Top 8 Stripe Competitors That You Should Consider

Stripe, Inc. is an American financial and software services company that has its headquarters in Ireland as well. They lie in Dublin, and its American division is located in San Francisco, CA. Though Stripe is heavily involved in the finance sector, its payment processor is more popular. It generates Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that developers can use to install payment processing in their algorithms.

Stripe’s financial services include the Atlas platform, which enables start-ups to register their businesses. The company has another portal where any US resident can apply for loans and Mastercard and Visa credit cards. Stripe has recently started a publishing division called Stripe Press in an attempt to promote new ideas for businesses.

Name	Stripe
Founded	2009
Headquarters	San Francisco, CA, US, and Dublin, Ireland
SIC Code	5411
Status	Private, Independent Company
Industry Sector	Finance / Payment Processing
Employees	4000
Trading Symbol	N/A

Stripe, the brand, was formed in 2009 by two brothers of Irish origin, John and Patrick Collison in Palo Alto, CA. Did you know that the company received funding from Elon Musk and Peter Thiel (PayPal founders) within two years of its launch? The brothers wanted to provide Stripe’s services in their home country as well, due to which they opened headquarters in Dublin.

Apart from payment processing and finance, the company is known for several other services too, like billing, Sigma, Connect, Radar, and Terminal. It has made various business acquisitions over the years, starting with Kickoff, a chat management firm. Its business continues to grow to this day, with a revenue of $7.4 billion.

Stripe Similar Companies:

PayPal, Block, Adyen, Payoneer, Venmo, Amazon Pay, Chargebee, Checkout.

Who is Stripe’s Biggest Competitor?

The biggest competitor of Stripe is PayPal. PayPal Holdings, Inc. has been operational since 1998. It was initially called Confinity. It is one of the largest and most popular online payments portals in the world. Furthermore, it was founded by notable entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Luka Nosek. PayPal corporate headquarters lie in San Jose, CA, but it conducts its operations through its La Vista, NE branch.

How Stripe makes Money

Stripe primarily generates revenue from its online payment portal. A small fee is charged for every transaction that is conducted by the customer. Plus, a percentage of the amount may be deducted according to the subscription. Stripe offers a number of packages and discounts based on how big their client is. Additional products provided by the company are credit cards, loans, business registration packages, and book publishing.

Industry – Online Payment Processing

Stripe’s main product is its online payment gateway, which contributes to a major part of its $7.4 billion revenue. The online payment processing industry constitutes any website that enables B2B or B2C transactions. Even C2C or C2B transactions are sometimes included in this.

In Stripe, you can make payments through various methods like credit cards, debit cards, internet banking, etc. It’s a secure payment portal that provides APIs for integrating the official Stripe processor on any virtual platform. To prevent fraudulent banking, the company has an anti-fraud system called Radar in place. 

Another major service available only to US residents is Stripe’s Terminal. Through this service, you don’t need to enter your credit card details on the website. Just swipe your card in the terminal provided to initiate the transaction. The Terminal service is compatible with two readers, namely Verifone P400 and BBPOS Chipper 2X BT.

PayPal

There really isn’t much to say about PayPal that you wouldn’t already know. Online money transfers can be made on their platform. You can even issue checks and money orders through their portal. PayPal is free for regular customers, but commercial businesses need to pay a fee to register. The company is currently led by John Donahoe as the chairman and Dan Schulman as the president and CEO.

Industry – Finance Tech / Online Payment Processing

FinTech is a pretty vast and ambitious industry since it aims to replace all the traditional financial methods with their internet counterparts. PayPal facilitates internet banking, including the use of money orders and checks. However, it is best known for being one of the most secure payment processors on the planet. Indeed, most of its staggering $21 billion revenue emerges from online transactions.

PayPal’s business model was once heavily dependent on eBay. Did you know that eBay was its parent organization for over a decade before it became independent? Today, PayPal has established its own unique niche with a multitude of other clients, but eBay remains its main source of income. It has hundreds of millions of active accounts, and you can conduct your transaction in over 25 different currencies.

Block

You may never have heard about Block, Inc., but you surely must know about Square, as the company was previously named. Square is an online payments system founded in 2009 by Jack Dorsey. Its name was recently changed to Block. While Block comprises the entirety of the company’s offerings, the system for small businesses is still titled Square.

The company has its premises in San Francisco, CA, but its presence can be felt throughout the US, UK, Canada, Ireland, Australia, and Japan. Dorsey, the founder, owns a major part of its stocks to this day. Block generates a revenue of around $9.5 billion.

Online Payment Processing

Dorsey created Block to help one of his friends who wasn’t able to complete a sale because his business did not accept credit cards. Block’s primary target audience is small and medium-sized businesses. It enables such businesses to process credit card payments over a tablet or smartphone-based app.

The various compatible applications that the company has created so far include Square, Cash App, Afterpay, etc. Other software firms like Weebly and Tidal are its subsidiaries.

