Stripe

Hands down the best payment processing platform

Comments: I've been using Stripe for many years and I had very few issues. On the few times I had to ask for their support, it was 5 stars. Staff is really nice and response times are super fast.

Pros:

The flexibility, the easy of use, the ability to implement online payments with a simple JS drop-in. I also appreciated all the features offered even in the basic tier.

Cons:

Funds withdraw takes longer than most platforms, but it's only a few days so it's manageable.

Alternatives Considered: authorize.net, WooCommerce and Square Payments

Reasons for Choosing Stripe: PayPal's lack of support and being denied of some features, despite having an account in good standing for years.

Switched From: PayPal

Reasons for Switching to Stripe: Stripe was by far the easiest one to setup (offers several different integrations), the most cost effective and the one that wouldn't lock me in specific platforms.

Stripe is easy to use with several software platforms.

Comments: I am able to link up Stripe to several different software platforms such as Simplybook.me and Mariana Tek. I also used Wix with Stripe.

Pros:

It is easy for clients to make payments.

Cons:

It can be overly complicated for the admin.

Almost Destroyed My Business - Stripe Stole From Us

Comments: We implemented Stripe because of its ease of use but it’s turned out to be a nightmare. It’s as though Stripe decided that we are not a legitimate company and targeted us to prove it at any cost. Every few weeks we were asked to produce the same previously requested documents. We have never had a single customer dispute yet they unilaterally decided we were high risk and returned recently charged purchases to our clients who have already stayed at our vacation rental. We went viral with over 5.5 million views of an influencer’s video which caused had a huge uptick in business. I’m not sure if the volume of business caused Stripe to be concerned. They requested a selfie and an upload of the ID they already had on file. After I uploaded the selfie and my US Passport I got a notification that I was now good to go. This was followed by an email two hours later that we were deemed to be too risky and funds would be returned to our clients. Stripe then took money from our bank account and I assume will be sending it to clients who have already stayed at our property. We are hoping these funds will be returned to us. In a nutshell, Stripe stole from us - there were no customer complaints. We contacted the customers and are praying they will send thousands of dollars back to us using another method of payment.

Pros:

Ease of integration with the company I selected for my property management system.

Cons:

Countless re-verification requests with no favorable response after sending business registration and several forms of IDs. Extremely poor customer service with lengthy waiting times for retuned calls. They made the decision to stop supporting my business without a single customer complaint or request for a refund. They rejected payments from a lot of international clients based in Canada and the UK. This caused me to lose a lot of bookings.

Alternatives Considered: Square Payments

Reasons for Switching to Stripe: Perceived ease and ease of integration to my back end property management system.

Held Hostage to Stripe Internal Processes

Comments: Basically as described above: We use Stripe through another party. While Stripe was going through audit verification of our business they put the transfer of our funds on hold. Our cash flow suffered waiting for them to complete their internal business processes. What business does that? They should have continued BAU finishing their processes without impacting our cash flow. Given a choice I would use another provider. I do not want to be held hostage to a providers internal processes and delays that put my payroll at risk.

Pros:

It is an efficient system, good reports, visibility of donors and events provides us the necessary feedback to evaluate the effectiveness of our fundraising programs.

Cons:

We use Stripe through another party. While Stripe was going through audit verification of our business they put the transfer of our funds on hold. Our cash flow suffered waiting for them to complete their internal business processes. What business does that? They should have continued BAU finishing their processes without impacting our cash flow. Given a choice I would use another provider. I do not want to be held hostage to a providers internal processes and delays that put my payroll at risk.

Alternatives Considered: Square Payments

Reasons for Switching to Stripe: Seemed to have better reporting down to the event and donors

The de facto payment platform

Pros:

Feature set and API. Integrates with almost everything.

Cons:

Pricing can get expensive quickly. Tools for some processes, such as bulk price changes on subscriptions, don’t exist and need development to achieve.

Third world country scripted robotic responses like Telstra but with your finances

Comments: My account has been hacked, but I have no idea when I will be called back. If you do a google search for stripe reviews you will see the amount of bad reviews by people saying how bad it is and their experience with customer service.

