Stripe vs 10 Alternatives: Which One Is Right for Your Business? (2026)

You've decided to accept payments on your app. Naturally, you reach for Stripe — everyone does. But then you notice the 2.9% + 30¢ fee, or you realize you're selling to customers in 40 countries and have no idea how sales tax works in each one, or your client specifically asked for PayPal because "that's what their customers trust."

Suddenly "just use Stripe" isn't such an easy call anymore.

Stripe is the default answer for a reason — great docs, clean API, huge ecosystem. But it's not always the right answer. Some businesses need lower fees at scale, some need someone else to handle global tax compliance for them, some need better support for a specific region, and some just need something simpler than Stripe's flexibility gives them.

By the end of this guide, you'll know exactly how Stripe stacks up against 10 real alternatives — what each one costs, who it's actually built for, and which one fits your specific situation.

Worth noting upfront: since acquiring Lemon Squeezy, Stripe has also entered the Merchant of Record space with Stripe Managed Payments, making this comparison even more interesting in 2026 — Stripe is now competing with its own alternatives on this list. More on that later.

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Why This Comparison Is Tricky

Payment processors aren't one thing. They fall into a few different categories, and comparing them apples-to-apples only works within a category:

• Payment gateways / processors (Stripe, Square, Braintree, Authorize.net) — you're the merchant of record, you handle your own tax compliance, they just move the money.
• Merchant of Record (MoR) platforms (Paddle, Lemon Squeezy) — they become the legal seller, they handle sales tax and VAT for you, and they take a bigger cut for it.
• Wallet-first checkout (PayPal) — optimized for buyer trust and one-click checkout rather than developer flexibility.
• Enterprise-grade processors (Adyen, Checkout.com) — built for large-scale, multi-region businesses with complex routing needs.
• Regional specialists (Razorpay, Mollie) — dominant in specific geographies where global players are weaker.

Keep this in mind as you read — "cheaper than Stripe" doesn't matter if the platform doesn't fit your business model in the first place.

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Stripe: The Baseline

Before comparing anything, here's what you're actually comparing against.

• Pricing: 2.9% + 30¢ per successful card charge (US), with volume discounts available on custom plans
• Best for: SaaS products, developer-first products, subscriptions, marketplaces
• Strengths: Best-in-class docs, huge library ecosystem, Stripe Checkout/Elements/Payment Element for pre-built UI, strong webhook system, excellent for Next.js/React apps
• Weaknesses: You're the merchant of record — you handle your own sales tax and VAT (Stripe Tax helps calculate it, but you still remit it), support can be slow for smaller accounts, standard fees aren't the cheapest at scale

💡 Tip: If you've used Stripe before, you already know most of the vocabulary in this post — Checkout Sessions, webhooks, Payment Intents. Every alternative below borrows the same mental model to some degree.

Who Should NOT Use Stripe?

Stripe isn't the right fit for everyone. Skip it (or at least don't use it alone) if:

• You sell digital products globally and don't want to deal with tax registration — Stripe Tax calculates VAT/sales tax, but you're still the one registering and remitting it in every country. A Merchant of Record like Paddle removes that burden entirely.
• Your customers are mostly in India — Stripe's support for UPI and local Indian payment rails is weaker than Razorpay's.
• You need in-person, physical card readers — Stripe has Terminal hardware, but Square's combined online + in-person experience is more mature.
• You're processing enterprise-scale volume across many countries — at that scale, Adyen or Checkout.com's negotiated interchange-plus pricing usually beats Stripe's standard rates.
• Your audience specifically expects PayPal or Venmo at checkout — Stripe supports some wallets, but Braintree's PayPal/Venmo integration is more native.

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1. PayPal

The one every non-technical customer already recognizes.

• Pricing: ~2.99% + fixed fee per transaction (varies by country), similar ballpark to Stripe
• Best for: E-commerce stores where buyer trust and one-click checkout matter more than API elegance
• Strengths: Massive brand recognition — some customers only buy if PayPal is an option, built-in buyer/seller protection, works well for one-off purchases
• Weaknesses: Developer experience is noticeably behind Stripe, account holds and freezes are a common complaint, less flexible for subscription billing logic

⚠️ Common Mistake: Choosing PayPal instead of Stripe. Most stores that succeed with PayPal actually offer both — PayPal as a trust-building option alongside a primary Stripe or Square integration, not as a replacement.

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2. Square

Best known for physical point-of-sale, but its online payments API has matured a lot.

• Pricing: 2.6% + 10¢ for in-person, ~2.9% + 30¢ for online — comparable to Stripe
• Best for: Businesses that need both online and in-person payments under one system (restaurants, retail, service businesses)
• Strengths: Unified dashboard for online + POS + invoicing, no monthly fees on the base plan, solid inventory and appointment tools bundled in
• Weaknesses: Online-only developer experience is less polished than Stripe's, less suited to complex SaaS billing logic

Choose Square over Stripe if: you also need physical card readers or in-person sales alongside your website.

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3. Braintree (a PayPal company)

Braintree is essentially "Stripe for people who also want PayPal and Venmo in one integration."

