Is Stripe Payments The Best Online Payment Processor

Today, starting an online business is not as complicated as many people think it is, so you ask yourself is stripe payments one of the best payment gateways for online entrepreneurs more so for a dropshipping business model?

With the internet’s help, some countless tools and platforms can help you get started by setting up a storefront, tracking orders, and collecting payments. 

However, things were different in 2010. Setting up an online store or any other internet business required a lot of work and building websites.

You also had to figure out how to make a legacy payment processor work with the new type of business. Stripe payment was born in this type of marketplace. 

What are Stripe Payments?

Stripe payment was started in the year 2010, with the main mission of making it easier to accept payments over the internet. During this time, the credit card was still in use, but it was too much work. 

It meant working with a legacy processor or a middleman broker who was to provide you with access to the processor. 

You had to deal with banks, the respective credit card companies, and other additional services that were poorly explained and sold by third parties. 

This is to explain how accepting the credit card as a form of payment was complicated, and the whole process was poorly defined. People got into the deal without knowing what it entails to use credit cards as a form of payment. 

A stripe set is designed to fix all those problems by making the whole payment process as smooth as possible. 

The added services on Stripe, such as fraud protection, fixed rates regardless of the network, and an application programming interface (API), allowed the founders of this app to add card processing to their apps quickly. 

Why is Stripe Payment Important?

First, you need to understand how the credit card processing industry works to know why the Stripe payment method is a big deal. 

Most consumers attest to the fact that credit card payment is straightforward and straightforward. 

All you have to do is to swipe your card, or to insert it into a machine, key in your number and any other required information of the form and your payment goes through.

 For other customers, they see credit card transactions as the end of the transaction, unless something has gone wrong. However, sellers see this whole process as the beginning of the transaction. 

To fully understand how a credit card transaction works, you need to know who the parties involved in the transaction are. There are some distinct parties involved in the whole process, although sometimes the line gets blurry. The main parties include the following; 

1. Customers. In this case, a customer is anyone who is trying to make a purchase using his or her credit card. 
2. Merchants. Merchants are the businesses that the customer is trying to buy goods or services from. Each merchant in the industry has a unique merchant ID. 
3. Merchant Acquirers. This is where confusion kicks in, and things start to become complicated. Typically, merchant acquirers are financial institutions and organizations that give out the tools and the processors that allow cards to be accepted during a transaction. There are two significant types of merchant acquirers. The first is the ISOs, and the second is known as the Processors. 
4. Processors. These are large financial institutions that act as the backbone of all transactions that are carried out. These institutions are responsible for verifying that the whole transaction process is valid and that the customer has enough funds in their credit card. Then they initiate the transfer of funds. Some of the known examples of processors are Wells Fargo and Chase Paymentech. 
5. Independent Sales Organizations (ISOs). This party acts as a reseller for the processor. They sell access to a processor along with the necessary equipment for taking cards. In addition to that, ISOs serve as technical support for merchants. Examples of ISOs are Stripe, Authorize.Net, and Vantiv or Worldpay. 
6. Card Issuers. These are companies that are responsible for the distribution of credit cards to consumers. However, Visa and MasterCard are banks and other financial institutions. On the other hand, for American Express and Discover, the card networks issue the cards themselves. 
7. Card Networks. These are the logos on your credit card. For instance, Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and American Express are all examples of Card networks. Most of these card networks franchise out their network to individual issuers, apart from Discover and American Express. 

When the ides of Stripe Payments were first conceived, merchant acquirers were the most difficult to deal with. This is because most of them were still in operation in physical retail spaces. In addition to that, they also did not have the technology or the knowledge to help online businesses. 

Many merchant acquirers were still working with the traditional sales process. This made signing up for a merchant cumbersome.

Furthermore, knowing what your rates could be was also close to impossible.

How much the technology cost, the kind of service to be expected, and whether or not the processor technology could work with the merchant’s online business implementation was hard to gauge. 

Stripe Payment brought about change to that by putting more emphasis and focus on digital card payments.

This type of payment was on the first ISOs to build a platform specifically for online businesses and payments through apps.

They were also to bring a technology-forward approach, which made signing up and using the service much more comfortable, faster, and more transparent. 

This guide gives insight into who Stripe is, how to use them, some of the services and benefits that Stripe provides, and what apps and services can be integrated with Stripe. 

About Stripe Payments

John and Patrick Collison, who are Irish entrepreneurs and brothers, are the founders of Stripe. They founded Stripe in 2010 with initial funding from the famed startup accelerator Y Combinator.

This public service was launched in September 2011 and rapidly became a darling to Silicon Valley.

The years that followed, they received almost $800 million in funding and a valuation of over $22 billion. This made Stripe one of the most valuable private companies in the world. 

