The Best Stripe Alternatives & Competitors For Small Businesses

Why PaymentCloud Is A Good Alternative To Stripe For High-Risk Businesses

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.

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.

Why Square Is A Good Alternative To Stripe For New Businesses

Square offers online transactions at a similar price point 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 being 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.

When it comes to Square vs Stripe, Square doesn't match Stripe in the number of available integrations. However, the ease with which non-technical users can set up an online store with Square gives it an edge over Stripe in some circumstances.

Why Helcim Is A Good Alternative To Stripe For Growing Businesses

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.

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.

Why Clearly Payments Is A Good Alternative To Stripe For High-Volume Businesses

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.

Stripe's flat rate pricing system is great for low-volume businesses but can become quite expensive for high-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.

Why Host Merchant Services Is A Good Alternative To Stripe For Mid-Sized Businesses

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.

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.

Why Braintree & PayPal Are A Good Alternative To Stripe For eCommerce Businesses

Braintree is a PayPal-owned company, although it operates separately in many respects. I'm combining these two as we discuss a PayPal vs. Stripe showdown and a Braintree vs. Stripe showdown 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.

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 also offers 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.

Why Adyen Is A Good Alternative To Stripe For Large, Low-Risk Businesses

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.

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.

Why 2Checkout Is A Good Alternative To Stripe For Businesses Selling Internationally

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.

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 if currency conversion is needed). High-volume retailers may be able to negotiate a lower price. There are, however, no contracts or termination fees.

Why Authorize.Net Is A Good Stripe Alternative For Businesses Seeking Gateway Functionality

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.

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. Check out more about the differences between Authorize.Net and Stripe before. making your choice.

Why Treati.io Is A Good Alternative To Stripe For CBD Merchants

Treati.io offers merchant accounts to high- and low-risk businesses, with interchange-plus pricing offered exclusively. Though it's a new processor, it's run by payment industry veterans who know how to navigate the rapidly evolving payments market. CBD merchants, in particular, will be happy to hear that Treati.io will work with them and give them a fair shake.

Treati.io can accommodate a wider variety of businesses than Stripe, including high-risk businesses. While Treati.io can't compete with the sheer number of features Stripe has, it can handle most of the basics when paired with a quality payment gateway.