Stripe

Overview

Stripe is the payments infrastructure that most developer-led SaaS companies default to. Its API surface covers payments, subscriptions, invoicing, usage-based billing, connect for marketplaces, and terminal for in-person payments. In 2025, Stripe processed $1.9 trillion in total volume — roughly 1.6% of global GDP.

If your team writes code and wants full control over billing, Stripe is the starting point. If you don’t want to own tax, compliance, and billing logic, a merchant of record is likely a better fit.

Best For

Developer-led SaaS teams that want to own every aspect of their billing stack. Stripe is the right choice when you have engineering resources, need custom billing logic, or plan to build complex payment flows that no off-the-shelf solution can handle.

Strengths

• Broadest API surface in payments. Payments, billing, invoicing, Connect, Terminal, Identity, Radar, Treasury — the product surface is unmatched
• Developer experience sets the standard. Documentation, SDKs, and tooling are best-in-class. If you’ve used any other payment API, you’ll notice the difference
• Global payment methods. Cards, bank transfers, wallets, local methods, and now stablecoins — over 125 payment methods across 195+ countries
• Stripe Billing for subscriptions. Built-in subscription management with proration, trials, coupons, and metered billing
• Ecosystem depth. Hundreds of integrations. Most SaaS tools assume Stripe compatibility by default

Trade-offs

• You own tax compliance. Stripe is a payment processor, not a merchant of record. Sales tax, VAT, and GST are your responsibility. Stripe Tax helps with calculation and collection, but remittance and registration remain on you
• Engineering cost is ongoing. Proration logic, dunning, plan migrations, trial management, webhooks — you build and maintain all of it. This is not a one-time integration
• Complexity compounds at scale. Multiple Stripe products layered with custom logic creates real architectural overhead. Billing becomes an engineering domain, not a configuration task
• Not the fastest path to revenue. If you just want to sell a SaaS product today, a merchant of record like Paddle or Dodo Payments gets you there faster with less work

Ready to start?

• Try Stripe