This company grew at an increasing rate, especially since their products were digital-and was centered on the developer from the beginning of its existence. 

The platform was built mainly to be incorporated into both custom made and existing digital apps. This is because they provided clear and straightforward directions. 

Moreover, the invention of this platform led to the cutting out of the complexity of working with a processor.

This led to the increased use of the self-service option, which was available for all the customers. Today, these features seem to be common, but in 2011, they were revolutionary. 

Overview of Stripe Payment Options

In the beginning, the Stripe platform started as a domestic and straightforward credit card processing platform in the United States.

However, over the years, there have been developments, and Stripe Payment Options has grown its offerings to cover most of the payment options used around the world. Some of the main payment options that are used by Stripe include the following;

Stripe Credit card payments

This is a basic version of Stripe Payment, allowing merchants to collect traditional one-off credit card purchases, either online or at a physical location. 

Consequently, Stripe payment accepts and processes American Express, Discover, Visa, and Mastercard-branded cards. They also receive some of the niche products such as JCB, UnionPay, and Diners Club.

Moreover, one of the things that make Stripe Payments different from the traditional processors is the full range of options that Stripe offers to its merchants. 

They can embed an already built payment form out of the prebuilt elements, code their own from scratch, or connect Stripe to one of the hundreds of Compatible apps.

 In addition to that, Stripe provides an execution option for anyone, regardless of their technical ability. This is what mad Stripe Payment Unique. 

Stripe digital wallet payments

The most significant share of the digital wallet market in the United States is controlled by the two largest tech companies, which are Apple Pay and Google Pay. This is because, in this region, the use of wallets is still a novelty. 

Mobile wallets are thriving in international markets. For instance, in China, over half a billion people in the country used mobile wallets to complete their transactions in 2018. 

The main advantage of using Stripe Payment is that the integration of the digital market lets your business accept payments in whatever way your clients prefer your make their payments. 

In addition to that, it also takes your online business to a global level. 

Moreover, Stripe digital wallet services allows payments from Google and Apple Pay, Masterpass, Microsoft Pay, Visa Checkout, Amex Express Checkout, and others. 

Stripe international payments

Taking your business on an international level is an added advantage when using Stripe Payment. 

This is because Stripe accepts payments in more than 135 currencies and is used in most countries.

 When a business accepts international cards, it adds a 1% fee on top of the standard charges, and converting these cards to a different currency also adds another 1% to that. 

This brings the total fee for Stripe international transactions to 4.9 percent plus 30 cents. 

The good news is that even though those rates may sound high, Stripe also offers options to reduce those fees. 

In addition to that, for those charging large transactions, methods such as ACH, SEPA direct debit, Alipay and others, give room for transaction fees of between 0.8 to 2.9 percent.

 This is inclusive of the 30 cent transaction charge. Moreover, in some countries, Stripe allows merchants to set up local subsidiary accounts to make accepting local payments easier and lower fees. 

Stripe automatic payments

Consequently, Stripe offers an automatic payment option that allows businesses that require regular recurring payments, like subscriptions and retainers, to send out payments for the same amounts at regular intervals of your choosing. 

The good news about using the Stripe recurring revenue plan is that you don’t incur additional costs until you have exceeded $1 million in recurring revenue. 

After you have exceeded that amount, Stripe will charge an additional 0.4 percent. 

Stripe’s recurring payment plan is bundled into their general billing platform. This allows for other kinds of invoices. 

There are various safety and security features in the platform, built-in, to keep recurring credit card transactions from being rejected. 

How does Stripe work?

Since Stripe is an Independent Sales Organization, it means that they do not do the heavy lifting of processing your transactions. 

What they do is that they collect and forward your transactions to a financial institution that will make sure that the funds are cleared. 

Stripe is known as an aggregator. 

This is to say that instead of Stripe having its users sign up as full merchants with the merchant acquirer, it allows users to sign up as sub-merchants under the Stripe’s merchant account. 

This is important for users as it saves them from going through the complicated process of setting up their merchant accounts. 

This makes this platform easy to use for the merchants, because after signing up for the account and you have been approved, you can start collecting payments almost immediately without thinking about it. 

On the other end, things are slightly complicated for Stripe. Since all of the charges go through Stripe’s merchant account, they take on a lot of liability for fraudulent transactions in their platform. 

This benefits the users of this platform since it encourages Stripe to build a better security system in the platform and prevent fraudulent activities from taking place on the site. 

Stripe is one of the most trusted names in the processing of credit cards for online businesses because of its ease of use, high security, and customizability.

 In addition to that, other trusted platforms such as Amazon, Shopify, DocuSign, and Peloton also use Stripe. 

Stripe Tutorial and Guide

Any proper digital-first solution will include an app on its platform. Stripe also consists of a robust app API that allows third-party developers to create applications that work well with the service. 