Pros:

Imagine something bad happens and your account gets hacked or something happens. You notify stripe but have no idea for over a week of what is happening. Every time you contact the support on the website they ignore your email or when you request a phone call (which they can't ignore) they provided scripted, robotic, phillipino responses, time after time. You are not speaking to a human being with a beating heart, you are speaking to CHAT GPT like people that cannont deviate from their script. You are completely at their mercy for what they want to do - there is NO ONE in your home country you will ever be able to call or speak. Mean while the bank account that the money is being deposited into could be getting drained but guess

Cons:

customer support is one of the worst I've ever experienced for financial products. these people should not be able to be contact someone in their home country for emergency help, but they are ALL located in the phillipines

Alternatives Considered: Square Payments

Reasons for Choosing Stripe: realising how bad their customer service is. Phillipino, robotic, scripted, Everyone says the same thing over and over again, no ability to think for themselves

Switched From: Square Payments

Reasons for Switching to Stripe: better reviews than stripe

Stripe for e-commerce payments

Comments: Overall theyve been great and customer service answers questions immediately

Pros:

It integrated well with shopify and I get paid immediately

Cons:

I have no complaints about stripe. I have used for 5 years with no issues

Easy onboarding and quick money transfer

Pros:

It's very fast to sign up and go through onboarding. Stripe works with a great number of countries all over the world and the speed of money transfer from your Stripe account to your bank account is rather high (1-3 days)

Cons:

Their fees are not reasonable and they charge you additionally for those features, which are commonly provided by payment gateways by default.

Easy to use

Comments: It was relatively easy to find the data I needed. You could download reports with all the detail or look at nice summarized versions.

Pros:

It was easy to use with good reporting and the ability to export

Cons:

I don't really recall having any issues with the tool.

CC processing made easy

Pros:

Easy to use, integrates with other software, efficient

Cons:

No real cons besides unavoidable service fees

Best for small business

Comments: Great, hope that if I need customer service it is a better experience.

Pros:

Stripe was super easy to integrate, easy for clients to pay, and never have issues.

Cons:

I can't see a report detailing what client paid what, but my other program does that for me. Customer support when I switched banks took them 4 weeks of not listening to me to fix my accounts. They asked for the same documentation over 8 times literally. Once fixed though, it was fixed.

Alternatives Considered: Square Payments

Reasons for Choosing Stripe: There are no fees with Stripe as I pass the processing fee onto the clients.

Switched From: GatewayAPI

Reasons for Switching to Stripe: Ease of integration, no fees, and no equipment needed.

Trusted Provider, Can Be Expensive in Fees and Time

Comments: Good, trustworthy, reliable, efficient, and quick to set up. The only downside is watching your overall transaction fee costs and planning your cashflow schedule to when payments will actually be paid out.

Pros:

We wanted to go with a trusted digital payments provider--and have never had a client or customer mention they couldn't use Stripe. Secure, reliable for both parties in the transaction, and easy to both set up and use as a consumer.

Cons:

The payout fees on transactions can really eat into the cost of goods and services; further, it's important to note that payouts to the supplier/provider can take at least several days.

Alternatives Considered: PayPal

Reasons for Switching to Stripe: Ease of use, expected credit/debit card processing. Good for Enterprise transactions.

Payment Processing For Busy Owners

Comments: I have had a very positive experience with Stripe. I started with them using their express integration with a few other softwares. I switched in January 2023 to the full software and have enjoyed it since.

Pros:

I like that Stripe handles all reoccurring payments. Once you set up the product, there is a no code payment link you can send to customers. They handle the rest!

Cons:

There are A LOT of features. My business is a 1 person company. Though my business may scale in to some of these features, Stripe offers a lot of features from the get-go, can be overwhelming when deciding on WHAT you actually need

Alternatives Considered: PayPal

Reasons for Choosing Stripe: I wanted something automated, something that could handle remote payments better, and could scale with my business.

Switched From: Venmo

Reasons for Switching to Stripe: No code payment links and a unique customer portal for them to control their billing

Stripe is a great way to start an online business and process payments

Comments: Stripe has been amazing. They've been clear in communicating what they've needed to ensure my uptime.

Pros:

Great number of easy to use options. Perfect for online businesses

Cons:

They charge a significant percentage to do immediate transfers but it's still worth doing, or you can wait three days or so ;)

Stripe, #1 for payment processing

Comments: Great compared to any other provider. This has been my favorite for subscriptions and all around service

Pros:

Easy processing, great accessibility, mobile interface

Cons:

3% per transaction is a bit high + 1.5% to automatically deposit

Alternatives Considered: Square Point of Sale and Plaid

Reasons for Choosing Stripe: National Bank Card had great staff but the worst risk department and was not seamless to use. Always had problems

Switched From: National Discount Merchant Services

Reasons for Switching to Stripe: Ease of use and set up was a major component

Simple to use yet powerfully adaptive and flexible for individual needs

Comments: Stripe has made accepting card payments virtually easy and streamlined for my practice. It also integrates very well with my EMR platform, which is an added bonus.

