Best for
Small ecommerce and low-volume digital businesses that prioritize fast signup and developer tooling over dedicated account management
Specializes in
Stripe is a web app that allows merchants to accept credit card payments via e-commerce websites. Its capabilities include recurring billing, accepting bitcoin, and facilitating payments on marketplace-style platforms. Stripe tends to be very popular among digital businesses due to its ease of set-up with a wide variety of platforms such as Shopify and various plug-ins through WordPress.
Pricing Summary
Setup Fee: $0
Monthly Fee: $0
Swipe Rate: 2.7% + $0.30 per transaction
Keyed-in Rate: 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction
Early Termination Fee : None
Contract Terms:
Stripe is headquartered in San Francisco, CA, with 14 branches worldwide. John and Patrick Collison are the firm's founders; the latter has served as CEO since 2010.
Stripe excels in that it offers developer support, multicurrency pricing, and is fairly easy to set up for non-technical clients.
Stripe is a technology company with over 2500 employees that caters to online businesses of various sizes in over 120 countries. It serves customers like Amazon, Shopify, Deliveroo, Zillow, Slack, and Expedia.
Head Quarters
San Francisco, CA
Year Founded
2010
CEO
Patrick Collison
Employees
2500
Merchant Provider Risk Tolerance
No monthly fee.
Zero setup fee.
No early termination fee.
No contract required.
Multi currency support.
Sub-merchant / aggregator model means accounts can be paused or closed unilaterally by Stripe's risk system, and Trustpilot reviews show this affects ordinary business categories, not just high-risk merchants.
Effective rate is often 4-5% or higher once cross-border, currency conversion, Billing, Radar, and Instant Payouts fees stack on the 2.9% headline.
Not suitable for high-risk merchants (CBD above legal THC, nutraceuticals with unsupported claims, MLM with recruitment commissions, etc.).
Not all important terms are disclosed up front.
Chargeback fee of $15 per dispute, retained whether the dispute is won or lost.
Stripe promotes the following products on its website:
POS Solution: Stripe Terminal extends your online presence into the physical world, enabling you to build your in-person checkout. Built with modern retailers and platforms in mind, Terminal helps you unify your online and offline channels with flexible developer tools, pre-certified card readers, and cloud-based hardware management.
Stripe Payout: Automatically send quick payouts to your sellers, freelancers, or service providers around the world. Whether you fund your payouts using payments accepted with Stripe or directly from your bank account, you can use its infrastructure to automate your payout workflows and offload KYC and verification requirements.
Stripe Connect: Connect is a set of programmable APIs and tools that lets you facilitate payments on your software platform, build a marketplace, and payout sellers or service providers globally. Plus, you can register users and verify their identity. These features are available all while having Stripe handle payments compliance.
Discloses All Important Terms
No
Public Pricing Available
Yes
Stripe's headline rate is 2.9% + $0.30 for standard US card-not-present transactions, with 2.7% + $0.05 for in-person and 3.4% + $0.30 for manually keyed or international cards. The real cost picture is usually higher, because Stripe layers multiple additional fees on top of the base rate: There is no early termination fee, no PCI compliance fee, and no monthly minimum on the standard plan. Once the layered fees are counted, a cross-border subscription business commonly lands at a 4-5% effective rate rather than the 2.9% headline.
Pricing Model
Interchange PlusFlat Rate
Swiped Rate
2.7% + $0.30 per transaction
Keyed-in Rate
2.9% + $0.30 per transaction
Mobile Payment Rate
Virtual Terminal Rate
2.7% + $0.5
Monthly Fee
$0
Payment Gateway Fee
None
Batch Fee
Early Termination Fee
None
PCI Compliance Fee
None
Equipment Lease Terms
None
Address Verification Service (AVS)
Application Fee
None
Account Setup Fee
$0
Gateway Setup Fee
None
Annual Fee
None
Monthly Minimum
$0
Statement Fee
$0
The company has no contract, early termination (ETF) fee, PCI compliance fee, or a fee for refunds. According to its service agreement on the website, Stripe reserves the right to terminate merchant accounts if they are deemed an unacceptable risk by the firm.
Contract Length
No Contract Required
Early Termination Fee
None
Stripe has had a profile with the Better Business Bureau since 2013 and currently holds an A+ rating despite a large complaint volume. Its BBB customer rating is 1.13 out of 5 across 110 reviews, and the profile lists 455 complaints (233 product problems, 193 billing issues, 19 delivery issues, and more). The more revealing signal is Stripe's Trustpilot profile, which carries a 1.7 out of 5 rating across 17,296 reviews with more than 1,200 negative reviews in the last 12 months alone. The dominant complaint themes are funds held for extended periods, accounts closed without warning or clear explanation, automated support responses with no path to a human, and refunds delayed or difficult to process. The pattern applies across ordinary business categories, not just merchants the industry labels high-risk.
BBB
A+ (455 Customer Complaints)
N/A
N/A
Yelp
N/A
Total Online Reviews
17,000+
Total Online Complaints
1,200+ negative reviews in last 12 months (Trustpilot)
Lawsuits
1
If you're in the market for a merchant account provider, be sure to check out our user reviews, our merchant accounts guide and our top popular merchant provider picks