The advantage is that these apps make it easier to use Stripe and do more than just allow you to make payments. 

In addition to that, you can also collect credit card payments on your mobile, Leveraging a point of sale (POS) app is also essential in setting up a pop-up or a permanent shop.

The dashboard apps present in Stripe help you to monitor hos your Stripe account is doing and ensure that you have the latest information to your disposal. 

There is a vast ecosystem of partners in Stripe that gives you the advantage of integrating with different platforms.

These platforms include accounting, payment, Point of Sale, analytics, or other services.

 Leveraging Stripe’s built-in functionality for many of your payment needs is also something that you can easily do. 

Stripe payment Apps

The main advantage of using the Stripe payment app is that it provides you with everything you need to accept and process payments, settle and reconcile your accounts, and manage anything related to Stripe. 

Integrated Stripe payment apps are a little different, but they also have some things in common. Most of these apps allow for a certain level of customization when it comes to the appearance of the checkout forms. However, none of these apps give as much freedom as going through Stripe directly. Moreover, these apps support all of Stripe’s payment countries, and most also accept Apple Pay where available. 

However, what many merchants may consider a disadvantage is the existence of other features in the platform. Features such as the ability to request payments, send invoices, and accepts ACH payments are rare options that often require using a specific Stripe app. 

The good news is that finding a Stripe payment app that works perfectly for all your needs is very easy. Stripe works perfectly with Charge for Stripe, Lunatap, Moon Clerk, InstaPayments, Payvoice, Payfunnels, MYFUNDBOX, and Splink. 

These apps take the mobile and recurring payments and some of the other apps and integrations that range from simple to complex, and bare-bones to fully feature. Stripe Partners page also comes in handy since it includes easy filtering, to help business owners to find exactly what they are looking for. 

Stripe Dashboard app

This Stripe app helps you set up, manage, and easily monitor your Stripe account’s progress. Furthermore, Stripe dashboard apps also help you to manage payments and refunds, respond to disputes from different merchants, and to monitor integrations.

The Dashboard is an essential app that you can use to run analytics and view real-time charts that show you the performance of your business. 

You also get access to information on recent activities that you may need to act on, such as disputes and verifying identities. 

If you are looking for a Stripe organization app, then this is the best app. The Stripe dashboard app organizes information into separate sections. Each section is a representation of a different area of the API. The Dashboard is also helpful in doing specific things such as refunding payments or canceling a subscription, without necessarily having to go into the API. 

The dashboard app also has many other functionality, such as searches and team members’ privileges. 

The Stripe dashboard is essential in pulling up specific information, such as finding payments made using the customer’s email address or the last four digits of their card number. This makes working your way through this platform an effortless task. 

Team members can also be given a chance to access the Dashboard, but you have to provide them with different privileges. You can do this by restricting and allowing access to some information and the actions that they can take.

 For instance, you can privilege the customer service team access to handle refunds. This means that only those people with access code can access these services. 

Stripe POS app

The Point of Sale app in Stripe and the Stripe terminal gives you the advantage of extending your online business or store into the physical world. 

The Stripe POS app is a seamless way to unify your online and offline channels, whether it is a pop-up store or a permanent retail location. 

Stripe Terminal works with Stripe Payments, Connect, and Billing. In addition to that, you can also integrate Stripe into your mobile and web applications to accept in-store payments and allow customers to reserve online and pick up their orders in the store. 

Stripe Terminal works with Stripe’s EMV 1, 2, or 3 precertified credit card readers. This helps in saving you time when you are getting the physical retail presence up and running. 

Stripe’s credit card readers, work in unison with chip cards and supports end-to-end encryptions, Apple Pay, and Google Play. Payment for Stripe is the only recognized and certified third-party Stripe POS app, hence Stripe works with it too. 

This is because Stripe Payment allows you to create charges, manage your customers, send receipts, apply for refunds, and sell inventory using the Payment for Stripe’s POS app. 

Stripe mobile apps

Using Stripe’s mobile app allows you to accept payments from your Android phone, iPhone, or other mobile websites. Also, Stripe offers a mobile app that helps in managing your account. 

This gives you access to the Stripe Dashboard, subscription plans (available in iOS only), payment and customer information, transfers, and other relevant information. 

You can also initiate any refunds and respond to all disputes, all of which are possible from your iOS or Android device. However, the app is not optimized for iPads, but you can still run the iOS version on your iPad. 

The Stripe mobile apps also support summaries of daily activities on both platforms. When using an iOS device, you can also receive push notifications for the account activity. 

In addition to that, the Stripe’s mobile app is perfect for managing and monitoring transactions from your iOS or Android device. The disadvantage is that you cannot create charges from them, meaning that you will need to use the Stripe Terminal or third-party integration. Moreover, you will only be able to see live mode transactions in Stripe mobile apps. 