Pros:

Simple and easy to use interface! Favourite feature is the stripe express app, which makes managing payments and trends very easy especially on-the-go.

Cons:

No dislikes noticed at this time. Very streamlined and easy to navigate software.

Alternatives Considered: Square Payments

Reasons for Switching to Stripe: Due to easier integration with EMR platform I am currently using.

Extremely Frustrating Experience with Stripe

Comments: We've been using #Stripe since October 2021, and initially, everything worked fine. However, things took a frustrating turn when Stripe suddenly labeled our business as "high risk" without providing any evidence and placed an indefinite hold on our payouts. Despite submitting all the requested documentation and proving our compliance, their support team has failed to give any clear reason or transparency behind this decision. This lack of communication has severely impacted our business operations, and it's unacceptable for a company that relies on consistent cash flow. To make matters worse, Stripe doesn’t provide a local contact support number, making it even harder to resolve these issues. Stripe's handling of this situation has been deeply disappointing, and we strongly caution other businesses considering their service.

Pros:

Initially, doing business with stripe was fine.

Cons:

Stripe can place holds on your funds or freeze your accounts without warning, especially if it deems a business as "high risk," often without clear communication. Stripe lacks direct phone support in many regions, making it challenging to resolve urgent issues quickly.

Alternatives Considered: PayPal Commerce Platform

Reasons for Choosing Stripe: to have better users experience and support.

Switched From: tabby

Reasons for Switching to Stripe: Negative reviews including payout delays.

Payment Getaway With No Hassle

Comments: Even though the fees more expensive compare to other products, I'm happy with the features and the customer support of Stripe. Highly recommended for e-commerce.

Pros:

Security for merchant and customer, easy to deploy, easy to use, good reporting, well integration with third party

Cons:

Fees more expensive than other payment getaway

Alternatives Considered: PayPal

Switched From: PayPal and Square Payments

Great client feedback when using Stripe

Comments: Generally very positive. I like the speed at which the payouts reach my account and my clients report easy use when using stripe to pay the deposit for their appointments. Fees could be a little lower but generally no complaints!

Pros:

Easy to set up and quick payments. It’s a name my clients recognised and trust

Cons:

A couple of glitches when integrating with Pabau booking software but once you and running no issues

Good rates for credit card processing

Pros:

Great rates for processing payments - very fair and transparent and user friendly.

Cons:

Integration with shopify is not free there is an extra fee added on but shopify adds the fee on so it isn't stripe's fault but still inconvenient.

The Ease of Use is Outweighed by the Inferior Customer Service Highly Discourage Supporting Stripe.

Comments: Not impressed at all. Defiantly do not recommend.

Pros:

Easily set up and begin accepting debit and credit cards. Compatible with many applications to make processing and tracking simplified.

Cons:

The fee's pile up. Example: If someone disputes a debit charge and the company wins the dispute a fee is still charged to the company for the dispute. Multiple emails requesting verification and reverifying information you supply multiply times shows inefficiency on Stripes behalf. Bank statements and banking information that has been the same since the beginning of the account and now in question is beyond me. The fact they have no record of information supplied multiple times is concerning.

Clunky and confusing

Pros:

What I liked about stripe was their ability to be a middle man without intuit or Square. I also like the integration with specific websites and services like Buy me a Coffee and Beatstars.

Cons:

What a confusing slow mess of a product with a terrible app to boot. If you don’t receive payments through them regularly they will put your entire account on hold forcing you to call to never speak to a human.

DO NOT USE STRIPE - its a CON!

Comments: The site is clunky and not intuitive to use.
I wish I had read the very small fine print about them keeping their fees.
It seems that dishonesty is part of the DNA of all large corporations these days.

Pros:

Easy to integrate and the security system seems pretty good, but you dont really know until its too late.

Cons:

I had a customer pay their AUD$7000 invoice twice. I refunded the second payment but Stripe kept the entire AUD$393 of fees !! For doing NOTHING!!! But it gets better. Stripe took 5.7% in fees when my international fees are only 3.5%. They claimed that it just covers their costs. Ironic how Paypal and the banks only charge a couple dollars for the same thing. They are fraudulent and dishonest.

Easy online payment method

Pros:

Easy to use and so many options for recurring and one-time payments

Cons:

Visual side of the order forms should be more customizable

Stripe for billing at a counseling practice

Pros:

Easy to use and to link to my client management software.

Cons:

I would prefer if the rate can be lower or if it was lowered based on how long you have been using stripe.