Businesses today are forced to constantly adapt and change how they operate to keep up with the latest technology. As a result, when choosing a payment processing system, they must carefully consider the goals they want to achieve. For instance, it might be important to their business model that they keep fees low, ensure the platform is reliable, or guarantee a smooth and seamless customer experience.
These types of considerations are why major e-commerce companies, such as Shopify, now allow their customers to set up accounts and use Stripe accounting software to manage electronic payments.
When evaluating what payment-processing platform works best for your business, you’d want to understand how Shopify uses Stripe and takes advantage of Stripe’s security features.
A Brief Overview of Stripe and Its Primary Features
Stripe is a payment service provider — not a merchant-account platform. For most business owners, understanding this point is the first step toward figuring out how they can start getting paid with Stripe.
Stripe works as a third party that receives payments from customers on behalf of a business. It charges processing and transaction fees and then transfers the remaining funds into the bank accounts of the businesses it serves.
Since its launch, Stripe has gone out of its way to become an all-in-one or one-stop shop for all matters related to business payments. The company offers more than 450 integration options and provides essential services to businesses, such as billing and invoicing, as well as terminals for in-person purchases and much more.
As a reflection of these innovations, most e-commerce business owners and other stakeholders in the market agree that Stripe has evolved significantly. It’s now an easy-to-setup payment-processing platform businesses can use to effectively facilitate customer financial transactions. Being the flexible solution, Stripe can also be an ideal solution for firms that use e-commerce platforms other than Shopify to sell their goods and services.
Shopify Payments Versus Stripe
Shopify Payments is a payment gateway that also processes customer payments much in the same way Stripe does. While Stripe is a robust, highly customizable payment-processing system, Shopify Payments is only available for businesses with accounts on the Shopify platform.
Some e-commerce business owners prefer to use Shopify Payments because they’re already familiar with Shopify, and it’s an easy transition to make when it comes to processing e-commerce sales. Shopify Payments also offers very similar payment options to the ones provided by Stripe.
If you’re a newcomer to the e-commerce field, opting to use Shopify Payments also means you won’t have to look for developers to redesign your storefront or integrate Stripe with your Shopify account. As a result, launching your online business will be easy and seamless if you use Shopify Payments as part of your Shopify account.
What to Know About Shopify and Stripe Pricing
Because customer purchases on Shopify can be processed through Stripe, it’s reasonable to expect that the two services would have similar price and fee structures. They both accept almost all customer payment methods (e.g. credit, debit, and ACH) – the only significant pricing distinction is that Shopify Payments requires users to pay a monthly premium for a Shopify membership.
Final Thoughts
Both Shopify Payments and Stripe are designed to provide users with a checkout process that is simple and easy to manage. They offer a reliable means of accepting credit card payments and have many other options that allow funds to be sent straight to your business account.
Both of these platforms provide payment procedures that comply with the mandatory Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard and have high-risk detection functionality that helps to prevent issues and chargebacks. All of these features make them highly reliable and robust payment-processing tools.