Are you trying to decide between Stripe vs PayPal to collect payments or donations on your website?
Because Stripe and PayPal are the most popular online payment solutions, your decision on picking a payment provider for your site probably comes down to these two.
This article will compare the pros and cons of both payment gateways, so you can decide if Stripe vs PayPal works better for you to accept online payments for your business.
Accept Stripe + PayPal On Your Site’s Forms Now
Stripe vs PayPal Compared
Stripe and PayPal are two of the most well-known payment solutions that let you collect money online. To collect funds from your site visitors through your website, your business needs a payment provider. If you want to know the differences between Stripe vs PayPal, you have to look at the pros and cons of both.
What Exactly Does Stripe Do?
Stripe is an online payment service that lets people accept and send money over the internet, and its popularity is growing in the eCommerce world. Stripe is especially liked by code-savvy people or teams with in-house programmers because of its customizable development tools. It’s a popular pick for small businesses but is also used by companies like Pinterest, Lyft, Blue Apron, and TaskRabbit.
Read our article on how to accept payments with Stripe if you’d like to set that up.
What Exactly Does PayPal Do?
PayPal is a payment solution that lets users make and receive payments online, and it’s very well-known. PayPal claims to have over 267 million customer accounts, including over 21 million merchants. Nearly everyone has a PayPal account these days and it’s easily one of the most recognizable names in the eCommerce payments industry.
Who Uses Stripe and PayPal?
Collecting payments on your website is easy with WPForms for many types of businesses, including:
- Freelancers
- Brick-and-mortar shops who want to also sell online
- Nonprofits collecting donations
- eCommerce companies
- Agencies
- Online marketplaces
- Entrepreneurs
- And more
To get started creating a simple order form right away, read our tutorial on how to create a simple order form in WordPress.
Stripe vs PayPal at a Glance
It’s a smart idea to compare payment gateway services for your business. So, let’s compare the basics.
WPForms integrates with Stripe, Authorize.Net, Square, and PayPal for accepting payments, but you’ll still want to research the differences between the all of them. Here, let’s take a look at a summary snapshot of Stripe vs PayPal.
| Service | Stripe | PayPal Standard |
|---|---|---|
| Fee per Transaction* | 2.9% + 30¢ | 2.9% + 30¢ |
| Nonprofit Discount* | 2.2% + 35¢** | 2.2% + 30¢ |
| Setup Costs or Monthly Fees | No | No |
| Contract Required | No | No |
| Micropayments (<$10) | 5% + 10¢** | 5% + .05¢ |
| Recurring Billing | 0.5%+ | No |
| Chargeback Fee | $15 | $20 |
| Refunds | No Fees Returned | No Fees Returned |
| Customer Support | Email, Help Center, 24/7 Phone & Chat | Email, Help Center, Phone & Chat |
| Ease of Use | Easy | Easy |
| Ease of Setup | Moderate | Easy |
| PCI Compliance | Yes | Yes |
| Countries Available | 32+ | 200+ |
| Access to Funds Times | 2 Days (Average) | Immediate |
| Data Portability | Yes | No |
| Online Invoicing | Free for your first $1M in sales | Free |
| In-Person Card Readers | Paid | Free & Paid |
| Payments Handled 100% on Your Site | Yes | No |
| *US-based only. Fees vary by country.
**Includes RADAR fee. See below for more info. |
||
Important Considerations When Choosing Stripe vs PayPal
There are some important things to compare when choosing Stripe vs PayPal:
Since this is a lengthy article, we’ve added a table of contents for easy navigation.
- Cost
- Micropayments
- Chargebacks/Refunds
- Customer Support
- Ease of Use
- Ease of Setup
- Security
- Availability
- Access to Funds Time
- Compatibility
- Data Portability
- Online Invoicing
- Card Readers
- Where Payments Are Handled
Let’s take a deeper look at each factor:
Cost – Stripe Fees vs PayPal Fees
Both Stripe and PayPal are very transparent about their fees, which is one of the reasons why they’re leaders in the online payments industry. Both Stripe and PayPal’s US fees per transaction are 2.9% + 30¢ and both offer plans with no setup costs, basic monthly fees, or contracts.
