comparisons
Payment Gateway Head-to-Head Comparisons
Direct head-to-head cost analysis between major payment gateways. Each comparison covers cost-per-$100 at four GMV bands, feature parity, and the switching cost from one to the other.
All comparisons
Each comparison uses a verified June 2026 rate card from both vendors' own published pricing pages.
Stripe vs PayPal
Stripe vs PayPal: 2.9% vs 2.89%, then disputes and international diverge sharply.
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Stripe vs Square
Stripe vs Square: developer API vs in-person retail. Same 2.9% online, very different ground game.
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Stripe vs Braintree
Stripe vs Braintree: 2.9% + 30c vs 2.89% + 29c. The 1c gap matters at scale; the PayPal-as-method does too.
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Stripe vs Adyen
Stripe vs Adyen: flat-rate scaling vs interchange-plus enterprise. Adyen quote-only by design.
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PayPal vs Square
PayPal vs Square: 2.89% Advanced Checkout vs 2.6% Square in-person, plus very different dispute economics.
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verified Last verified June 2026