Stripe or PayPal - Which is the Best Payment Portal?

When it comes to using a payment portal on your eCommerce website, most have a reasonable amount of payment processors that they can choose from. That being said, Stripe and PayPal are the most popular to use. So on that note, let’s compare the two and hopefully help you decide which one would be best for you by comparing a few different factors.

Ease of use - PayPal

PayPal is the clear winner here. It has been built up since the early days, when Elon Musk still ran things, to be simple and easy to use for everyone. Setting up PayPal on your website can be achieved through a variety of super simple integration methods from adding a simple embedded button to using their minimalist API.

Stripe, on the other hand, is more aimed at the technically proficient. While still being quite simple to set up for basic usage, it’s powerful eCommerce API gives developers a lot more freedom to customize the experience and do some neat tricks.

Security - Stripe

Security is such an extreme priority in this realm of online business that it is safe to say that neither company would be where they were today if it wasn’t for their knowing of, and acting upon this fact.

Some may argue that PayPal is more secure due to the fact that their services will almost always take the side of the customer in a dispute, protecting consumers more. Of course, this doesn’t bode well for online store owners who can have their whole account frozen for months over a couple of unreasonable disputes or ever so slightly suspicious, yet innocent activity.

On the other hand, Stripe is a lot friendlier towards sellers when it comes to disputes and account activity. They also introduced a feature called stripe.js which actually bypasses your ecommerce website with their personal info and bank details so that you never receive a copy of their payment details. This gives another reason for customers to trust you and will make you feel better if like me, you would rather not have the responsibility of that information passing through your site in case of a hack or malicious actor.

Either way, both are extremely secure and trusted but Stripe wins with the ability to keep people on your site for a seamless payment processing experience while not dealing with their payment details directly.

Cost - Stripe

Well this is an easy round. No matter which way you look at it, Stripe is cheaper than both PayPal and PayPal Pro. Whether you are comparing monthly fees (Stripe doesn’t have one), transaction fees or price bracket based charges, Stripe wins every which way. End of.

Flexibility - Stripe

Another easy win for Stripe. In all fairness, it is what they were going for. While PayPal has aimed to attract everyone by stressing a stress free experience, Stripe set out to wow developers and give them what they want. Their API is very powerful and they provide libraries for Node.js, Java, PHP, Ruby and of course, Python. These libraries make it incredibly easy for developers to achieve some pretty powerful stuff far beyond what you can do with PayPal.

Customer Service - Stripe

From a web store owners perspective, both PayPal and Stripe have decent support. The first stage of support of course is their documentation and FAQs. Next comes the much loved live chat feature which we are beginning to see all over the internet. But what about the much favoured phone support? Both provide it with varying experiences. A nice, extra feature that Stripe has provided though is the ability to request a callback so you don’t have to tie up the line listening to hold music and racking up your bill.

Honestly, it’s basically a draw here. Stripe only wins by a nose thanks to it’s callback feature which, let’s be honest, we wish more companies would do.

Conclusion

As is always the way, there is no definitive answer. You really have to look at what you are doing and which one best fits your requirements. I would probably recommend people look at Stripe first and if that doesn’t look like it will work for you then check out PayPal. Either way, good luck making the right decision and then lots of money!