Stripe Pricing, Features, Reviews & Comparison of Alternatives

Pros
So you can use Stripe with invoicing and subscription software or you can build out your own system if you are a geek that is PCI compliant fairly easily. Almost everything has an integration option and if you get stuck with a problem for whatever reason you can log into the dashboard and usually figure it out from there, if you can't they have great support documentation and even a chat option. Compared to similar competitors you even save a little bit. I especially like their ACH fees, some of the lowest I've seen. An added bonus is that I don't have to pay for monthly statement fees or pay the annual PCI compliance fee and surveys because they add that into the flat rate.

Cons
Only thing I'd like to see is an option to download statements in a PDF format like previous merchant processing providers, but rarely do I need it.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
We started using Stripe when we needed an alternative to PayPal's payment platform. Being globally accepted and trusted Stripe was the best and easiest alternative to choose. - Easy to use and implement. - Incredibly low fees, the best in the industry, this alone is enough to select it. - Accepts all credit companies - The verification process is smooth and easy. - Interface is easy to understand and constantly getting updated with new features and other improvements. - Timely automatic payments to our bank accounts.

Cons
There are only a few caveats that we experienced: - American Express cards are not accepted in India. - Stripe once disabled the whole system without notification or warning and wanted additional documents. Though the issue was resolved in a day, they should ask for information first and then disable the system if the user doesn't comply.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
It is commonly used and easily syncs with many major online sources. The unfortunate side of that is they have terrible policies and are expensive on the processing fee.

Cons
The "Dispute" aspect of this platform is a joke. The processing fee is also ridiculously high considering how poor their customer service is. We have had 5 occurrences already of clients "disputing" payments and the client wins every time. The frustration grows knowing all of the "disputes" of clients came after our company carried out the service, the client got what they wanted, and we did not get paid for it. To add to it, these disputes that favored the client after review, came after our company supplied Stripe with signed contracts, proof of conversations on the topic/invoice, and proof of the client utilizing the service. All for nothing after we charged the client and less than a week later they "Disputed" the service, won and got all their money back resulting in our company being out the revenue and having to personally pay for the service to our employees. We are an event venue so this is extremely unfortunate because all 5 of these occurrences of disputes that we lost have happened after the event and service was provided to the client. I would not recommend Stripe to anyone from our experiences. Our company changed our policies and is no longer using Stripe due to these experiences and losing thousands of dollars due to their loose policies.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 0/10

Pros
I have to first commend the supoprt team from Stripe. Whether this is a technical issue, such as the developer support or technical issue, or the support for sales or management staff, Stripe put a huge emphasis on making their support second to none. Developers can choose between tickets and email, but there is also an IRC channel to talk real time to actual Stripe developers. They're knowledgeable and extremely helpful. When you use the on-site live chat feature, you will also get a follow up email with any extra information and a log of the chat, with an invitation to get in touch if the issue still isn't solved. The fact that it's developer first means you have an excellent set of powerful, reliable and well tested APIs. The sandbox is fantastic and the logging to help debug your software (in both sandbox and live) are truly unmatched in the payment gateway world. Every request, full request and response, and everything is deeply integrated, so you can quickly click between related data in a sensical way. The API documentation is beautiful and easy to follow and feedback and suggestions are taken on board and literally implemented more often than not if a problem ever arises or a good suggestion is made. The dashboard for sales staff is easy to use. The interface is clean but the features are tremendously powerful. The fraud integration with Radar is a blessing to small and medium businesses that want a quick way to help keep themselves protected.

Cons
Having to setup multiple accounts, albeit sub accounts that appear in the same dashboard, to utilise multiple currencies.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
One of the better means of processing transactions and payments digitally, that's widely accepted by a variety of business owners. Integrateable in many different web development platforms, Stripe makes it easy for people to order items and services online while simultaneously making it easy for sellers to provide their items and services to people via the internet.

Cons
Obviously to a certain degree their payment percentages could be lower, however it would depend on whether or not credit card transaction fees are low enough to facilitate Stripe's ability to lower any fees they might have.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 8/10