Shopify vs Stripe: Choosing the Right Payment Gateway for Your Online Store
By Sam Nguyen
This article will delve deep into a side-by-side comparison of Shopify and Stripe, focusing specifically on their payment functionalities: Shopify Payments vs Stripe.
Key Takeaways
- Shopify has a built-in payment gateway called Shopify Payments. It’s aimed at small to medium sized businesses looking to reduce their transaction costs.
- Stripe provides a flexible, developer-friendly payment gateway that can be integrated into any online platform.
Shopify vs Stripe: Key Difference
The key difference lies between Shopify and Stripe in their central functionalities and offerings.
Shopify stands as a comprehensive e-commerce platform, offering a wide range of features tailored for online selling, from setting up your online store to managing inventory and integrating its own payment gateway, Shopify Payments.
Shopify Payments is Shopify’s in-house payment service, allowing merchants to accept and process online and in-person payments. In addition to Shopify Payments, the platform integrates with over 100 payment providers. However, if merchants opt to work with a third-party payment provider, Shopify will charge an additional transaction fee.
On the other hand, Stripe primarily serves as a sophisticated payment solution. It offers robust and customizable payment processing capabilities but does not come with the full suite of e-commerce tools inherent to Shopify for creating and managing an online store. It can be integrated with many ecommerce platforms, including Shopify, as a third-party payment gateway.
Shopify vs Stripe: Pros and Cons
In the table below, we will evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of Shopify and Stripe.
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Shopify vs Stripe: Detailed comparison
Fees
Shopify
- Monthly subscription fees: From $5 to $2,000+/month
- Transaction fees: Free with Shopify Payments. If you choose a third-party payment provider, an additional fee of 2%, 1%, or 0.5% will incur based on your selection plan.
- Credit card processing fees: Depending on the Shopify plan, start at 2.4% + 30¢ USD for online transactions; 2.4% USD for in-person transactions.
- Currency conversion rates: 1.5% in the US; 2% in all other countries and regions with Shopify Payments.
- Instant payout fees: $0
Stripe
- Monthly fees: $0
- Processing fees: Starts at 2.9% +30¢ for online transactions; 2.7% + 5¢ for in-person transactions (+1.5% for international cards)
- International and currency conversion: 1%
- Instant payout fees: 1%
The Verdict
Shopify has a bit of an edge over Stripe due to its lower transaction fees. When customers use Shopify Payments for instant payouts, they aren’t charged any additional fees, which adds to the convenience. In contrast, Stripe does impose charges for similar transactions. However, Stripe has its advantage as it provides more favorable currency conversion rates than Shopify offers.
Key Products
Shopify
Shopify offers all the necessary tools and resources to begin your online selling journey:
- Ecommerce Website: Create and customize an online store, list and manage your products, manage order processing and shipment, and promote your business through marketing efforts.
- Flexible Payments: Shopify has its own payment gateways – Shopify Payments and integrates over 100 third-party payment providers, accepts a wide range of primary payment methods, including debit and credit cards, mobile wallets, and custom payments.
- Omnichannel selling: Shopify platform provides sell products systems across multiple channels in a seamless and integrated manner. These channels can include Online Stores, Physical Retail Stores, Social Media Platforms, Marketplaces, and Mobile Apps.
- Point-of-sale: You can use Shopify POS to accept payments, track sales and inventory, and provide a smooth checkout experience at your brick-and-mortar store, pop-up shop, or selling booth. Shopify POS also offers first-party hardware, ensuring full compatibility.
Stripe
Stripe is a financial services and digital payments company that offers a variety of solutions for businesses and individuals:
- Stripe Payments: Stripe Payments accept credit, ACH direct debit, wire transfers, and online wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay, local payment methods in over 130 currencies.
- Stripe Billing and Invoicing: These tools simplify your billing process and customer subscription management, enabling you to automate your revenue management operations and receive payments from around the world. Furthermore, they let you create and send invoices to your customers with ease, eliminating the need for any coding expertise.
- Stripe Terminal: Stripe Terminal enables you to build your own in-person checkout to accept payments. Stripe Terminal can process in-person payments securely and efficiently, accepting various payment methods such as credit cards, debit cards, and mobile wallets.
The Verdict
Shopify Payments offers a more comprehensive set of tools that enable you to seamlessly accept and handle payments, whether made online or in-person, directly through your Shopify account. With Shopify, you can conveniently monitor your transactions, receive payouts, and access analytics all in one centralized location.
Stripe, conversely, provides a versatile and robust payment platform that can be tailored to meet the specific needs of different eCommerce businesses. However, it provides financial services and digital payments only.
Customer Service
Shopify
Shopify offers 24/7 support with a wide range of options to help merchants resolve any problems. The support team can be contacted through different channels, including
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
- Community Forum
- Phone Support
- 24/7 Chat with live replies
- Documentation
With their highly acclaimed support team, Shopify is committed to promptly addressing merchant issues and ensuring a smooth experience. Merchants can trust in their expertise to swiftly resolve any concerns and return their focus to running their business smoothly.
Stripe
Stripe provides providers customers with a full set of 24/7 support materials, including
- Live chat
- Requested phone call
- Documentation
The Verdict
Shopify offers better support compared to Stripe. Shopify’s support team is known for their responsive and helpful approach, effectively resolving various concerns in a timely manner. The chat conversations with Shopify support are conveniently sent to users via email, allowing for easy access and reference.