Adyen

Adyen is an e-commerce payment processor that was founded in 2006 by a group of professionals experienced in the fields of finance and software. It is headquartered in Amsterdam, Netherlands. It has branch offices in many other parts of the world, and its services span the entire planet. With 2300 employees, it generates a revenue of over $776 million.

Online Payment Processing

A publicly-traded company, Adyen conducts electronic transactions via credit and debit cards, and even direct bank transfers. It is known to collaborate with local banks to necessitate a smooth, quick transaction. The client’s payment is assessed for fraudulent activity before it is processed by a credit card network to make a bank transfer.

It took Adyen a while to take off; over five whole years went by before it started generating profits. But today, it is considered to be among the most efficient online payment processors on the globe. The company is presently run by Pieter van der Does as the CEO.

Payoneer

The first name that usually comes to mind after PayPal is Payoneer. And indeed, when it comes to making ultra-fast international payments, you can never go wrong with this processor. Payoneer was founded in 2005 by Yuval Tal. However, it wasn’t publicly traded till 2021. Its headquarters are located in New York City, NY, and its revenue lies somewhere around $460 million.

Online Payment Processing

Payoneer’s payment processor is among the most efficient ones out there, at least for making international payments. It is compatible with over 150 different currencies, more than most other payment portals. You will be assigned your own e-wallet after registration, after which you can send and receive money in your own currency regardless of the currency of the other party.

Payoneer specializes in B2B payment processing, with huge clients like Amazon, Google, and Upwork utilizing its services. Their customer care team is among the best, with over 300 employees catering to millions of customers in 70 different languages. Small and medium-sized businesses have an advantage using the app since they can conduct transactions for a nominal fee.

Venmo

Venmo is a peer-to-peer mobile payment platform that was launched in 2009. It was acquired by PayPal in 2012, but since it focuses only on non-commercial transactions, it is a payment processing competitor in its own right. While PayPal governs the world of business transactions, Venmo is the leader in enabling small transactions like those between friends and family. It generates a revenue of around $450 million.

Mobile Transactions

You cannot access Venmo’s services on a desktop. It is only available as an app on Android and iOS. The company is based in New York City, NY, and it provides nationwide services. You cannot access its features when traveling outside the US. You can use your debit or credit card to facilitate payments. A bank account can also be directly linked to the app.

Venmo’s revenue usually comes through credit card transactions since it charges a 3% fee. Sending payments via debit card or bank account is free of cost. The payments cannot exceed $3000 per week.

Amazon Pay

As you would have guessed, Amazon Pay is owned by the multinational giant, Amazon. It is an online payment processor that enables registered Amazon users to make merchant payments on the internet. You can use it on any number of retail and commercial websites that support the platform. The service was launched in 2007, and it is currently active in 19 different countries. Amazon hasn’t publicly released its revenue yet.

Online Payment Processing

Amazon Pay is available to only those people who are registered on Amazon. But since they have over 200 million subscribers, Amazon Pay definitely generates more than a decent amount of profit. It is a free service that doesn’t charge any fees for making payments. Small businesses can use its Express feature, through which they can sell a limited number of products.

Chargebee

Chargebee is a B2B online payment platform that mostly caters to SaaS-related businesses. It was formed in Chennai, India, and it later shifted its operations to Walnut, CA. Established in 2010, its software was available to users in 2011. Chargebee started off as a localized business, only to expand into international waters with four branches and 17 countries.

Software / Online Billing

Chargebee offers subscription and billing applications to SaaS companies to facilitate secure and efficient transactions. It is one of the largest companies in this niche but is a very small part of the vast software industry. It barely generated satisfactory profits in the initial stages of its launch, but today, its revenue amounts to more than $203 million.

Checkout

Do not confuse Checkout with 2Checkout. They are two entirely different brands offering similar services. Checkout.com offers a wide variety of payment methods, including the good-old credit card. It focuses on helping businesses conduct secure transactions on the internet. The Swiss billionaire, Guillaume Pousaz, is the founder.

Online Payment Processing

Checkout was established in 2012, making it the youngest company on the list. It has experienced steady growth since then. Headquartered in London, UK, the company has 19 branches in many parts of the world, with a rising employee base of 1700. It generates a revenue upwards of $200 million.

Conclusion:

The top 8 Stripe Competitors are PayPal, Block, Adyen, Payoneer, Venmo, Amazon Pay, Chargebee, Checkout. All combined, they contribute revenue of $40.66 billion to the payment processing industry. They have a total number of employees in the range of 841,723. Stripe ranks third in the list, after PayPal and Block, with a revenue of $7.4 billion.

Competitor’s Stats:

Name	Founded	Headquarters	Employees
Paypal	1998	San Jose, CA, US	26,500
Block	2009	San Francisco, CA, US	5500
Adyen	2006	Amsterdam, Netherlands	2300
Payoneer	2005	New York City, NY, US	2057
Venmo	2009	New York City, NY, US	625
Amazon Pay	2007	Seattle, WA, US	798,000
Chargebee	2010	Walnut, CA, US	1016
Checkout	2012	London, UK	1700