# Stripe

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/payments/stripe/

Payment processing, billing and payouts by API, priced as a percentage of each successful charge with no monthly fee.

## Who it suits

Selling where you already handle your own tax registrations. At 1.5% + 20p on a standard UK card, Stripe is roughly three and a half points cheaper than every merchant of record here, and that gap is the whole reason to take on the VAT work yourself.

Consider something else if You sell internationally and do not want to register for sales tax in each jurisdiction. Stripe moves the money and leaves the liability with you — and its rate is set per country, so the number you budget from is not the number a buyer elsewhere generates.

## iScore

41 / 100 (80% interval 31–52), rank 5 of 5 in payments.

inetGeek's own reading, computed from sourced facts against category peers by disclosed rules. Not a provider claim. Intervals are 80%; a provider with few documented facts is pulled toward the category middle rather than scored on what little is known.
Method: https://inetgeek.com/iscore/. Full output with every criterion's basis: https://inetgeek.com/scores.json. Every payments peer ranked: https://inetgeek.com/payments/stripe/alternatives/

- Price: 39 (33–45), weight 44%, 2 of 2 criteria scored
- Capacity and limits: 38 (14–62), weight 6%, 1 of 1 criteria scored
- Trust and compliance: 25 (0–52), weight 38%, 1 of 1 criteria scored
- Evidence: 100 (100–100), weight 13%, 4 of 4 criteria scored

## What the documentation says

### Pricing

- Free tier: No ([source](https://stripe.com/gb/pricing), read 2026-09-15)
- Pricing model: Pay-as-you-go per successful charge, with no setup fee, no monthly fee and rates set per country. Volume discounts, multi-product discounts and interchange-plus pricing are offered on a custom package. ([source](https://stripe.com/gb/pricing), read 2026-09-15)
- Per-transaction fee: 1.5% + 20p for standard UK cards and 2.5% + 20p for EU cards, on the UK pricing page. Rates are per-country: the same URL family prints 2% for cards issued in India on stripe.com/in/pricing. ([source](https://stripe.com/gb/pricing), read 2026-09-15)

### Infrastructure

- Countries served: 195 countries for cardholders, listed as available out of the box. That is where a buyer can pay, not where a business can incorporate — Stripe accounts are available in far fewer. ([source](https://stripe.com/gb/pricing), read 2026-09-15)

### Support

- Support on entry paid plan: Technical support through the official Stripe Developer Discord server, listed among the features available out of the box on the pricing page. ([source](https://stripe.com/gb/pricing), read 2026-09-15)

### Compliance

- Merchant of record: Not supported ([source](https://stripe.com/gb/pricing), read 2026-09-15)

## Compared with

- [Stripe vs Paddle](https://inetgeek.com/compare/stripe-vs-paddle/)
- [Stripe vs Lemon Squeezy](https://inetgeek.com/compare/stripe-vs-lemon-squeezy/)
- [Stripe vs Polar](https://inetgeek.com/compare/stripe-vs-polar/)
- [Stripe vs Dodo Payments](https://inetgeek.com/compare/stripe-vs-dodo-payments/)