In contrast, Stripe’s chat support tends to be slower and only supports English and Japanese languages. Additionally, users have to request a phone call to connect with Stripe support over the phone.
Mobile Payment and Point-of-sale
Shopify
Shopify POS – Shopify’s point-of-sale system can be used on Android and iOS devices, providing a truly mobile payment option. It accepts multiple payment options, including cards, NFC, gift cards, loyalty points, contactless and custom payments.
Moreover, it offers iPhone users the Tap-to-pay functionality, removing the requirement for a separate card reader. This streamlined procedure greatly improves the mobile payment experience, offering a smooth checkout option for customers.
Stripe
Stripe Terminal helps you to create a customized checkout experience for accepting payments in person. Designed for modern retailers and platforms, Terminal offers versatile developer tools, pre-approved card readers, and cloud-based hardware management, allowing you to integrate your online and offline channels seamlessly.
The Verdict
Regarding mobile payment and point-of-sale, we choose Shopify as a winner.
Shopify POS operates within the Shopify ecosystem, enabling seamless synchronization between the point of sale system and the Shopify online store. On the other hand, integrating Stripe Terminal with an ecommerce platform can be more complex since they are separate platforms. This can lead to issues like missing products or delayed data updates.
Payment Processing
Chargeback fees and fraud protection
Shopify Payments
- Chargeback fee: Varies by countries from $10-$25 with $15 for U.S. merchants.
- Chargeback processing time: up to 75 days.
- Fraud protection: With advanced security systems in place, Shopify Payments helps detect and prevent fraudulent activities, ensuring the safety and integrity of your payments, and allowing you to focus on your business with confidence and peace of mind.
Stripe
- Chargeback fee: Chargeback Protection costs 0.4% per transaction
- Chargeback processing time: up to 2 -3 months
- Fraud protection: Stripe uses the machine learning capabilities of Stripe Radar to detect and prevent fraudulent activities and disputes.
The Verdict
Shopify Payments is often more economical in terms of transaction fees. Compared to Stripe, Shopify Payments charges a lesser fee for chargebacks. Furthermore, Shopify also processes chargebacks faster than Stripe.
Available countries
Shopify Payments
Shopify Payments was available in 23 countries with support for over 133 different currencies, including major ones such as USD, GBP, CAD, AUD, EUR, and JPY.
Stripe
Stripe is available in more than 46 countries. Stripe can process charges in more than 135 currencies, enabling you to display prices in the currency of your customers.
The Verdict
As a payment gateway, Stripe is a bit better than Shopify Payments in terms of availability and the number of currencies it supports.
Payout
Shopify Payments
- Payout fees: Free
- Payout processing time: 5 business days.
It’s important to note that the funds may not appear immediately in your account as banks typically take between 1-3 business days to process deposits to your bank account.
Additionally, Shopify Payments allows you to customize the payout schedule according to your preference. You can opt for weekly or monthly payouts based on your business needs.
Stripe
- Payout fees: up to 25¢ per payout and 1% of payout volume for instant payouts
- Payout processing time: 2 business days for merchants in the US
Stripe follows an automatic daily payout schedule by default, but you have the flexibility to adjust the payout frequency. You can choose between weekly automatic, monthly automatic, or manual payouts according to your preference.
The Verdict
Certainly, Shopify Payments holds a slight upper hand over Stripe regarding payout fees. Specifically, Shopify does not impose any charges on each payout, making it a more economical option for merchants than Stripe. However, it’s worth noting that Stripe compensates for this by processing payouts somewhat quicker than Shopify Payments.
Integration
Shopify Payments
Shopify Payments is an integral part of the Shopify ecosystem, facilitating fluid communication and exchange of payment details with your online store or Shopify POS. Nonetheless, Shopify Payments is exclusive to the Shopify platform.
Stripe
Stripe allows you to integrate with many ecommerce platforms and POS systems, such as Square, Vend, Lightspeed, Woocommerce, Salesforce, etc., for both online and in-person payments.
The Verdict
In terms of integration ability, Stripe generally offers greater flexibility and versatility. It provides extensive tools and resources for developers to integrate payments into various platforms and customize the payment experience.
However, Shopify Payments provides a more streamlined integration within the Shopify ecosystem whereas Stripe’s integration with other platforms can potentially lead to discrepancies.
Shopify vs Stripe: Who Should Use
- Shopify is best for:
- Businesses that prefer an all-in-one solution, offering an ecommerce platform, a payment gateway (Shopify Payments), and a POS system
- Retailers interested in having an online store or selling multichannel with seamless integration.
- Stripe is best for:
- Businesses that require a flexible and powerful payment gateway capable of handling complex payment scenarios.
- Companies that want to accept payments globally and in various currencies.
- Merchants that prefer a payment gateway that can integrate with many different ecommerce platforms.
Shopify vs Stripe: FAQs
- Log in to your existing Stripe account or create a new one.
- Log in to your Shopify account.
- Access the Shopify admin panel and go to the settings section.
- Select Stripe as your third-party credit card provider.
- Enter your Stripe account details within the Shopify settings.
- Activate the integration to finalize the setup.
Bottom Line
These are detailed comparisons of Shopify vs. Stripe. If you need a comprehensive solution for your business, whether small or large, choose Shopify and Shopify Payments. On the other hand, if you have invested in a different management and operational system, you may consider Stripe to be a secure third-party payment method.