Among all the digital payment processors, Stripe was the first digital payment processor to make a name for themselves. 

They remain the top players in the market, not only because of their perfect timing but because they have also consistently provided one of the easiest to use and most powerful payment processing platforms. 

In addition to that, the added ability to use either integration or app for an out-of-the-box solution or customize your implementation to work correctly for you, gives Stripe a big leg up over most of its competitors, making it the best solution for businesses, both small and large. 

Stripe business options

After setting up your account and connecting to Stripe, you can now proceed to what Stripe can do for your business. 

Accepting payments

Accepting payments is one of the complex processes that any business has to deal with. This is because you want your customer interface to match your website interface, making it much easier for the clients to pay with their mobile devices. 

Stripe Checkout. For a seamless experience, consider dropping this smart payment page into your checkout flow. This is because it accepts Apple Pay, supports 14 locales, and will soon accept Google Pay. 

Stripe Elements. This is a set of already built user interface components that allows you to design your website’s custom payment form. 

Moreover, using Stripe elements helps minimize user error, increasing the number of successful payments. 

Stripe Terminal. This helps in providing a way to accept payments made in person. You can also create a custom checkout developer-friendly SDKs, so that you are not forced to use a different system for in-person transactions. 

Stripe.js, on the other hand, lets you build your checkout from the beginning, using a set of APIs. Moreover, you can also use Stripe in creating custom invoices and requesting payments from United States businesses. Invoices can also match your Company branding, allowing you to add payment terms and accept credit cards and ACH payments. 

Stripe has many advantages, including working with a variety of open-source plug-ins that efficiently integrate payment into your store. 

This also includes Drupal, Magneto, Shopware, WooCommerce, and WordPress. The setup process is straightforward and simple. 

Payment options

By incorporating the use of Stripes into your business, you can accept all major credit and debit cards from customers in any country.

In addition to that, you can customize how the charges appear on statements, use authorization features such as partial capture and unlinked refunds, offer both full and partial refunds, and conduct CVC/AVS checks. 

Customers can also store their credit and debit cards electronically using the wallets. Stripe supports Alipay, AmEx Express Checkout, Google Pay, Apple Pay, Masterpass by Mastercard, Visa Checkout, and other wallets. 

Using Stripe also lets you offer local payment methods that are popular with the sources API. 

This gives you the upper hand of processing more than 135 currencies while displaying prices in the customer’s preferred locale to help avoid additional costs that could have been incurred in the conversion of currency. 

If you have any subsidiaries, you can set up a local Stripe account to maximize your acceptance rates, take advantage of the lowest costs, and to avoid foreign exchange fees for customers. 

Accounts for other countries also use the same API infrastructure and are very ways to turn on. 

Mobile Payments

Stripe offers a mobile SDK to accept payments, whether you have an Android app, iOS app, or just using a mobile website.

There is no need to change the back end of your system at all since the Android, and iOS SDK allows you to collect credit card information without any sensitive data getting into the servers. 

You can also use any supported payment method in your Android and IOS apps, from Alipay to iDEAL, using the Stripe library. 

You can also build a complete checkout flow using the Stripe SDK from mobile sites and customize all the colors and fonts to match how your website looks. 

Payment Processing

Stripe uses a dynamic payments API that applies the smart authentication logic. This helps in maximizing conversations while minimizing any form of disruptions to the user experience.

The advantage of using Stripes in the payment processing is that it supports the latest authentication protocols and embeds the authentication flow in the checkout to keep the customers moving through the process. 

There is also a pre-authorization layer in Stripe that connects to major credit card networks. You can also incorporate directly with the rest of the networks to optimize routing paths and to reduce dormancy in the transactions. 

Fraud and dispute handling

Any company that can handle fraudulent activities and handle disputes well, always ends up a successful company. In the event of a credit card dispute Stripe helps you in managing the risk and effectively fighting fraud. 

This also applies if the credit card is new to your business. This is because the credit card might have been seen on the Stripe network before. 

A machine learning system, known as Stripe Radar, is a system that integrates well with your payments. It helps in the mitigation of fraud, provides transparent risk scores, real-time fraud insights and supports trust and block lists. 

Additionally Stripe also reduces the risk of fraudulent activities and chargebacks by adding layer of authentication that protects you from liability from fraudulent card payments. 

Moreover, the dynamic 3D secure, applies authentication only to transactions or high risk or any payments that require approval due to the regulation. 

During the problem handling process, Stripe’s automated process works directly with networks that support credit card to help in submitting the best possible evidence in your favor. 

Settling and reconciliation of accounts

By using Stripe, the process helps you in simplifying and accelerating transaction reconciliation. 

This is because Stripe’s API and Dashboard provide a real-time information about charges, fees, refunds and even transfers. 