• Pricing: 2.59% + 49¢ typically — slightly cheaper per-transaction than Stripe on paper
• Best for: Apps that want PayPal, Venmo, and card payments through a single SDK
• Strengths: Owned by PayPal, so PayPal/Venmo integration is native rather than bolted on, solid mobile SDKs (iOS/Android)
• Weaknesses: Documentation and community support are noticeably smaller than Stripe's, fewer prebuilt UI components

Choose Braintree over Stripe if: your audience skews toward PayPal/Venmo as a primary payment method (common in US consumer apps).

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4. Adyen

The processor institutional fintechs and large marketplaces actually use.

• Pricing: Interchange-plus pricing (you pay the real card network fee + a small Adyen markup) — cheaper at high volume, but not built for small businesses
• Best for: Large-scale, multi-country businesses processing serious volume (Uber, Spotify, eBay-scale)
• Strengths: Single platform for 40+ payment methods across regions, excellent fraud detection (RevenueProtect), true global reach
• Weaknesses: Not self-serve — you talk to a sales team, overkill (and often not even available) for early-stage products

Choose Adyen over Stripe if: you're already processing millions per month across multiple countries and need custom pricing.

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5. Authorize.net

The processor that's been around since the dot-com era and quietly still works fine.

• Pricing: $25/month gateway fee + 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction — more expensive than Stripe once you add the monthly fee
• Best for: Traditional businesses already on legacy e-commerce platforms (older WooCommerce/Magento setups)
• Strengths: Extremely stable, works with a huge number of existing shopping cart integrations
• Weaknesses: Developer experience feels dated compared to Stripe, extra monthly fee makes it a worse deal for low-volume stores

Choose Authorize.net over Stripe if: you're integrating into an existing legacy e-commerce stack that already expects it.

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6. Paddle

A true Merchant of Record — Paddle becomes the legal seller so you don't have to.

• Pricing: ~5% + 50¢ per transaction (no separate monthly fee) — higher than Stripe, but that fee includes global tax handling
• Best for: SaaS companies selling internationally who don't want to deal with VAT/sales tax registration in every country
• Strengths: Handles sales tax, VAT, and invoicing compliance automatically, built specifically for SaaS subscription billing, strong checkout localization (currency, language)
• Weaknesses: Noticeably higher fees than a raw payment processor, less low-level control over the checkout flow

💡 Tip: The right way to think about the extra ~2% over Stripe is: you're paying Paddle to be your tax accountant and legal seller in every country. For a solo founder, that trade is often worth it.

Where Stripe Managed Payments fits in: since acquiring Lemon Squeezy, Stripe has been building its own Merchant of Record product — Stripe Managed Payments — which entered public preview in early 2026. It's Stripe's answer to exactly what Paddle already does: Stripe becomes the seller of record and handles global tax for you, at a similar ~5% fee. Paddle still has the longer track record and a more mature product for now, but this is a space to watch — you may eventually be able to get MoR-style tax handling without leaving the Stripe ecosystem at all.

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7. Razorpay

The dominant payment processor for businesses operating in India.

• Pricing: ~2% per transaction domestically, higher for international cards — meaningfully cheaper than Stripe within India
• Best for: Businesses primarily serving Indian customers (UPI, Indian net banking, RuPay cards)
• Strengths: Deep support for local payment methods Stripe doesn't handle well (UPI, India-specific wallets), strong local compliance and support
• Weaknesses: Not the right choice if your customers are mostly outside India, less relevant for Western SaaS products

Choose Razorpay over Stripe if: a meaningful share of your revenue comes from Indian customers.

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8. Mollie

A European-focused processor that's become the default for a lot of EU-based SaaS and e-commerce.

• Pricing: Pay-per-transaction with no monthly fees, competitive with Stripe in the EU
• Best for: Businesses primarily serving European customers who want strong support for local payment methods (iDEAL, Bancontact, SOFORT)
• Strengths: Excellent support for European-specific payment rails Stripe supports less natively, simple, clean API
• Weaknesses: Smaller ecosystem and community outside Europe, fewer advanced billing features than Stripe Billing

Choose Mollie over Stripe if: your customers are mostly European and rely on local bank-transfer-style payment methods.

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9. Checkout.com

An enterprise-grade processor competing directly with Adyen for large global merchants.

• Pricing: Custom, interchange-plus — negotiated per contract, not published
• Best for: Large enterprises and marketplaces with global, high-volume payment needs
• Strengths: Strong presence in Europe/Middle East, excellent uptime and fraud tooling, flexible routing for high-risk industries
• Weaknesses: Sales-led onboarding, not something you sign up for and integrate in an afternoon — not built for indie developers or early-stage startups

Choose Checkout.com over Stripe if: you're an enterprise processing serious volume and need a dedicated account manager and custom terms.

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10. Lemon Squeezy

Worth including, with an important caveat: Stripe acquired Lemon Squeezy in 2024, and in 2026 Stripe is actively rolling out "Stripe Managed Payments" — its own native Merchant of Record product built using what it learned from that acquisition.

