Alternative to
6 Alternatives to Stripe in 2026
Merchants start shopping around Stripe once the invoice shows more than the headline card rate: currency conversion, dispute fees, Billing and Radar charges all stack on top. Common destinations are Mollie for European shops, Adyen for enterprise acquiring and Paddle for software sellers who want tax and chargebacks handled for them.
Why people look for an alternative to Stripe
The card rate is only the first line
Stripe's pricing page shows 1.5% + €0.25 for standard EEA cards, but Adaptive Pricing carries a conversion cost of at least 2%, UK cards run 2.5% + €0.25, and instant payouts cost 1% of volume with a €0.50 minimum.
Subscriptions and tax are priced as separate products
Billing starts at €500 a month on a one-year contract (or 0.7% of volume pay as you go), Tax Complete from €80 a month, and Radar from €10 a month, so a growing subscription business pays for several meters.
Disputes cost money before you argue
Each chargeback received costs €20, and Smart Disputes keeps 30% of the amount for every one it wins. The privacy policy also names transfers to countries such as the United States and India, with no hosting region stated.
The best Stripe alternatives
- 1
Mollie
Mollie is a Dutch payment service provider with public per-method rates, from €0.25 for SEPA transfers to 3.25% + €0.25 for non-EEA cards. The standard plan has no monthly fee or minimum, and fraud screening sits in a separate Acceptance & Risk product.
Switch if you Switch if your customers are mostly in Europe and you want a rate list you can read per payment method.
- 2
Adyen
Adyen runs acquiring, fraud scoring and optimization on one in-house platform, priced as interchange++ plus 0.60% and a fixed $0.13 per card payment. A minimum invoice can apply by industry, and onboarding goes through sales.
Switch if you Switch if your volume is high enough that scheme and interchange costs per transaction matter more than a self-serve signup.
- 3
Paddle acts as merchant of record at 5% + 50¢ per checkout, so sales tax, fraud screening and disputes are inside that one rate. It fits digital goods only, and you do not own the billing relationship the way you do on Stripe.
Switch if you sell software or subscriptions and would rather hand tax filing and chargebacks to the payment vendor.
- 4
Airwallex
Airwallex charges 2.80% + $0.30 on domestic cards and 4.30% + $0.30 on international ones. Its draw is a multi-currency account with like-for-like settlement in 20+ currencies and 160+ local payment methods behind one login.
Switch if you sell abroad and want to keep balances in the buyer's currency instead of converting each payment.
- 5
Checkout.com
Checkout.com publishes no rate card, and the site targets mid-market and enterprise accounts. Pricing is quoted per business on interchange++ terms, with one decision engine covering network tokens, 3DS exemptions, routing and decline retries, plus modular fraud detection.
Switch if you process large volume and want negotiated terms and routing control rather than listed prices.
- 6
Braintree
Braintree is PayPal's gateway at 2.89% + $0.29 per standard card payment in the US, with PayPal, Venmo and ACH under one set of fee tables. Non-USD currency and non-US cards each add 1%, and a chargeback costs $15.
Switch if you Switch if PayPal and Venmo buyers are a large share of your orders and you want them in the same gateway as cards.
Before you switch away from Stripe
Saved cards are the hard part. Ask Stripe whether it will migrate card data to the new processor's PCI-compliant vault, and plan for the gap if it will not, since customers would have to re-enter cards. List your Billing subscriptions, coupons, tax settings and Radar rules, because the new vendor may model them differently. Pull twelve months of statements to see how much you paid in conversion, dispute and payout fees, then ask each candidate to price the same mix. Keep Stripe live in parallel for a few weeks on a slice of traffic before closing the account.
The full ranking of this category is in Best AI Payment Processing Software in 2026.
Frequently asked questions
Can I move saved customer cards out of Stripe?
Stripe's pricing page does not describe card migration, so the vendor's policy was not checked for this here. In practice a transfer needs both Stripe and the new processor to agree, and it moves tokens between PCI-certified vaults. Ask both sides in writing before you plan a cutover date, and keep Stripe running for subscriptions until the transfer is confirmed.
Is Stripe's 1.5% + €0.25 card rate the price I will actually pay?
Only for standard EEA cards. The pricing page lists UK cards at 2.5% + €0.25, Terminal card-present payments at 1.4% + €0.10 for EEA and UK cards, Adaptive Pricing conversion at least 2%, and Billing, Tax and Radar separately. Custom interchange-plus pricing is available through sales, which is where volume discounts appear.
Which Stripe alternative handles sales tax for me?
Paddle does, because it acts as merchant of record, and its 5% + 50¢ checkout rate covers tax, fraud handling and chargebacks. Stripe sells Tax Complete from €80 a month plus a per-transaction rate where you are registered, but you remain the seller. Paddle is limited to software and digital goods.
Where does Stripe keep customer data, and do alternatives differ?
Stripe's security page lists PCI DSS Level 1, SOC 2 Type II on request and the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, but names no hosting region, and its privacy policy mentions transfers to countries such as the United States and India. Mollie and Adyen are Dutch companies; compare each one's current data processing terms before deciding.