So, with both Stripe and PayPal, your business is eligible for lower pricing if you hit a certain number in monthly sales. Stripe fees get lower at $80,000 per month and for PayPal it happens at a much lower sales volume of $3,000 per month.
Both companies offer nonprofit discounts at 2.2% + 30¢ for US fees, which makes them a great choice if you’re trying to build nonprofit donation forms for WordPress.
Stripe RADAR Fees
Stripe also charges a RADAR fee of .05¢ for every transaction attempted. The RADAR fee will be charged even if the payment fails.
For example, if a user enters the wrong expiry date, you will be charged a RADAR fee for that attempt. If they then try again, you’ll be charged a second RADAR fee, and so on.
This fee is waived on Standard accounts. But if you are a nonprofit, you will be charged RADAR fees.
Micropayments
If you’re processing transactions of less than $10, you’ll be charged a different rate.
PayPal’s micropayment rates are 5% + .05¢ per transaction.
At Stripe, you will be charged the micropayment rate of 5% + .05¢, plus a .05¢ RADAR fee per attempt on top.
Chargebacks/Refunds
A chargeback is a charge reversal that happens when somebody contacts their bank and reports a transaction on their card that they don’t agree with or think is fraud. They exist to protect cardholders, but are sometimes over-utilized which can be frustrating since your business will pay a fee for each chargeback that happens.
Stripe has a chargeback fee of $15, while PayPal’s chargeback fee is $20.
Also, if your customer gets a refund, you won’t get your processing fees back from Stripe or PayPal.
Customer Support
Stripe has several ways to get in touch when you have questions including a help center, social media, and chat support channels (with support reps or developers), plus phone and email support.
PayPal has multiple ways to get answers to your questions from their customer support team like a community forum, a help center, and social media, plus email, live chat and phone support.
Even with all these ways to get your questions answered, users still say that the quality of customer service from both Stripe and PayPal can vary from good to poor and is frustrating at times. However, Stripe recently added 24/7 access to both phone and chat support while PayPal’s support still goes dark at some hours of the day.
Stripe has also added an option for paid Premium Support with extra features:
Ease of Use
Both Stripe and PayPal are known for being super easy to use. Both companies have made it really simple for customers to pay online.
Ease of Setup
Stripe is more customizable over PayPal. However, to embed a feature like a Pay With Card button on your site, Stripe requires a bit more development knowledge and can sometimes be tricky for non-technical users. WPForms is the best Stripe plugin for WordPress, so integrating with Stripe and PayPal is a breeze since they’re both available in our pre-built form templates with the Stripe and PayPal Standard Addons.
Security
Both Stripe and PayPal’s services are PCI Complaint. In other words, they meet the strict standards of the Payment Card Industry and your cardholder data is stored securely.
Availability
PayPal is available is many more countries than Stripe. Currently, PayPal is offered in 200+ countries while Stripe has just 32+ countries (and growing).
Access to Funds Time
Stripe will automatically deposit your funds into your bank account with a 2-day average payout time. On the other hand, your funds are available immediately in your PayPal account with PayPal Standard. However, PayPal averages a 2-4 day payout time when moving your funds from your PayPal account into your bank account.
Compatibility
You can use both Stripe and PayPal with WordPress, and both products are integrated with WPForms. Check out our list of PayPal integrations for more information.
Data Portability
At some point, you may want to move all your data to another payment processor that is not Stripe or PayPal. This is known as Data Portability.
Stripe values Data Portability, so they’ll help you move your credit card data in a PCI Compliant way.
PayPal won’t give you this data if you try to switch processors, which can be a headache. For some people, it’s important to have the choice to be able to move their payment data if they want.
Online Invoicing
Stripe and PayPal both have customizable online invoicing. This is free with PayPal, and free with Stripe until you bill over $1 million. You may be surprised how quickly your sales add up. If your online store is doing poorly in sales, check out this guide to eCommerce optimization on our sister site that can help boost your revenue.
Card Readers
If you’re a brick-and-mortar store adding an online presence and want to use the same payment processor for your storefront and your website, you can do just that with both Stripe and PayPal.
PayPal has integrations into many popular Point of Sale systems, and both Stripe and PayPal offer their own physical card readers. PayPal will give you free card readers and also has paid card readers you can buy, while Stripe only offers paid card readers.
