The Best Stripe Alternatives & Competitors For Small Businesses

Square remains one of the most accessible entry points to the world of payment processing. It offers a wealth of functionality with little to no overhead, and one of the easiest to use interfaces in the business. Square’s rates and fees are also very transparent, so you’ll know exactly how much you’re spending on credit card processing.

• Credit and debit card processing
• Invoicing
• ACH payment processing
• Location management software
• Inventory management software
• Free online store
• Restaurant ordering and delivery
• Buy now, pay later options
• Bank-like services
• Financing

Square’s standard pricing is as follows:

• 2.9% + $0.30 per online transaction
• 2.6% + $0.30 per card present transaction
• 2.9% + $0.30 per invoice paid by credit or debit card
• 3.5% + $0.15 per invoice paid with a card on file

Square offers online transactions at a similar price to Stripe and is much easier for the average person to set up. This comes at the cost of Stripe’s international reach and support and certain eCommerce-focused features.

With that said, Square’s documentation and APIs allow you to build a system that can easily accommodate online and in-person sales, reporting, inventory, and more, using Square’s already robust tools. The APIs aren’t limited to payments; they also include inventory and catalog management, employee management, and customer database management. That adds serious value because you don’t need to pay for third-party add-ons to handle inventory, customer engagement, and other tasks.

Square doesn’t match Stripe in the number of available integrations. However, the ease with which non-technical users can setup an online store with Square can give it an edge over Stripe in some circumstances.

PaymentCloud is among the best in the business when it comes to placing high-risk businesses with quality merchant accounts. Unlike many other high-risk payment processors, PaymentCloud minimizes unnecessary fees. While pricing can be highly variable depending on the backend processor PaymentCloud pairs you with, most high-risk businesses will pay less with PaymentCloud than they would with most of its competitors.

• High-risk credit and debit card processing
• eCheck and ACH processing
• Shopping cart integration
• Customized application guidance
• Cryptocurrency processing
• QR code payments
• Merchant cash advances

As a high-risk processor, PaymentCloud’s rates vary by customer profile.

Stripe’s account aggregator model is designed for low-risk businesses (international sales notwithstanding), which comes with the drawback of being more prone to account holds and freezes. These can be very difficult to resolve. In contrast, PaymentCloud provides high-risk businesses with an account manager who acts as your advocate in dealing with your merchant account provider and bank.

While Host Merchant Services provides traditional merchant services with your own, dedicated merchant account, it also offers a wide range of supplemental functionality not too far off from what you’d find with a third party processing platform like Stripe. Host Merchant Services also features excellent transparency, competitive interchange-plus pricing, and free web hosting.

• Credit and debit card processing
• Mobile processing
• Shopping cart integration
• Web hosting
• Merchant cash advances

Host Merchant Services starting eCommerce fees are as follows:

• Interchange + 0.35% + $0.10 per transaction

Host Merchant Services provides full merchant accounts to its clients, so you won’t have to worry about freezes and holds as much. This comes at the cost of $14.99/month, but businesses that process over $10,000 should be able to make up that cost in transaction savings. Additionally, Host Merchant Services has excellent support for brick-and-mortar businesses, particularly restaurants. As far as eCommerce goes, Host Merchant Service’s free web hosting is a distinct advantage over Stripe for businesses that need it.

Finally, Host Merchant Services is willing to work with high-risk businesses that Stripe won’t touch. Just be aware that you’ll be looking at less favorable terms than the ones above.

Helcim is one of the few payment processors to offer a full merchant account with no monthly fee. On top of that, it offers interchange-plus pricing. This makes Helcim a great choice for small businesses that are beginning to scale up their sales volume.

• Credit and debit card processing
• International payments
• Invoicing
• Product/service catalog
• Inventory management
• Automatic tax deductions
• Online store
• Hosted payments page
• Online food ordering

Helcim’s rates become cheaper the higher your processing volume.

Online transactions for business processing less than $25,000 are charged interchange + 0.5% + $0.25.

Helcim’s feature set may not look quite as polished as Stripe’s, but it is certainly competitive with it. You’ll get comprehensive international support, an online store, and solid developer tools. If you’re making sales offline, you’ll be able to use Helcim’s point of sale features, which can be run off a computer or mobile device.

Further, Helcim avoids Stripe’s scaling issues by offering interchange-plus pricing from the start.

Braintree is a PayPal-owned company, although it operates separately in many respects. I’m combining these two because they share most of the same architecture for online payments, and you can fully integrate PayPal into your Braintree setup if you choose.

While PayPal’s recent price hikes have softened its competitive edge, it’s still the most comprehensive online payment service out there.

• Credit and debit card processing
• ACH payment processing
• Currency conversion
• PCI compliance
• Recurring billing and subscriptions
• Native eCommerce integrations
• Premade online checking forms
• Financing
• Cryptocurrency support
• Support for foreign payment methods

Braintree’s pricing is as follows:

• 2.59% + $0.49 per online credit card transaction

As they’re fairly complex, check out our complete guide to PayPal’s fees if you plan to use PayPal.

Braintree looks similar to Stripe at a glance, right down to its developer-centric approach to payment processing and support for overseas markets. The biggest difference between them is that Braintree offers merchant accounts, whereas Stripe is a third-party processor.

PayPal does offer a suite of developer tools for businesses interested in a custom setup. In addition to providing access to Checkout with contextual commerce tools, PayPal offers tools for invoicing, mass payouts, and marketplaces.

However, despite being the parent company of Braintree, it seems that PayPal and its infrastructure haven’t entirely kept pace. For starters, PayPal’s marketplace tools are relatively new (introduced in 2017) and are only available after you go through an application and vetting process. And while the developer tools exist, most of the chatter says they don’t match Stripe for quality.

