Most startups should start on Stripe: self-serve signup, simple per-transaction pricing and tools for subscriptions, marketplaces and tax that ship in days. Adyen fits later, when card volume is large enough that interchange-plus pricing saves real money and the business needs one global platform. Revisit the choice when payments become a meaningful line on the P&L.
Stripe and Adyen both process card and local payments around the world, and both are serious infrastructure. They were built for different customers, though. Stripe started with developers and small online businesses and grew upward into large companies. Adyen started with large global merchants, built its own platform end to end, and has grown outward from there. That history explains most of the differences a founder will feel: how you sign up, how you are charged and how much help you get.
This comparison weighs integration effort as heavily as fees. Fees below are from Stripe's and Adyen's public pricing pages as of October 2026, in US dollars. Both companies offer custom pricing, so treat them as list prices.
How are Stripe and Adyen different?
Stripe is self-serve. You create an account, add an API key and can take a payment the same day. Around the core payments API sit products for most things a young company needs: hosted checkout pages and payment links, subscription billing, Connect for marketplaces and platforms, fraud screening, tax calculation and invoicing. Its documentation and client libraries are a large part of why developers choose it. How Stripe became the most valuable private fintech company tells that story.
Adyen is a Dutch company, founded in Amsterdam in 2006 and listed on Euronext Amsterdam since 2018. It runs online payments, in-store terminals and platform payments on one system it built itself, and it holds acquiring licenses in many markets, which lets it process payments directly rather than through partner banks. Onboarding is usually a conversation with its sales team rather than a signup form, and its pricing passes card costs through to you.
In short: Stripe optimizes for getting started and building quickly. Adyen optimizes for large volumes, many countries and online and in-person sales in one place.
What do Stripe and Adyen charge?
Stripe (standard US pricing):
2.9% + 30 cents per successful domestic card transaction.
An extra 1.5% for international cards, and an extra 1% when currency conversion is needed.
An extra 0.5% for manually entered cards.
ACH Direct Debit: 0.8%, capped at $5.
Disputes: $15 each, plus $15 if you contest one, refunded if you win.
No setup or monthly fees. Custom packages, including interchange-plus pricing, are offered to businesses with large volume.
Adyen (listed pricing):
A $0.13 processing fee on every transaction, plus a fee for the payment method.
Visa and Mastercard: interchange plus scheme fees, passed through at cost, plus a 0.60% Adyen markup. This is called interchange-plus-plus, or IC++.
American Express: $0.13 + 3.95% globally, with different terms in North America.
No setup, monthly, integration or closure fees, but a minimum invoice that depends on industry and business model.
The difference is blended versus pass-through pricing. Stripe charges the same rate whatever card the customer uses. A $100 domestic card payment costs $3.20 on Stripe's standard pricing. On Adyen, the same payment costs 13 cents plus 60 cents plus whatever interchange and scheme fees apply to that card, and interchange varies by card type, region and how the payment is made. Debit cards usually cost far less than premium rewards credit cards.
When your customers mostly pay with low-interchange cards, pass-through pricing can come out cheaper. When they use premium credit cards, the gap narrows. The only way to know is to price a month of your real transactions both ways.
Which fits a startup at each stage?
Pre-revenue to first customers. Stripe. You need to accept money this week, not negotiate a contract. Payment Links or Checkout can be live in an afternoon, and subscriptions, trials and invoices are built in. Adyen's minimum invoice and sales-led onboarding make little sense before you have volume.
Early SaaS and subscriptions. Still usually Stripe. Billing, proration, dunning, the customer portal and tax tools save engineering time, and engineering time is scarcer than basis points at this stage.
Marketplaces and platforms. Both have products here: Stripe Connect and Adyen for Platforms handle onboarding sellers, verifying identities and splitting payouts. Stripe is easier to start with. Adyen becomes interesting when the platform processes large volumes across many countries or needs in-person payments too. If bank data is part of your product, Plaid vs Stripe Financial Connections covers that adjacent choice.
Scale and global reach. This is where Adyen earns a look. A company processing large volumes in several regions, or combining online and in-store sales, can benefit from pass-through pricing, direct acquiring and a single view of every channel. At this stage Stripe will also negotiate custom pricing, including interchange-plus, so get offers from both.
When does switching make sense?
Switching processors is a real project. Integration code, webhooks, reporting, reconciliation and saved cards all have to move. A few points make it easier:
Saved cards can move. Card details can be migrated between PCI-compliant processors on request, so subscribers don't have to re-enter cards. Plan the migration with both providers.
Run two processors for a while. Many companies route a share of traffic to the new provider, compare authorization rates and fees, and then move the rest.
Watch authorization rates, not only fees. A provider that approves a slightly higher share of legitimate payments can be worth more than a lower fee.
A sensible rule: once payment fees become one of your largest costs, collect proposals from both companies with your real volume and card mix. Until then, the time saved by staying put is usually worth more than the fee difference.
What else should a founder weigh?
Developer experience. Stripe's APIs and documentation are a common reason teams choose it. Adyen's APIs are capable but assume more payments knowledge, and its support is designed around larger accounts.
Products beyond payments. Stripe offers more add-ons for young companies: billing, tax, invoicing and company formation tools. Adyen focuses tightly on payments, risk and financial products for platforms.
Where the money lands. Both pay out to your business bank account. In the interest of disclosure, I'm an angel investor in Mercury, a banking platform for startups; any business bank works with either processor.
Payments are moving inside other software, which is why both companies invest heavily in platform products. The future of fintech is embedded explains that shift, and the fintech trends to watch covers what comes next. More comparisons are in the technology section.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q:Is Adyen cheaper than Stripe?
It can be at high volume, because Adyen passes card costs through and adds a fixed fee and a markup instead of charging a blended rate. For a small startup, Adyen's minimum invoice and onboarding process usually outweigh any savings, and Stripe also offers custom pricing at scale.
Q:Can a small startup use Adyen?
It can apply, but Adyen is built for larger merchants: onboarding is usually through sales, and there is a minimum invoice that depends on your industry and business model. Most early-stage companies start faster on Stripe.
Q:What is interchange-plus-plus pricing?
It splits the cost of a card payment into three parts: interchange paid to the card-issuing bank, scheme fees paid to networks such as Visa and Mastercard, and the processor's own markup. You see each part on your statement instead of one blended rate.
Q:Can I use Stripe and Adyen at the same time?
Yes. Larger companies sometimes route payments across more than one processor for redundancy, better approval rates in certain countries or price leverage. It adds engineering and reconciliation work, so it rarely pays off for an early-stage startup.
Q:Does Stripe offer interchange-plus pricing?
Yes, as part of custom pricing for businesses with large payment volumes or unusual business models, according to its pricing page. Eligibility varies by market, so ask Stripe's sales team once your volume justifies it.