Where Payments Are Handled
It’s important to note that Stripe lets people pay you without ever leaving your website. PayPal requires people to exit your website to sign in to a PayPal account before being redirected back to your site, which may be undesirable for you if you want to keep your branding consistent from start to finish during your customer’s buying process.
On the other hand, this step may not bother some business owners as this is a fairly familiar process for many customers, but it’s a factor to consider.
Stripe Pros
Here are some of the benefits of using Stripe to collect money online:
- Flat, predictable rates
- Easy for your customers to use
- Keep and move your customer data
- Customers never leave your site during the buying cycle
- Nonprofit discounts
- No contract required
- Lower chargeback fee ($15)
- 24/7 support
- Multiple support options (help center, phone, live chat, and email)
- Developer live chat support for complex issues
- PCI Compliant
Stripe Cons
This solution might not be a perfect fit for everyone:
- Isn’t as user-friendly to set up (The WPForms support team has you covered with this guide on how to install the Stripe Addon)
- Not as well-known or a household name like PayPal
- Takes longer to access your money (2-day average)
- No fees returned with refunds
- Inconsistent support quality
- Available in fewer countries than PayPal
- Online invoicing only free until $1M in sales
PayPal Standard Pros
Let’s check out some benefits of using PayPal Standard for accepting payments on your website:
- Flat, predictable rates
- Easy to setup an account
- Easy for your customers to use
- Integrations with some POS systems if you want to sell in person
- Customers are familiar with and trust PayPal
- Funds are available immediately in your PayPal account
- Nonprofit discounts
- No contract required
- Multiple support options (help center, phone, live chat and email)
- PCI Compliant
- Available in 200+ countries
- Free online invoicing
- Free card readers for your storefront
PayPal Standard Cons
Like most things, there are a few downsides to using PayPal Standard to collect payments on your website. Let’s take a look:
- Can’t move all your customer data to another payment processor
- No Recurring Billing
- Redirects customers away from your website during the checkout process
- Higher chargeback fee ($20)
- Inconsistent support quality
- No fees returned with refunds
Stripe vs PayPal – Which One Is Better?
So which online payment gateway should you use?
The answer depends on your business’ individual needs including your industry, the type of customers you have, and what you’re selling. One type of merchant may prefer to go with one payment solution over another.
It’s also important to note that with WPForms, you don’t have to select just one payment solution to accept payments on your website.
You Can Use Both
To use both Stripe and PayPal, you’ll need to setup accounts with each company. This way, you can allow your visitors to select which one they want to use. Head over to our guide on how to allow users to choose a payment method to learn more.
If you do this, keep in mind that your funds will be deposited to your bank account separately, which could cause extra administrative work. You’ll be spending more time dealing with both Stripe and PayPal if you’re using the two, so weigh all your options before deciding if this is the best route for you.
With the simplicity of WPForms, even non-technical people can create beautiful order forms that accept payments or donations right on their WordPress site with our pre-built donation and order form templates. You can easily let users choose if they want to pay through either Stripe or PayPal in your forms.
Accept Stripe + PayPal On Your Site’s Forms Now
Final Thoughts
Both Stripe and PayPal offer great features and major flexibility. Ultimately, which payment gateway you choose depends on your business’ specific needs.
Accepting payments in WordPress is super simple with WPForms. With our addons for Stripe, Square, and PayPal, you can easily collect payments and donations through the most popular online payment gateways directly on your website.
And there you have it! You can now make an educated decision about whether Stripe vs PayPal will be a better fit for your business to collect payments or donations online, based on their individual pros and cons.
Ready to create a form that accepts payments? Head over to our tutorial on how to create a simple order form in WordPress.
So, what are you waiting for? Get started with the most powerful WordPress forms plugin today.
And don’t forget, if you like this article, then please follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
Very useful comparison between paypal and stripe. Thanks.
Thanks, Shanavas. We are glad to hear that you like it! 🙂
That was extremely helpful, thank you! Well written.
Hi Danielle!
Thanks for your feedback!
We are glad to hear that you like it.
Have a good one 🙂
The information about PayPal refunds is not accurate – PayPal returns the percentage, but not the fixed fee. The article mentions the other way around.
Hi Sergey!
I wanted to let you know, that we have contacted PayPal to check this with them and currently edited this article.
