While Stripe is a highly popular payment gateway, whether it is the best choice depends largely on your business’s specific needs and requirements. Consider the aforementioned factors and compare multiple options before making a decision. It’s vital to choose a system that offers the right balance of cost, features and support for your business.
Stripe Pros & Cons
Pros
You won’t pay a monthly fee to use Stripe, which isn’t always standard among Stripe alternatives. Plus, Stripe’s per-transaction fees are on the lower end, starting at 2.7% plus 5 cents per transaction. With its open API, Stripe integrates with a wide range of software, from ecommerce platforms to accounting software and gives tech-savvy business owners infinite customization options.
Stripe also offers Stripe Sigma, which lets you use data from your Stripe account to create custom reports and dashboards. With this, you can make informed business decisions based on real data, rather than relying on hunches.
Cons
Stripe is notoriously difficult to set up thanks to its endless customization options and open API. It’s why so many rely on third-party solutions to integrate with Stripe and make it easier to set up solutions such as recurring payments or subscriptions. It doesn’t have a built-in shopping cart, either, so you’ll need to use a Stripe-compatible shopping cart solution or build your own Stripe integration.
The Stripe dashboard isn’t the most user-friendly, which can make it difficult to find what you’re looking for, especially if you’re not a tech-savvy individual. Stripe doesn’t offer telephone support, which can be frustrating if you need help and can’t find it in Stripe’s online documentation.
Stripe Cost
You won’t pay a monthly fee with Stripe, which is atypical among Stripe alternatives. Stripe’s per-transaction fees start at 2.7% plus 5 cents, which are on the lower end compared to other Stripe alternatives. Compared to its competition, its invoicing and billing rates are much lower. To set up recurring subscriptions, it’s 0.5% and invoices are 0.4% per paid invoice.
It has a whole host of other features, such as Data Pipeline, which costs 3 cents per transaction and allows you to send data to your warehouse and report to Redshift or Snowflake. Sigma makes it easy to analyze data and starts at 2 cents per charge. With Atlas, you’ll pay a one-time fee of $500. This allows you to establish a limited liability company (LLC) or C corporation (C-corp) in just days, opens a U.S. bank account, gives you access to founder forums and lets you issue stock to C-corp founders.
When To Choose a Competitor Over Stripe
You may want to consider a Stripe competitor for your credit card processing system in these scenarios:
- Need for hands-on support: Stripe’s extensive customization options and open API can be complex for those not tech-savvy. If you need more direct assistance and support, alternatives that include Square or PayPal, which are known for their user-friendly platforms, might be more suitable.
- Requirement for telephone support: Stripe does not offer telephone support, which can be a limitation if your business needs that level of service. Competitors, including Merchant One or Elavon, which provide telephone support, could be better choices.
- Preference for all-in-one solutions: If your business requires a solution that integrates a shopping cart with payment processing, Clover or Shopify may be a better fit as they offer these comprehensive services.
- High transaction volume: If your business processes a high volume of transactions, it might be more cost-effective to consider a Stripe competitor with tiered pricing, such as National Processing, that could potentially reduce your transaction costs.
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FAQs
Some of the main competitors to Stripe include Adyen, Worldpay, Braintree, and 2Checkout. These payment processors offer a variety of advantages, such as more payment methods, lower fees, and more features.
Why is Stripe better than competitors? ›
Pricing, customization, functionality, and customer support are all things that make Stripe an ideal solution for payment processing. However, it is not—and never will be— the only solution.
What is better than Stripe payment gateway? ›
Other important factors to consider when researching alternatives to Stripe Payments include security and customer service. The best overall Stripe Payments alternative is Adyen. Other similar apps like Stripe Payments are Amazon Pay for Business, GoCardless, Venmo for Business, and PayPal.
What is the cheapest alternative to Stripe? ›
Helcim: Cheapest Alternative to Stripe
Both have zero monthly fees. Helcim has interchange plus pricing with automated volume-based discounts. Stripe offers flat-rate and custom pricing. Helcim has free POS software; Stripe requires custom-built via Stripe terminal.
Is Stripe beating PayPal? ›
It's a close call between the two, but overall, Stripe is cheaper than PayPal for most merchants. While the fees might not seem like a big difference, the cost difference will quickly add up—especially if you have a small business with a high inventory turnover.
Who takes more Stripe or PayPal? ›
Stripe: Credit Card Processing Comparison. Stripe's fee for swipe and chip transactions starts at 2.9% plus 9 cents per transaction while PayPal's is 2.29% plus 49 cents. The fee for keyed transactions for PayPal is higher, starting at 3.49% plus 9 cents while Stripe's fee does not change.
What is the disadvantage of Stripe? ›
Slow Search Functionality: Many reviewers have mentioned that searching for information within Stripe is slow and frustrating, particularly when looking up customer details. This issue hampers their ability to efficiently retrieve the information they need.
What makes Stripe so special? ›
Stripe accepts international payments from all major debit and credit cards and also allows for digital wallet payments. Additionally, buyers can use bank redirects and direct debits for subscriptions or recurring charges. Those who prefer the 'buy now, pay later' option can use Stripe too.
What makes Stripe so great? ›
Stripe is one of the best examples of a company that has managed to position itself as a source of cutting-edge technology without alienating its potential users. Stripe has managed to do this in part through its excellent design, which makes even complicated payment processes seem simple and easy to use.
What is the No 1 payment gateway? ›
Best payment gateways compared
| Best Payment Gateways | Best for |
|---|
| Paypal | Simple online payments |
| Square | Mobile payments |
| Payment Depot | Monthly fee only |
| Stax Payments | Monthly subscription pricing |
7 more rowsHere, FinTech Magazine takes a look at the top 10 payment gateways.
- PayPal.
- Amazon Pay. ...
- Skrill. ...
- Stripe. ...
- Verifone. ...
- Authorize.net. ...
- Helcim. ...
- Braintree. ...
Using PayPal for your business allows you to leverage diverse tools to make more profits. PayPal tops the USA payment gateway list because of its user payment convenience!
Is Google pay better than Stripe? ›
Google Pay has 815 reviews and a rating of 4.62 / 5 stars vs Stripe which has 3062 reviews and a rating of 4.63 / 5 stars. Compare the similarities and differences between software options with real user reviews focused on features, ease of use, customer service, and value for money.
Why is Stripe so slow to pay? ›
There is a 7 day waiting period for the first payout. This delay is necessary for risk mitigation and cannot be waived under any circ*mstances. Any updates made to payout timing or method during this time will take effect after the waiting period. Check your estimated payout schedule at the Dashboard.
Who owns Stripe? ›
Who owns Stripe? Founders Patrick (CEO) and John (President) Collison own Stripe along with 46 investors from the company's funding rounds. Stripe is a private company, so the share breakdown and financials are still unknown.
Is there any alternative to Stripe? ›
As a Stripe alternative, PayPal Business provides similar functionalities in terms of payment processing and online transactions. Both platforms offer easy integration into websites and applications, allowing businesses to accept payments seamlessly.
Is Stripe the largest payment processor? ›
Stripe has market share of 37.89% in payment-management market. Stripe competes with 103 competitor tools in payment-management category. The top alternatives for Stripe payment-management tool are PayPal with 38.31%, Authorize.net with 5.39%, Square Point of Sale with 4.05% market share.
Is Stripe the largest private company? ›
There were reports in June of that year that Stripe shares sold on the secondary market at an implied valuation of $152 billion! It ranks second only to Bytedance (the developer of Tik Tok) as the largest venture-backed startups in the world. It is the largest private fintech.
Do big companies use Stripe? ›
Companies of all sizes around the world use Stripe.