This means that you can directly create financial reports using Stripe data, instead of having to compile multiple reports from different merchant account providers.

Consequently, Stripe also tags every deposit with a transfer report that gives details of the exact transactions and fees, simplifying how you reconcile your transactions.

Stripe is inclusive of the built-in reporting features, which help you create your reports through the API. 

All you have to do is automatically sync your Stripe data with your respective accounting ledger or use the Stripe data to export information about refunds, payments and fees. 

Getting Payouts

A transaction that has been settled is paid quickly by using the Stripe Dashboard and API. 

You can also get combined payouts across all the payment methods and currencies that you accept from your customers. 

You can also set up historical payments and see any upcoming payments and expected deposit dates from the Dashboard using Stripe.

Managing payments

Using the Stripe Dashboard, you can easily see all charges for the different types of payment, countries and currencies. You are also at a position of exporting this data directly from the API. 

Stripe Stigma. This allows you to sue SQL to analyze your Stripe data, create custom reports, and get insight inside Stripe’s Dashboard. 

The access to your data is structures, which helps you identify the customers who are least likely to generate a list of unpaid invoices. 

Stripe Dashboard. This Dashboard helps you to view and manage all the data present in Stripe, customers, plans and balances. 

You can also refund your customers, review any possible fraudulent charges, manage disputes, and access every information from bank transfers to HTTP request logs. 

You are also in a position to see your daily earnings, payments and new customers using the Dashboard mobile app. 

Using Stripe also helps you add new users to your account, and you can also set up roles and permissions to ensure that the data in the platform is well protected. You can also monitor your user account activity. 

Stripe vs merchant accounts

Many online business owners choose Stripe compared to a merchant account since Stripe is much easier to set up. It also provides any information that you could have found in a merchant account, form a traditional bank hut with a less setup and easier management. 

For instance, if you decide to set up a merchant account through your business bank, you have to give out your personal credit history, business credit history, and a business model, before the bank considers opening an account for you. 

In addition to that, using a merchant account needs to be underwritten since it does not balance its users’ risk as Stripe does. Moreover, most merchant account providers also consider online transactions to be of high risk. 

This makes it close to impossible to find a provider that will underwrite the new online business. 

However, suppose you are lucky enough to find a provider. In that case, you are most likely to navigate through a complicated channel of rates and fees, hoping that the technology will fit the online business platform you use. 

Stripes also focus on digital card payments because it has an already built interactions with most of the top online business platform providers. The transaction rate charged is a flat rate, and because the risk is balanced among users, you can set up the account easily and faster. 

What are the benefits of using Stripe?

When Stripe first appeared in the market, it was among the first startup focused payment processors on the market.

This made Stripe the easy choice to go with, especially when you compared Stripe to legacy providers.

Since this time, many competitors have entered into the market. Below are some of the fantastic benefits of using Stripes.

Ease of Use

Amongst different payment processing platform, Stripe is still the easiest to use. It may look difficult especially if you have gone through their documentation, but the truth is that Stripe is much easier for most of its users to setup.

 It takes less than 10 minutes to register a Stripe account and to be able to accept payments. 

As discussed above, Stripe sets up its users as sub-merchants underneath their main merchant account. 

This is advantageous to users since they do not have to go through the demanding and complicated process of verification and activation, to get a hold of their merchant accounts.

This makes signing up for this account easier and quicker. 

Large number of integrations

There are different ways of doing a business digitally. They range from online businesses, to nonprofit fundraising, to Software-as-a-Service, to billing for physical services among others. 

This is because each of these different business models have countless apps to aid in smooth business operations. The good news is that Stripe has in-built integrations for many of them. 

This makes collecting payments very quick and much more comfortable. 

Using these integrations, business owners can plug Stripe right into apps that they are already using with less work.

Furthermore, adding apps like JotForm, allows people to start taking payments in any way they want, instead of being limited to a smaller pool that is supported by the platform. 

Powerful customization options

Stripe offers different opportunities for customizing implementation for people with little coding ability and are willing to put in more effort. 

Stripe also offers different developers different ways to change how their payment forms look and how they function. 

Since Stripe was built with developers in mind, it allows for more customization than many alternative plug-and-play options. 

Even though many users will never need to worry about these options, business owners who are already creating their apps or other complex products, benefit hugely from the flexibility that Stripe offers. 

Payment Options

When compared to traditional processors, Stripe offers more payment options for a unified interface. In traditional payments, the processors and merchants accounts allows you to accept payment by credit or debit card, depending on your country. 

Stripe, on the other hand allows you to take payments virtually from anywhere in the world. 

Stripe also uses almost every kind of traditional banking instrument, including credit and debit cards, credit card payment schemes such as Chase Pay, and direct bank deposits using Automated Cleaning House and others. 

