Payments · facts read November 6, 2026
Stripe
Payment processor with subscription billing, invoicing, a customer portal and tax add-ons. The broadest billing toolkit and the lowest base fee; you handle tax registration.
- Free plan
- No monthly fee. US cards: 2.9% + 30¢ per successful domestic transaction; +1.5% international cards; +1% when currency conversion is needed.
- Paid from
- Billing: 0.7% of billing volume (pay as you go). Stripe Tax: 0.5% per transaction where you're registered.
- Monthly cost at 1,000 users
- $0/month No monthly fee. Plus 2.9% + 30¢ per card charge, plus 0.7% of billing volume for subscriptions.
- Free plan allows commercial use
- Not stated
- Open source
- No
- Self-hostable
- No
Source: Stripe pricing, read November 6, 2026. Prices change; check the vendor's page before you commit.
Best for
- Subscriptions, seats and usage-based billing
- Lowest per-transaction fee
- Invoices for B2B customers
Watch out for
- Not a merchant of record by default: sales tax and VAT registration are yours (Stripe Tax helps calculate).
- Billing adds 0.7% of billing volume on pay-as-you-go.
How Cuely scores Stripe
The published scores, from −3 to +3, that decide when Cuely picks it. Method
- +3sells to businesses (organizations, roles, SSO). Invoices, seats, usage billing and a hosted customer portal.
- +2charges by usage. Meters API for usage-based billing, up to 100M events a month included in Billing pricing.
- +2keep costs as low as possible. Lowest base fee of the options here.
- +2regulated or compliance-sensitive. Card data stays on Stripe, which keeps your PCI scope small.
- +2high volume. Percentage fees are the lowest here and negotiable at volume.
- −1users pay each other and you take a cut. Plain Stripe can't split a payment and pay providers out; that is Stripe Connect.
- −1sells internationally and wants tax handled. You register for and file sales tax and VAT yourself, unless you add Managed Payments (3.5% extra).
- −3native iOS or Android app. Apple requires in-app purchase for digital subscriptions inside iOS apps (Guideline 3.1.1); use Stripe only for web checkout or real-world goods.
Stripe alternatives
Recipes with Stripe
- AI app that answers questions over your customers' documents · the pick
- B2B SaaS with auth, billing and email · the pick
- Consumer web app with accounts and an optional paid plan · the pick
- Phone app with in-app subscriptions · an alternative