• Pricing: 5% + 50¢ per transaction, no monthly fee
• Best for: Indie SaaS founders and digital product creators who want MoR-style tax handling with a simpler, more creator-focused feature set (affiliates, license keys, digital delivery) than Paddle offers
• Strengths: Very fast to set up, built specifically for solo founders and small teams, handles global tax compliance like Paddle does
• Weaknesses: Its long-term roadmap is now tied to Stripe's own Managed Payments product, so some indie-specific features may not carry over if you're forced to migrate down the line

⚠️ Common Mistake: Assuming Lemon Squeezy is a fully independent alternative to Stripe. Since the acquisition, it's best thought of as "Stripe's on-ramp into the Merchant of Record space" rather than a true competitor — worth knowing before you build a long-term dependency on it.

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Quick Comparison Table

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How to Actually Choose

Instead of picking based on fees alone, walk through these questions in order:

1. Do you want to handle sales tax/VAT yourself, or pay someone else to? If you'd rather not deal with tax registration in every country you sell to, go with Paddle or Lemon Squeezy. If you're fine using Stripe Tax to calculate (and then remitting it yourself), stick with Stripe or another raw processor.
2. Where are your customers? Mostly India → Razorpay. Mostly Europe → Mollie. Global and card-based → Stripe.
3. Do you need in-person payments too? If yes, Square is the only one on this list that does both well out of the box.
4. Are you doing enterprise-scale volume? If you're processing millions per month, Adyen or Checkout.com's custom pricing will beat any of the self-serve options.
5. Does your audience specifically expect PayPal? Add it as a secondary option — don't make it your only processor for a SaaS product.

For most Next.js SaaS builds, Stripe remains the safest default: best documentation, largest community, and the easiest to actually ship with. Reach for an alternative only when you have a specific, concrete reason — a region Stripe serves poorly, a tax burden you want off your plate, or a scale where custom pricing genuinely saves money.

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Which Stripe Alternative Is Best for...

Quick answers if you already know your use case and just want the pointer:

• ...SaaS? Stick with Stripe — it's still the most complete toolkit for subscription billing, and its ecosystem of libraries and guides is unmatched.
• ...Subscriptions? Stripe Billing is the most flexible for custom subscription logic. If you'd rather offload tax compliance too, Paddle is purpose-built for SaaS subscriptions specifically.
• ...Marketplaces? Stripe Connect is the standard here, but Adyen is worth evaluating once you're processing serious volume across many countries.
• ...Digital Products? Paddle or Lemon Squeezy — both act as Merchant of Record, which matters a lot for indie creators selling ebooks, courses, or software licenses globally.
• ...Small Business? Square, if you also sell in person. Stripe or PayPal if you're online-only and want the fastest setup.
• ...Enterprise? Adyen or Checkout.com — both offer negotiated pricing and dedicated support that self-serve platforms don't.
• ...International Payments? Mollie for Europe, Razorpay for India, Paddle if you want tax compliance handled everywhere at once.
• ...Physical Stores? Square, hands down — it's the only option on this list built for combined online + in-person payments from day one.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Is Stripe still the best choice for a first-time SaaS product?

For most cases, yes. The documentation, community support, and prebuilt components (Checkout, Payment Element) make it the fastest path to actually shipping payments in a Next.js app.

What's the real difference between a payment processor and a Merchant of Record?

A processor (Stripe, Square, Braintree) just moves money — you're legally the seller and responsible for your own tax compliance. A Merchant of Record (Paddle, Lemon Squeezy) legally becomes the seller on your behalf, which means they handle VAT/sales tax registration and remittance for you, at a higher fee.

Can I use more than one payment processor at once?

Yes, and many businesses do — for example, Stripe as the primary processor plus PayPal as a secondary option for customers who specifically prefer it. Just be aware this adds complexity to your webhook and reconciliation logic.

Are Paddle and Lemon Squeezy worth the extra fees for a solo founder?

Often, yes. If you're a single developer selling globally, the ~2% extra fee can be far cheaper than the time (or accountant fees) it would take to register and file sales tax in dozens of countries yourself.

Does switching payment processors later require rebuilding my whole app?

Not necessarily, if you've kept your payment logic reasonably isolated (a single lib/payments module, for example) rather than scattering Stripe-specific calls across your codebase. It's still real migration work — expect to touch checkout flows, webhooks, and any stored customer/subscription IDs.

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Choosing a payment processor isn't a one-time decision carved in stone — plenty of companies start with Stripe and add or switch processors as their business changes shape. The important thing is picking based on your actual constraints (tax burden, region, scale) rather than just going with whichever name is most familiar.

Continue Learning

If you've decided Stripe is still the right call (it usually is), these guides walk through the actual implementation in Next.js 16:

• How to Integrate Stripe Checkout with Next.js 16 (2026 Edition)
• How to Integrate Stripe Payment Element with Next.js 16 (2026 Edition)
• Stripe Checkout vs Payment Element in 2026: Which One Should You Choose?
• Stripe Subscriptions in Next.js 16: Complete SaaS Billing Guide (2026)