Stripe is a well-known pay-as you-go payment platform. It is simple to set up, offers lots of customization and is affordable so it’s not surprising that Stripe has become a major player in today’s market. The best choice for your business may not always be the most popular. We’ll be evaluating Stripe payments to determine if it’s the right option for you.
What is Stripe?
Stripe is a payment provider (PSP). It allows you to accept debit/credit card, digital wallets and ACH payments from your customers. Stripe Payments is best for eCommerce businesses.
What is Stripe Work?
Stripe Payments allows you to connect your business with customers who pay. It validates the payment method and facilitates money movement. Here’s how Stripe works.
The entire process takes less than a minute. Stripe will receive funds in a matter of days after the transaction is approved by the customer’s bank. You can then transfer funds to your Stripe account.
Stripe: Who uses it?
Stripe’s most important features are made for global and online businesses. Stripe’s best features are designed for online and/or global businesses.
Stripe’s open API is one of the best features for large businesses and other online businesses. This feature allows programmers to create their own framework to facilitate Stripe’s payment processing. This basically means that you can create your own payment options based on your programming skills and creativity. Stripe is primarily used by large online businesses for this reason and many more.
Services and Payment Methods with Stripe
Stripe, just like any other payment processor allows you to accept major credit cards and debit cards from customers. Stripe also offers a variety of local payment options in 34 different countries. You can also add custom options to allow you to accept ACH payments.
You’ll see many services that you can use to securely facilitate payments when you use Stripe. These services include recurring bill, installation support and invoicing.
Stripe Pricing and Fees
The price of payment processing by Stripe is very competitive when compared to similar services such as Square. Stripe offers a flat-rate billing system and a pay as you go model. Stripe will take the fees from your customer before depositing them into your bank account. Stripe does not charge a monthly subscription fee. These are the prices for Stripe:
The benefits of Stripe Payment Processing
There are many benefits to using Stripe in your business. These benefits include security and customization. These are the top benefits of Stripe payments.
It is easy to set up and use
It is very easy to create an account at Stripe. Stripe is a payment provider. This means that you can create an account and begin taking payments in a matter of hours.
Integrations with API are simple
Stripe offers an API that allows you to create custom solutions. The API provides a lot detail and is written in clear language, so your developer can quickly get started building.
Options for customization
Stripe allows for a wide range of customization options. You can configure both built-in and customized tools with ease. Your creativity is only limited by your programming skills.
Stripe is safe to use?
You can use Stripe for your business. They take extreme measures to protect credit card data and ensure there is no copy.
Secure storage and encryption
To be PCI-compliant, payment providers must comply with certain rules. Many of these rules concern data handling and storage.
Stripe’s payment gateway encrypts data prior to it moving. This means that once your customer enters their credit card number in your payment form it is instantly scrambled before being sent to the appropriate banks. This prevents hackers stealing sensitive data and intercepting communication.
If your customer chooses to store their payment details for a faster checkout, this data is encrypted and treated with care.
These security features include:
- The address verification service (AVS), verifies that the address entered matches the billing address associated with the card.
- CVV/CVV2 verification to verify that the CVV code entered matches that on the card.
- All checkout windows have HTTPS (SSL security certificates) to ensure that transaction data and pages are protected.
- Regular self-audits are performed to ensure security.
Fraud prevention
There are tools that can be used to detect suspicious transactions in fraud prevention. Radar is Stripe’s advanced fraud prevention tool. Subscribe to Radar to get fraud prevention at the highest level. This tool is available for all buy verified stripe accountLinks to an external site..
Compliance with PCI
Stripe, as we mentioned, is a PCI compliant provider. This means that it meets the standards of the PCI Security Standards Council.
They also certify their compliance every year. Stripe is a payment service provider and not a merchant account provider. Therefore, Stripe doesn’t need to be certified separately. To remain compliant, however, your business must follow some basic security precautions, such as not writing down the full card number.
There are downsides to Stripe Payments
Although we have focused mainly on the positives of Stripe payments, it is not for everyone. Here are some downsides to Stripe payments.
There are limited options for in-person payments
Stripe has some major drawbacks when it comes to in-person payments. Stripe was created to make online payments more convenient. Although it offers in-person payment processing options, the options are limited in comparison to other companies. You will need to purchase a Stripe device in order to take in-person payments.
Technical skills are required for customization
Although Stripe comes with basic functionality, it is not fully functional. To get the most from Stripe you will need to learn how to use the open API or hire a professional who can. This may be a limitation that makes Stripe less accessible to a standard small-to-medium-sized business. There are many customization options available, but you must be able to use them. Businesses are better served by having more features out of the box than an open-ended platform.
You may be forced to close your account
One of the most common complaints is Stripe freezing you account. Stripe, the merchant of record on you account, has full control over your access to payment processing.
There is also very little underwriting before you can access your account. Stripe is extremely vigilant about suspicious transactions. They can also withhold funds and stop you from accepting any new payments.
Stripe might not be the best option for your business if it is young, irregular in processing, or high-risk. You should consider a traditional merchant services provider who specializes in high-risk industries.
Transaction fees high and foreign currency conversion rate
Stripe’s pricing structure is more standard than similar services such as Square and PayPal. These fees can be higher than what you would pay for your merchant account.
The industry-high transaction fee of $0.30 is very beneficial for small businesses that have low ticket sizes. A transaction fee of $0.30 per transaction is an industry-high fee that can be very impactful for businesses with low average ticket sizes.
Your merchant payment processing fees and rates can easily exceed the standard without you even realizing.
