Product overview — Payments & Billing APIs Medium

Stripe

Stripe is a developer-first payments platform offering comprehensive payment processing, billing automation, fraud prevention, and financial tools. Known for best-in-class developer experience with extensive APIs and documentation.

Sources linked — see verification below.

Freshness & verification

Last updated 2026-02-09 Intel generated 2026-01-10 2 sources linked

Who is this best for?

This is the fastest way to decide whether Stripe is in the right neighborhood.

Best for
  • Developer-focused teams building custom payment integrations
  • SaaS businesses needing subscription billing automation
  • Marketplaces and platforms requiring split payments (Connect)
  • Businesses prioritizing developer experience and API quality
  • Companies needing comprehensive fraud prevention
  • Startups wanting to start free and scale gradually
Who should avoid
  • Primarily accepting international payments (1.5% surcharge)
  • Heavy reliance on Buy Now Pay Later (5.99% is expensive)
  • Need predictable flat monthly pricing instead of per-transaction
  • Require extensive white-label customization
  • Looking for lowest possible transaction fees (2.9% + 30¢ is mid-range)
  • Want bundled payment terminals and hardware included

Sources & verification

Pricing and behavioral information comes from public documentation and structured research. When information is incomplete or volatile, we prefer to say so rather than guess.

  1. https://stripe.com/pricing ↗
  2. Official website ↗