Moreover, Stripe gives business owners the advantage of creating accounts with local subsidiaries to lower the international cost of transaction. 

They also blend in easily with emerging payment methods that are popular in other countries. 

Stripe also benefits business owners because it gives them more flexibility in how they accept payments, and how they can save them a significant amount of money in the long run. 

Stable Costs

Stripe payment charges a stable or even minimal processing fee for every type of transaction used. The other advantage is that there is no limited number of transactions or monthly costs when using Stripe. 

There are no levels that businesses have to deal with unlike the traditional methods of holding businesses.

Doing more business means that you will be automatically switched to a much lower percentage per transaction. Every business wants flexible costs, so that they can make great sales. 

Stripe is very attractive for businesses of all types and sizes because it lacks fixed costs. You can only pay when you accept the payment and there is no need to worry about the amount you pay changing from time to time. 

Advantages of Stripe

After looking at Stripe’s benefits, we will then get into some of the advantages of using Stripe as compared to other specific competitors. 

Advantage of Stripe over Square

Square is also another giant when it comes to the payment processing space. 

Initially, they begun as a card-swiping dongle users could attach to their phones, but now, they have grown beyond that and are offering many online business options.

The contrast comes in the payment method that Square accepts. Square accepts cards and mobile wallets only. 

Their global reach is also not as vast as that of Stripe. Square also lacks many of Stripe’s customization and integration options. 

Advantages of Stripe over PayPal

Many people are familiar with PayPal especially since it introduced the world to an online payment processor. Famous names such as Peter Thiel and Elon Musk also come to mind when you hear about PayPal. 

PayPal has gone through some transitions in ownership since it was founded. 

This has made the company to lose its pioneering spirit that the company was originally founded on. 

For instance, PayPal requires that all transactions are redirected ti their page for completion. 

This breaks up the flow of customers which in turn leads to higher abandonment. 

Alternatively, if you don’t mind paying a monthly subscription fee, you can use a “hosted” payment page to conduct all your transactions. 

New accounts also go through a thorough vetting process and PayPal plays an active role in settling disputes, much to the annoyance of many business owners. 

Advantages of Stripe over Braintree

Braintree is a payment platform that is owned by PayPal, even if the companies seem to be different in how they conduct their businesses. 

Sometimes, PayPal may feel like a large out-of-touch company, whereas Braintree is next to Stripe on the cutting edge of payment processing. 

The main advantage that Stripe has over Braintree is the number of available integrations, and the speed with which new species are offered. 

In addition to that, Stripe has managed to stay on the cutting edge of development despite their age. Their age also means that they have had enough time to develop more plug-ins and partnerships. 

However, it might be a bit stretch to conclude that Stripe is the best payment processor and that they are right for everyone. 

They are incredible, flexible, and powerful and they allow many businesses to accept payments much easier and faster. 

This was not possible before Stripe was founded. 

Additionally, Stripe has a lot of advantages over their competitors. This means that more integrations, readily available in the global world, and it is much easier to setup. 

How protected are you with Stripe secure payments?

The main thing that any customer looks for with any payment option is that their details, including bank account and credit card information are safe and secure. 

Also, you want to be sure that you are providing a safe payment option, but you are also in compliance with the regulations that have been put in place, including the Payment Card Information (PCI) standards. 

Stripe assures you that both you and your customers are making the right decision by using it to make payments. This is because it is a safe way to pay. 

At Stripe, security is the main concern. It also uses a secure encryption, fraud protection and the PCI compliance controls. This helps give reassurance that Stripe is the safe way to make payments. 

Stripe encryption

This type of encryption offers peace of mind to merchants and customers. This is because it offers security to both payment information in transit, and the already stored payment information. 

On the online platform, Stripe forces the HTTPS connection for all services using the TLS (Transport Layer Security). TLS is also known as SSL (Secure Sockets Layer). 

This means that any communication that is sent to and from Stripe is encrypted. This is inclusive of the Stripe public website and the Dashboard. 

When using Stripe.js, you can only access the encryption over the TLS. Furthermore, all of Stripe’s official libraries are connected to Stripe’s servers over TLS. 

The verification of TLS certificates is also done on each connection. This verification helps secure customer’s information, including all the sensitive payment data, while still in transit. 

Encrypted stored data

Stripe’s primary service runs on a separates machine from Stripe’s infrastructure to store, decrypt, and transmit card numbers. The primary services include API and website. 

Any card number that is stored on the platform is encrypted with AES-256 (Advanced Encryption Standard). This is the industry standard for security data. 

The key for decrypting the card numbers, are kept separately, and the god thing is that none of Stripe’s internal servers can access the plain-text card numbers. 

Cards are only sent to already whitelisted providers through the request that has been put in by the servers.

