Stripe VS Square: Features, Cost, & Key Differences For Small Business

Stripe and Square, despite occupying different niches in the payment processing industry, are often compared to one another due to their similar pricing models and all-inclusive approach.

Choosing between Stripe vs. Square is difficult, especially if you want to sell online. Our Stripe vs. Square analysis takes an in-depth look at both companies, their pricing, features, and the types of businesses that can benefit from each of their services. This article will put Stripe vs. Square head-to-head across a number of categories and give you a sense of where each excels and falls short.

Stripe VS Square At A Glance

Square and Stripe take a similar approach to credit card processing: Both are third-party processors or payment service providers (PSPs). Rather than giving each business its own merchant account, all merchants’ payment processing is aggregated into large, communal accounts. As PSPs, they assume the risk associated with maintaining the accounts.

The advantage of this is that you, as a business owner, can sign up and start accepting credit cards more quickly than you could with a merchant account. Unfortunately, it also makes troubleshooting anything going on with your account more difficult, which can result in more frequent account holds and freezes. It also means that neither Stripe nor Square can accept high-risk businesses.

Benefits Of Stripe

Stripe is geared first and foremost toward the developers who will implement its toolset into their company’s payments processes or their own eCommerce service. You don’t need to be a programming genius to use Stripe, but having someone on your team who can play under the hood with the code is important if you want to get the most out of it. Otherwise, you’ll need to get Stripe pre-integrated into a platform like Shopify.

The ideal Stripe customer primarily does business online and internationally.

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Benefits Of Square

Square is about accessibility and convenience, particularly where new small businesses are concerned. Square has conveniently divided its software into categories pertaining to various industries, such as Square for Restaurants and Square for Retail. Square started with a focus on point of sale (POS) transactions, but Square’s eCommerce offerings should be more than adequate for brick-and-mortar businesses that also make online sales. While Square does have respectable developer support, developers aren’t the target audience the way they are for Stripe.

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What’s The Difference Between Stripe & Square

The key difference between Stripe and Square is each system’s overall capabilities: Square offers a seamless experience for merchants who want to sell in person and online, while Stripe focuses on extensive eCommerce capabilities, from international payments to subscriptions and recurring payments.

However, in many areas, the companies’ services do still overlap. Both have a wide array of ready-made integrations, powerful invoicing tools, and developer toolkits for customization.

Both Square & Stripe Offer…

Stripe Payments Also Includes…

Square Payments Also Includes…

Stripe VS Square FAQs

Stripe VS Square Pricing

In terms of fees, Stripe and Square are both incredibly transparent. Both companies process online transactions at 2.9% + $0.30 with no monthly fees. Additional charges may apply for merchants who opt into either company’s premium products. However, both Square and Stripe readily disclose these costs.

Which Is Cheaper, Stripe Or Square?

Despite very similar pricing models, Square is likely to be the cheaper option for most small businesses just because it offers so much for free. You won’t necessarily save on transaction costs, but little perks like no chargeback fees, free refunds, and a free website can add up. That said, at the granular level, costs for individual businesses can vary greatly once premium features come into play.

Some notes:

• For in-person transactions, Stripe is cheaper for transactions under $50 and Square for transactions over $50. Just remember that Stripe’s POS infrastructure is very limited. Hardware is similarly priced where the two companies overlap, the main difference being that Square offers customers one free magstripe mobile reader.
• Stripe comes out ahead on ACH payments and will probably be a slightly better value if you do a lot of recurring billing. On the other hand, Square’s lack of chargeback fees and completely free refunds can add up to a lot of savings over time.
• Premium POS subscription services from Square can add a substantial monthly cost but save on individual transactions. Make sure the math checks out for you.
• Stripe mostly does away with monthly fees entirely and instead adds per-transaction costs for premium features. These can add up, so make sure they’re things you need.

You can read more about Stripe’s fee structure in our complete guide to Stripe pricing or get started with Stripe Payments.

Check out our complete Square pricing guide for more on Square’s fees or sign up for a free Square account.

Square VS Stripe Features

In broad strokes, Stripe and Square have a lot of similar features, but the depth and implementation of these features can vary quite a bit.

Square offers suites of tools that it packages by industry. This can make it easy for businesses that aren’t very familiar with payment processing to select a package that should be oriented to their needs. On the other hand, Stripe’s tools are more like layers users can pile on to add additional functionality to their base credit card processing services. Stripe’s approach is more geared toward businesses that know exactly what they want, whereas Square’s is friendly to businesses that may be figuring that out as they go.

And while there is a lot of overlap between features, it should be stated that Square has more depth for managing your business’s offline goings-on. Stripe, on the other hand, has more depth when it comes to fine-tuning your online transactions and billing.

Which Is Best For My Business: Stripe Or Square?

If you’ve made it this far, you probably have a decent idea of each company’s strengths and weaknesses. If you skipped ahead, or if you’re looking for a neat and tidy summary, you came to the right place.

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Choose Stripe If…

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Square VS Stripe Comparison: The Final Verdict

Stripe and Square have some very important core similarities: They’re both third-party processors with an assortment of tools that allow merchants to sell online. Neither one is suited to high-risk industries, and there’s a lengthy list of businesses neither company can work with. But despite that, both Stripe and Square offer tools that cater to a huge assortment of industries.

They’ll both grow with your business, making it easy to scale up. But despite their similarities in terms of business model, it’s also pretty clear that what each company does best is completely different.

Square is a spectacular all-in-one processor with a ready-made solution. You can sell in a store, on the go, and online — and get all your information, payments, and orders collected in one simple, intuitive dashboard. A vast array of add-on products allow you to consolidate a host of business functions under one name, and they’re guaranteed to work together perfectly. If you have limited technical knowledge, Square is going to be much easier to get started with and navigate through the different features.

Stripe Payments focuses on internet commerce (both on the web and in-app), but its tools make it possible for businesses to cater to customers all over the globe.

The international appeal — from the local currency displays to the sheer breadth of payment methods accepted — makes it clear that Stripe is already a global player. Not only that but with Stripe’s APIs and documentation, a savvy developer could create all kinds of payment customizations for a business. Business owners who don’t have a developer on staff and don’t have a lot of technical knowledge themselves may initially struggle with understanding how to use Stripe, especially if they want to do more than integrate it with shopping cart software.