Stripe Pricing, Features, Reviews & Comparison of Alternatives

Pros
It is extremely easy to set up an account and authorize it for use. Reporting is easy and useful, and I love that I get a snapshot of my income immediately upon logging in. Adding in new business is easy and allows me to keep my revenue streams organized for both me and my customers. Each new business lets me set a new statement descriptor so my customers know what they are paying for when reviewing their credit card statements. They are integrated with many different platforms, including ecommerce and accounting software, so connecting the many pieces of your business is easy.

Cons
They have some extremely technical pieces of their software, including webhooks and API calls. If you are not technically minded, this can get confusing and potentially cause issues with your credit card processing. But as long as you are working with software that is integrated well (think Woocommerce or Xero) then it should be very easy to use Stripe in your business. Also, while it is great that they send emails to my customers that have issues with their recurring transactions, they do not give those customers a way to update their credit card information. This seems like a no brainer considering they are the processor and they are giving notice that they are unable to process the card they have on file. Instead, they continue to email my customer, who then contacts me and I have to try to sort this out for them.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

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
Stripe is by far the most secure, easy to use, and easily integrated service of its type. We work with organizations both large and small, and whether a client has team members who are going to be working in their CMS after their website is designed or not, Stripe is the best option. It is easy to use, even for beginners and even those who are not designers and developers, and the fact that it doesn't allow hackers to add code to the checkout page protects our clients better than any other system we've seen. We recommend a Stripe integration for every single client who has an online store or sells any number of products online.

Cons
It does require some knowledge of front end development to integrate with many CMS platforms, even Wordpress. It's not necessarily the easiest to setup, even if you know your way around Wordpress or drag and drop design platforms. The only other downside is that checkout forms are not customizable. This is actually not a bad downside for us because the reason they are not so is due to the inability to add custom code to the checkout form, making it more secure. Trading customization for security is a no brainer on our end, but if you are an agency with a picky client, or if you just really want a custom checkout form, Stripe won't work for you. Then again, if you're willing to have your customer's credit card information stolen just because you refuse to use a templated checkout form that looks modern and is efficient and easy to use, your opinion sucks anyway.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
- Stripe is one of the most widely used payment gateways to accept credit card payments online (personally, I was amazed to find out that Stripe is even used by the tech giant, Facebook to process its online payments) - Stripe is built with developers in mind first meaning an API is available for all the popular programming languages, making it so easy for developers to integrate it in their websites, web apps or mobile apps. Also, detailed documentation on how to use the API to carry out some operations like; - how to charge a credit card - send an invoice - create a new customer is available on their website on how to - Its website has a beautifully designed and intuitive user interface, which increases user experience.

Cons
- Stripe's online payment services are, unfortunately, ONLY available to a limited list of countries, meaning businesses operating out of those countries (for example Cameroon, my country) CANNOT use Stripe. This makes Stripe somehow limited. The only way to go around this (if your country isn't eligible) would be to create a US Delaware Limited Liability Company (LLC) to obtain an Employee Identification Number (EIN) and then provide Stripe with this EIN. This process requires an additional cost (about 300 USD) and it takes a long time (over 3 weeks) - The processing fee charged by Stripe for each successful transaction is to my opinion too high (2.9% + 30¢)

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 5/10

Pros
Its very easy to sign up. I've tried dozens of payment processors and they all have tons of pages and information they ask first before we can begin our first transaction. The best thing about Stripe is that they can confirm your SSN with your name/address etc and voila, in 5 minutes after you sign up (which also takes at most 5 minutes), you can actually start collecting payments on your website!

Cons
They have no flexibility for high risk accounts. One of my client whose account was closed because of being 'high risk' (even though he didn't have ANY dispute for 6 months) offered them DOUBLE the comission, but STripe simply refused. Didn't budge or counter offer anything. That customer does half a million dollars worth of gross revenue business per annum right now (and growing), yet Stripe ditched him!

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10