Thank you for reporting this!
Have a good one 🙂
Since March 2020 Paypal does NOT REFUND anything. They keep the fixed fee AND the percentage. This was a recent change.
It was waived then until May 31 for COVID-19 help.
Again now you are not refunded ANY fees from paypal, they keep ALL OF IT.
Hey Bodo- Thank you so much for the great information! This is really helpful!
Thanks and have a good one 🙂
Iam going to start an online business on eBooks but I just have a quick question.
If I use Paypal as the payment gateway on Kartra ( or any other similar click funnel) will customers be able to purchase the digital products with their Credit or Debit cards? or they only will be able to use their Paypal to buy the products?
Hi Ehsan – In PayPal, as long as you have a business account you can give your customers the option to purchase with just a card (even if they don’t have a PayPal account). If you have any other questions about PayPal, Stripe, or purchase forms, please reach out to our support team — we’d be happy to help 🙂
Say I want to start selling digital art and am not going to have a brick and mortar store. Will customers see my actual address with Stripe or PayPal? I can’t tell.
Hey Sabrina, PayPal and Stripe both have a good amount of flexibility in terms of what info you want to show in your invoice. I have seen some digital goods companies using an email address on the invoice instead of a physical address. It might also depend on the country where you are situated and where your customers are. As most of the payment gateways like PayPal and Stripe have some specific regulations for each country, it would be best if you reach out to their support and confirm more info about it.
Wish you all the best for you digital art site 🙂
Hi,
What if a person creates a Stripe or PayPal account and does not make a transaction for months. Will there be still any monthly charges?
Hi Shahid!
The user will be charged for it automatically once there are enough funds in their account. If a user wants to cancel their subscription, they can do this in their account anytime.
I hope this helps.
Have a good one 🙂
Neither has any monthly charges, whether or not you use the account in a given month.
Hey Steven – Thanks for chiming in and for the useful info. Would you mind providing some link on the Stripe website mentioning this info so that users can see the source of info for their reference?
Thanks again for the details!
One different for 501(c)3 nonprofits is that PayPal offers their nonprofit discount for all payments to the nonprofit, while with Stripe, at least 80% of payments to the nonprofit’s account must be donations (not tickets or tuition or memberships or anything else), or you get no nonprofit discount on any payment.
Hey Steven – Thanks for such insights, could you please provide some source of this info, like a page link on Stripe, maybe we can update that in the article as well and users can see the good info with its source as well.
Thanks!
Be carefull, you are given FALSE Information on this website about micrpayment:
Citation “If you’re processing transactions of less than $10, Stripe offers micropayment support with the same flat rate as your standard fee per transaction. Paypal’s micropayment rates are 5% + .05¢ per transaction.”
Stripe Micropayment is EXTREM bad solution.
Details:
a) The rate is 5% + 5 Cent, but only up to 5$ (not 10)
+
b) You will fall out of the “standard rate” when you switch to micropayment rate, that MEANS, that stripe will charge you RADAR FEES. The RADAR fees are applied to ALL your transactions(!), that means also transactions above 5$.
RAdar fees are 5 Cent for EVERY credit-card check.
THIS will become VERY expensive.
First: The standard rate is no longer 5% + 5Cent, it is at least 5%+10Cent, or 2.5%+30 Cent (your normal rate will ALSO increse by 5 Cent)
Second: RADAR is also charged for FAILED payments or DELCINED cards.
I had days where I had NO PAYMENT at all, but I was charged like 0.20$ RADAR fees because 1-2 customers tried to pay with credit card and failed.
STRIPE for MICROPAYMENT IS DANGEROUS! Their fees are very strange. AND Stripe is HIDING the RADAR fees (you do not see them with your normal transaction, there is an EXTRA form that just shows you a daily summary for RADAR fees) You will think that you are NOT CHARGED for RADAR, but at the end of the month you see maybe a 100$ missing!
Hey Bodo – Thanks for the details, could you please provide some source link for this info? then maybe we can update the details in our article itself.
Please let me know!
Source for Micropayment fees with Stripe:
Stripe Pricing:
https://stripe.com/pricing
It is VERY HARD to understand the stripe pricing because their rules are not clear, scroll to RADAR fees, see they are 5 Cent, see they are WAIVED for STANDARD accounts (2.9%+30 Cent). so normal you do not pay for RADAR.