The encryption of Stripe is extended to communications. This is because Stripe uses two PGP keys to encrypt the message and to verify the signed message. 

After you have securely contacted Stripe, you can use the genera PGP key. When you send sensitive data like credit card information, as part of the data that you are importing, you use the data migration PGP key. 

However, this is not where Stripe encryption stops. This is because regular audits are conducted to examine the security measures, including the certificates that these security measures serve, the certificate authorities that they use, and the ciphers that they support. 

To enforce security, and to make sure that browsers are only accessing Stripe with HTTPS, Stripe uses the HSTS. Moreover, Stripe is also on the HSTS preloaded list for both Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. 

Stripe Fraud prevention

The type of fraud protection mechanism that Stripe uses is the Radar. To prevent fraud, a machine learning to detect and to block any fraudulent activity. 

This machine is already built into Stripe. Radar then channels data from millions of global companies, hence allowing the algorithms used to learn the machine to become better and perfect at detecting any new kinds of fraud. 

In addition to that, Radar has been customized in such a way that it is applicable in modern internet transactions. 

The ancient ways used to prevent fraudulent transactions were never meant to be used for online purchases. 

This is why Radar was built. It was built specifically for such reason and helped prevent unnecessarily declined transactions and lost revenue. 

Stripe fraud prevention is also inclusive of a 3-dimensional secure, also known by different brand names such as MasterCard Identity Check, Visa Secure and American Express SafeKey. 

Moreover, Stripe is supporting 3D Secure 2.0, which brings into existence the “frictionless authentication”. It also provides a safe and secure purchasing experience than 3D Secure 1.0.

 The main card authentication used to meet the upcoming SCA (Strong Customer Authentication) requirements for PSD2, in the EU is the 3D secure 2.0. 

This is the best way for businesses to request exemptions to SCA. In addition to that, the 3D Secure 2.0 was specially designed for smartphone use, since it also requires less customer back and forth. However, it still provides a very safe way to validate purchases. 

Stripe PCI compliance

PCI is a complex and challenging standard. This is to say that if you are handling any kind of credit card data, you should be able to prove that you comply with the PCI DSS (Data Security Standard).

PCI DSS helps in protecting by setting a baseline of protection for consumers, and to also help in reducing fraudulent activities and breach of data across the entire payment system. This rule applies to any organization that accepts or processes payment cards. 

Three main things are involved in PCI DSS compliance;

• Ensuring that sensitive credit card details are collected and transmitted securely. 
• Secure data storage, which includes encryption, continuous monitoring and testing the security of access to the card data. 
• Authorizing the annual security controls can require forms, questionnaires, external scanning services and third-party audits. 

Stripe has been audited by a PCI-certifies auditor and is certified PCI Service provider level 1. This is the highest level of certification that any business can achieve in the payment industry. 

Guide to the Stripe app and integration options

When using Stripe, you can also include other aps and services, including some of which you may already use. 

With commonly used apps, tools and other services, Stripe’s integration provides analytics, accounting, emails, shipping, taxes and more. 

You can also integrate with online stores and POS platforms because of the existing relationship Stripe has with them. 

Plug into an open-source or self-hosted platform like WordPress and Magento, and work with the developer resources to help integrate Stripe’s APIs. 

A brief Stripe integration tutorial

The advantage of using Stripe is that it offers a lot of third-party integration options.

However, you need to be a developer or hire a developer to create a custom Stripe integration. In this tutorial, the Stripe integration covers the basics of the things that you are supposed to do, to integrate Stripe with other tools.

However, suppose you need more comprehensive integration tutorial. In that case, the Stripe website has a lot of helpful information and checklists that can be a good point of reference for you as you go through the integration process.

You can practice some of the following tasks at the same time, to assist you in getting set and running faster with your Stripe integrations. 

Set up your Stripe account

Creating your Stripe account is the first phase of integration. On the team page, you will see a + New user button. Click on that button so that your organization can have access to the Dashboard. 

This is because your finance, engineering, customer service and the product team will likely need access. When you give your organization access to the Dashboard, you’ll also set up your CVC and AVS checks and set the default description that appears on customer’s billing statements. 

Migrate data to Stripe

This is the second phase of integrating your Stripe after you have set up your account. 

This is easy to achieve, especially since Stripe has a dedicated migrations team to bring over your data, including credit card numbers. They help you map your existing data fields to the data field in Stripe.

Build the buyer experience

Building the buyer experience is the next stage. The engineering and the user experience team are the ones responsible for building this.

This is because they have the correct information which will help bring insight into what the process flow should look like. This can consist of Stripe payment forms or payment request buttons. Most Stripe integrations use Stripe Elements for this. 

Build webhooks

A webhook event is essential in that it notify your application anytime an event happens on your account. 

