fair share of drama. The tech giant just added a third straight 420 outage to a growing list of concerns, including:

• Ousting its co-founders, Ross and Zach Lipson to appoint Toast’s former CFO Tim Barash 
• Dropping in value by 89% 
• Facing a shutdown of their PIN debit payment solution
• Wave after wave of layoffs
• Leaked internal company communications showing a clear rift between management and on-the-ground personnel

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This post breaks down Dutchie’s cannabis payment options to see if their solutions stack up against a leader in the cannabis payments space, Aeropay. 
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What payment options does Dutchie offer dispensaries? 
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Dutchie offers a few payment options, but many have been plagued with drama. This is because Dutchie has been desperate to capture payments revenue as a means to validate the $603M they’ve raised. 

Unfortunately for Dutchie, payment processing in cannabis is complex and requires strict adherence to regulatory requirements. There’s no secret hack to allow for card processing or create a brand new system that’s suddenly compliant. 

Below are the payment options Dutchie is offering (or has offered). Keep in mind, these have been changing regularly due to shutdowns or sudden pivots by the business. 
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Dutchie Pay

Dutchie Pay is an ACH-based digital payment solution consumers can sign up for and use to pay for their orders. Dutchie Pay is the most compliant offering from the tech giant, but it was built hastily and comes with a number of shortcomings, which we’ll walk through later in this article. 
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Debit processing

Mastercard’s decision to halt millions of dollars in cannabis purchases being done via PIN debit effectively put a stop to Dutchie’s debit solution. They are working to find another option, but as of this article’s publication, there isn’t any news of a feasible replacement. 
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ReThink (text to pay)

ReThink was developed as a replacement for Dutchie’s PIN debit solution. A former Dutchie payments sales rep described ReThink as “a text-based, integrated way to pay with a debit or credit card. In principle the budtender would go to the POS, enter the customer’s phone number, and the customer would receive a text to complete the payment.”

Unfortunately, this solution appears to have been a failure. The same former employee stated that ReThink “never worked.” They also said, “It took weeks to go live, and had to live on secondary devices since we couldn’t get things integrated.”
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Aeropay vs. Dutchie
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Aeropay is the leading digital bank-to-bank payment provider for cannabis businesses. As a company, we’ve been outspoken about the risks of half-baked cannabis payment solutions for years. We stand by the reality that ACH bank transfers are the only viable alternative to cash for dispensaries. 

This level of transparency has built considerable trust between Aeropay and our partners. 

If you’re considering Dutchie for your cannabis business, first take in these insights and see the difference between Dutchie Pay and Aeropay. 
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Reliability & scalability

We don’t have to remind anyone in the cannabis industry that Dutchie’s solution is unreliable, particularly on major sales days like 420—which they’ve notably crashed on for the past three years running. 

Choosing the best tool for the job means you’ll be able to mold that tool to your unique business needs. You wouldn’t try to build a house with a swiss army knife, so why would you leverage an all-in-one solution like Dutchie? 
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Aerosync vs. Plaid

Dutchie uses a company called Plaid to establish bank connections between dispensaries and their customers. 

Instead of doing something similar, Aeropay has built an in-house tool called Aerosync to connect consumer and dispensary banks. 

For the purpose of cannabis retail payments, there are some notable gaps between Plaid and Aerosync. Aeropay has notable advantages with things like:  

• Customizable UI: Aeropay retailers can tailor their payment experience to adhere to specific branding guidelines, ensuring a consistent user experience. 
• Developer-centric integration: ‍Seamlessly integrate development kits, including support for the in-house Flutter SDK, and easily accessible API endpoints, enabling quick and smooth system integration.
• Extensive bank selection: Aerosync offers a wide range of banks, with the flexibility to add or remove them through OAuth bank linking. Aerosync has even onboarded small credit unions for clients in less than 24 hours.

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The above are all examples of areas where Dutchie Pay is lacking. If customization, consumer adoption, and user support are important to you, consider switching to Aeropay. 
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Misleading salespeople and contracts

A company that’s desperately trying to increase its revenue to meet investor expectations is typically willing to adopt predatory business practices. We’ve heard from Dutchie Pay users that pushy salespeople can lead dispensaries to be locked into long-term contracts that are tough to get out of. 

A series of leaked internal slack messages revealed Dutchie was very explicit in telling their teams to avoid putting anything in writing regarding compliance and timelines for the payment offerings. One whistleblowing employee even claimed Dutchie’s leadership “told us to lie to the customer.” 
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Takeaway: Stay away from Dutchie

Dutchie has been exposed for its lack of ethics, predatory business practices, and subpar products. They appear to be spiraling downward and are not worth the risks that come with their partnership. 

If you’re looking for a compliant, secure, and seamless payment experience at your dispensary, reach out to the team at Aeropay.