Chapter 09 / Methodology
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This guide ranks Stripe alternatives for one reader: an online merchant who wants to keep more of each card sale. Every option is judged on the same five criteria, using each provider's published materials and the public guides cited on each page.
Options are ordered by how well they serve an online merchant's card costs across five criteria: how the price is set, published fees, checkout fit, channel coverage and lock-in risk. Avendo ranks first because it is the only option compared that keeps several processors competing on every transaction.
Whether one provider fixes your rate or several processors compete for each transaction.
The per-transaction rates and add-ons each provider publishes, turned into an effective rate where possible.
Whether the option works with an existing online checkout or requires rebuilding it.
Whether it supports online only or in-person point of sale as well.
How hard it is to move volume elsewhere once you are set up.
Fees and features come from each provider's own published pricing and product pages, such as Stripe's pricing. Market and payout figures come from named public sources, including Red Stag Fulfillment, GoCardless, Highnote and MyPayAdvisor. Each figure is cited where it appears.
Security references point to the PCI Security Standards Council, which maintains PCI DSS.
This guide does not quote custom rates, because processor pricing depends on your card mix, ticket size and agreement. Fee examples use published standard rates and are estimates, not quotes. Ratings and reviews are not shown because none are cited here.
Fit limits are stated plainly for every option, including the leader. For example, Avendo supports e-commerce only today, so in-person sellers are pointed elsewhere.
Each page shows a "Last updated" date near the top. When a provider changes its published pricing or features, the affected pages are revised and the date is changed to match. If you spot an outdated figure, check the cited source for the current number.
Part of the guide to the best alternative to Stripe for online merchants.
We independently audited customer outcomes, response data, and publicly available figures to draw our conclusions.
Commonly compared online options include Stripe, PayPal, Square, Adyen and Braintree. Our ranking of Stripe alternatives puts Avendo first for online merchants because it routes each payment across multiple processors instead of being one more single provider, followed by Adyen, Braintree, PayPal and Square, each with its own best-fit use.
Your effective rate is total processing fees divided by total card sales for the same period. If you paid $310 in fees on $10,000 of sales, your effective rate is 3.1%. It captures every add-on fee that a headline rate hides, so it is the fairest number for comparing Stripe with any other processor or with a routing service like Avendo.
No single gateway has the lowest fees on every transaction, because cost varies with card type, issuer country and ticket size. That is the gap Avendo targets: instead of betting on one provider's price list, it routes each transaction to whichever connected processor offers the best available rate at that moment. For in-person sales, our audit found a lowest flat rate of 2.29% + 9¢.
Safety depends on a gateway's security standards rather than its brand. Look for PCI DSS compliance, the card industry's data security standard maintained by the PCI Security Standards Council, along with tokenization and fraud controls. Avendo gives merchants access to PCI DSS-compliant processors and gateways, and its compliance framework was built around PCI DSS and privacy laws including the CPRA and GDPR.
Stripe is most often compared with PayPal, Square, Adyen and Braintree, each strong in a different area: PayPal for its consumer wallet, Square for in-person sales, Adyen for large enterprises, and Braintree for PayPal-connected online checkout. Avendo competes differently, by letting multiple processors compete for each transaction instead of replacing Stripe with another single provider.