Understand: Micropayment is NON-Standard fee, that means: RADAR is no longer waived. Ok?
That means:
Standard RATE becomes 2.9%+35 Cent)
Micropayment RATE = 5% + 10 Cent
REALITY: You are charged RADAR MORE often than you have successfull transactions (Radar BLOCKS declined payments, but you PAY for every BLOCKING).
In my case it was +6 Cent for Radar, not +5 Cent, because about 20% of all payments are BLOCKED or FAIL (also a WRONG INPUT from the Customer is a BLOCK and will cost you 5 Cent, for example if the customer types in a WRONG ZIP CODE first, you pay 5 CENT, then he types in the CORRECT ZIP code, you are charged 5 CENT again because these are 2 checks) – thats why about 20% of all payments first fail, then people re-try and only 5% or so fail… You understand?
RAdar is very expensive because you also PAY it for every standard-transaction.
I am a little bit pissed of by Stripes pricing. There is a way to work-around the radar fees for standard-rate of course – 2 accounts.
Hey Bodo- Thank you so much for the detailed information on Stripe information! This is really helpful!
Thanks and have a good one 🙂
If someone pays through Stripe, and does not receive the package, does Stripe try to help the customer?
Hey Carolyn -Thanks for reaching out!
Regarding the package delivery and other services, I’d recommend you to get in touch with Stripe’s support and double-check 🙂
I hope this helps!
This article should be update to note that recurring billing, aka Stripe’s Billing (or Subscriptions), is no longer a free add-on. To use Stripe’s recurring billing features now costs an additional .5% per transaction. See: https://stripe.com/billing/pricing
That said, I’ve been a Stripe customer for many years, and imo their recurring billing features are worth the +.5%
Hey David — thanks for the heads up here! I’ve highlighted this to our blogging team and we’ll get that updated soon!
Thanks again, and have a good one!! 🙂
There are some things not mentioned here, against Paypal and in favor of Stripe.
First of all, the Paypal claims (people asking for a refund) and the way decisions are made are very unclear with Paypal. This has cost me quite a bit of money over the past few years. Never with Stripe so far.
Second… I receive money in different currencies on my Paypal account. USD, EUR etc. At Stripe I can have my money transferred to a Euro account, a USD account. Whatever I want. With Paypal I can only link an account in GBP (I have a UK LTD as a company). As a result, I have to have my USD and EUR converted to GBP by Paypal before I can transfer the money. After transferring the money, I have to convert the GBP back to EUR or USD.
I understand that Paypal wants to make extra money by forcing you to convert your money at an unfavorable exchange rate. But all in all, the total costs for a Paypal payment are close to 10% for me. With Stripe less than 3%.
Hi D! Thanks for sharing your insight and experience regarding PayPal and Stripe with us and our other users 🙂
Is there a workaround in adding a government issue ID for non-profit organizations? Our CPA and Board of Directors feel this is a conflict of interest in that there is no owner of a non-profit.
Hi Lesey, I’m sorry but I’m not sure I quite understand your question. Are you referring to the application form for a WPForms non-profit license? If this is the case, what we’re looking for is a document that verifies your organization’s non profit status, and are usually provided by either your tax agency or where your organization is registered.
I hope this helps to clarify 🙂 If you have any further questions about this, please contact us.
Could you compare and comment on their privacy policies also, please? It seems they have access to all your website searches once you subscribe for their services (according to the privacy policy statements of one of them).
Hi S P! Thanks for your suggestion, we’ll make a note of this to our writing team for consideration 🙂
All i want to know in NGO project :
1. Which one is suitable for international transactions -(Stripe or paypal)
2. (info )The receiving account is in India
3. Is their a limit per transaction to send donations For ngo belongs to india ?
Thanks
Atin
Hi Atin,
Paypal can be a good option for International Transactions. Here is an article from PayPal regarding the cost for nonprofits and charities.
Also, for more details, I would also recommend you to consult your respective bank on transactional fees.
Hope this helps! 🙂
How do I open a verified stripe account?
I want my my business to go international
I’m not in the US
Hi Ade,
In that case, I’d recommend you reach out to Stripe Support for exact information on this.
Thanks 🙂