Despite its relatively small customer base, Adyen processes massive amounts of payments. That’s because Adyen built its business by chasing after the big fish. For example, Adyen’s first major client was Groupon. It currently powers payments for the crafting marketplace Etsy and even wooed eBay away from PayPal.

However, now that Adyen has established itself, the company is starting to court smaller businesses. Small businesses looking to sell overseas will find an excellent platform for international sales.

• Credit and debit card processing
• Omnichannel payments
• International processing
• Dynamic reporting

Adyen’s eCommerce transaction fees start at:

• Interchange + 0.6% + $0.12 per transaction

You’ll find that Adyen is most similar to Stripe in its global reach and support for localized payment methods across Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, and North and South America. Adyen even supports PayPal transactions, which is something rarely available from companies not owned by PayPal.

There’s a decent list of supported partners and integrations, though unsurprisingly, you’ll find many of them are tailored to enterprise-scale businesses.

Businesses looking for global reach will want to consider 2Checkout, a third-party payment processor focused on eCommerce. 2CO only processes card-not-present transactions, so brick-and-mortar businesses will probably want to look elsewhere. 2CO offers incredibly robust support for CNP transactions and optimizing your eCommerce pages, including A/B testing, global tax support, subscription management, conversion rate optimization, and fraud protection.

• Credit and debit card processing
• International payments
• Invoicing
• Product/service catalog
• Inventory management
• Automatic tax deductions
• Online store
• Hosted payments page
• Online food ordering

2Checkout’s starting flat fees are as follows:

• 3.5% + $0.35 per transaction

2Checkout is reportedly easier to set up than some other processor/gateway combinations, including Stripe.

Because it deals with higher-risk payments (in the international sense), the pricing kicks in at a relatively steep 3.5% + $0.35 flat fee, though keep in mind that international sales on Stripe cost an additional 1.5% per transaction, 2.5% higher is currency conversion is needed). High-volume retailers may be able to negotiate a lower price. There are, however, no contracts or termination fees.

Amazon sellers will find Amazon Pay an extremely convenient way to handle online transactions. Nevertheless, Amazon Pay does still have a lot to offer merchants outside Amazon’s ecosystem.

• Credit and debit card processing
• Inline checkout
• Recurring billing support
• Button widgets
• Amazon Seller Central

Amazon’s eCommerce transaction flat fees start at:

• 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction

Amazon Pay is easy to set up and integrate into your website. Of particular note is Amazon Pay’s above-average fraud protection, which won’t cost you anything extra.

Amazon Pay’s rates are similar to Stripe’s. Like Stripe, it uses a flat-rate pricing scheme that starts at 2.9% + $0.30 for domestic transactions. The service is month-to-month with no monthly or annual fees. This is handy if your business is largely seasonal. Just remember it’s not the cheapest option around, particularly for high-volume businesses.

Payline Data offers merchant accounts to high- and low-risk businesses, all without charging excessive fees. High-risk businesses dealing with CBD, in particular, may find a comfortable home with Payline Data.

• Credit and debit card processing
• High-risk accounts
• Choice of payment gateways
• POS and mobile support
• Shopping cart integration
• ACH processing
• Quickbooks integration

Payline Data’s eCommerce transaction fees start at:

• Interchange + 0.75% + $0.20

Payline Data can accommodate a wider variety of businesses than Stripe, including high-risk businesses. Payline’s omnichannel sales support is also a good fit for businesses with a healthy offline sales volume.

While its international payment support isn’t as robust as Stripe’s, you enhance your reach by choosing a payment gateway such as Authorize.Net.

Unlike the other entries on this list, Authorize.Net is not a payment processor but rather a payment gateway.

As a standalone payment gateway, Authorize.Net can be combined with various merchant services to expand its functionality into eCommerce, international payments, and alternative payment methods. Just remember, you’ll still need a payment processor in addition to Authorize.Net.

• Credit and debit card processing (with merchant account)
• Standalone payment gateway
• Simple checkout
• Recurring billing
• Customer information management
• Syncs with QuickBooks
• ACH and echeck processing
• Account updater

Authorize.Net’s eCommerce transaction flat fees start at:

• 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction (via All-In-One option)

Authorize.Net can grant businesses that are happy with their merchant account some of the platform functionality associated with Stripe, particularly in international sales and online security.

Unlike Stripe, however, Authorize.Net is not a standalone payment processor. We usually suggest merchants who want to use Authorize.Net get it through their payment processor rather than as a standalone option, as it’s generally much more cost-effective that way.

Clearly Payments is a relative newcomer to the payment processing scene, but so far it’s borrowing ideas from the right places. It offers transparent pricing in both interchange-plus and membership pricing forms, making it a great option for high-volume businesses looking to save some money.

• Merchant accounts
• International payments
• Invoicing
• Analytics and reporting
• Merchant cash advances
• Payment consulting services
• Payment gateway
• Next day funding
• POS and mobile payments hardware

Clearly Payment’s interchange-plus pricing starts at:

• Interchange + 0.48% + $0.23 (online transactions)
• Interchange + 0.28% + $0.08 (card-present transactions)
• $21/month account fee

Membership pricing starts at:

• Interchange + $0.08 per transaction
• $99/month account fee

Stripe’s flat rate pricing system is great for low volume businesses, but can become quite expensive for higher volume businesses. While high volume businesses can negotiate interchange-plus pricing with Stripe, Clearly Payments offers two excellent pricing options with full transparency.

Clearly Payments doesn’t offer quite the international reach or breadth of features that Stripe does, but with support for 65 currencies, it’s no slouch.