For instance, you will get notification on disputed charges and recurring billing events that are not triggered by a diet API request. 

To set up a webhook, you need to build endpoints in JSON (JavaScript Object Notation), configure the webhook settings, test and respond to webhook events. 

Customize charges with metadata and descriptors

First, you must identify the metadata that will be useful to your customer service and finance teams.

Metadata is important because it allows you to store additional information on charges, customers, and accounts.

It can also be used in the Stripe Dashboard and for reporting with Stripe Sigma. 

Make sure that your dynamic descriptors are customized to help in reducing the risk of a dispute. 

Implement risk mitigation

To set up basic risk management and fraud protection, you will need the help of Stripe Elements. The Elements allow you to collect the cardholder’s name and billing address when you create a token. You can then set it up to save customer email addresses and shipping information. 

In addition to that, you can also implement a 3D Secure, which effectively adds another layer of security. 

However, this is only recommended if your company accepts high-risk payments, for instance, taking payments in industries that have higher than average risk of chargebacks. 

3D Secure also requires your customers to complete additional steps during the payment process. Customers need reassurance and if they don’t know their 3D Secure information, they might not be able to complete the payment. 

Stripe Payment Integration

Stripe.js allows you to create a seamless payment integration, without worrying about merchant accounts or PCI compliance for your servers. 

The Stripe.js is a JavaScript library that connects your web forms to Stripe’s servers, which allows for an easy Strip payment integration process. 

Furthermore, you can also create one-time payment forms, recurring payment forms, and even donation forms. It is easy to set up and make collecting payment as painless as possible. 

Stripe API integration

Stripe is a suit of payment APIs. These APIs follow a standard REST (representational state transfer) protocol, in which instructions are sent to a URL that controls what the API does. 

This is to say that it is like having different PO boxes for your business, and that these PO boxes handle different kinds of requests: Maybe PO Box 1 is for orders, PO Box 2 is for returns and PO Box 3 is for general questions. 

Assuming you are a programmer, using the API is as simple as sending the right data to the right URL or endpoint. If the data is formatted correctly, using JSON, the endpoints reads your data and does something with it. 

And since it is all handled through URLs, it uses the same standards for transmission, confirmation, authentication and response as regular http___the same standard that you use to browse the web. 

On the other hand, if you are not a developer, you can choose from the full suite of apps that will integrate with Stripe’s APIs.

 However, if you need something custom for your implementation, any web developer should not have any problems working with Stripe’s API, to help build your solution. 

Stripe POS integration

Stripe works with many POS systems some of which include Collect for Stripe, Big Cartel, Payment for Stripe and Inner Fence.

These Stripe POS integration partners are essential in this model since they allow you to accept credit cards from anywhere, including the credit card readers. 

In addition to that, Stripe also offers Stripe Terminal, which allows you to build your own POS system. You can also create custom checkout screens and email receipts. 

Consequently, Stripe Terminal integrates with JavaScript web apps or iOS and Android apps using Stripe’s SDK and APIs. 

The Stripe Terminal card readers provide the end-to-end encryption and also offers support for chip cards and contactless payments like Google Pay and Apple Pay. 

Top apps for Stripe Payments .

As common with any other digital-first solution, Stripe includes a robust app known as API that allows third-party developers to create apps that function well with the service.

These apps are essential since they make it easier to use Stripe, but can also do much more than just allowing you to take payments. 

Moreover, you can collect credit card payments on your mobile device and leverage a point of sale (POS) app to set up a pop-up or permanent shop.

With the Stripe Dashboard apps’ help, you can manage and monitor your Stripe account and ensure that you have the latest information at your fingertips. 

There are a vast ecosystems of partners in Stripe that allows you to incorporate with different platforms, including payments, accounting, analytics, POS or other services. Moreover, you can also choose to leverage Stripe’s built-in functionality for many of your payment needs. 

Stripe vs PayPal: Who should you choose? 

You have probably heard more about Stripe, which is the hottest new payment processor on the block. 

What of PayPal? They have a trusted brand and an ongoing history of processing payments on the web. 

When do I get paid?

PayPal usually pays within 1 business day.

Stripe, on the other hand, has a rolling 2-day transfer in the United States and Australia, and a rolling 7-day transfer in most of the other countries

This information is important especially if your funds is important and you reside outside the United States and Australia. 

In summary, Stripe is one of the most accessible payment processing platforms to use.

Most users find it much easier to set up their Stripe account and it takes less than 10 minutes to register an account, ready to start accepting payments. 

In addition to that, Stripe also offers more payment options which is very convenient for the users. 

However, when it comes to getting paid, PayPal pays within 1 business day everywhere in the world compared to Stripe which takes about 2 days in the US and Australia, and up to 7 days in other parts of the world.

Therefore, the best payment processing platform depends on your needs and level of convenience.