Are you trying to make a decision on which payment provider to choose? Kicking the tires, so to speak, of both Stripe and Authorize.net? Well, great news! We have all the information you need to make an informed decision right here.
We’re going to make sure you’re comfortable enough to make a decision by giving you a thorough background on both companies, including how they compare in terms of features, user benefits, and long-term strategic value.
Let’s get started!
What do Stripe and Authorize.net do?
Let’s start with some background information on both businesses. A little historical context should give you a better understanding of how they got to where they are now.
Stripe, founded in 2010, is the new kid on the block, born into the era of the modern API. The company maintains dual headquarters in San Francisco and Dublin, giving it a strategic geographic position in both North America and Europe.
Stripe describes itself as a complete payments platform and financial infrastructure. An API-first philosophy roots Stripe’s existence, as it built a payments platform designed for developers to be flexible and highly composable from the ground up.
Their model focuses on providing a single, unified system that can operate across any border, treating global payments like it’s an operational feature, not a banking transaction.
Authorize.Net, founded in 1996, is a respected veteran operating as a Visa solution for payment gateway integrations and payment processing. This platform is also regarded as a leader in the payments space, often recognized for its stability and established presence in the North American market.
Authorize.Net began as a direct, reliable gateway solution for merchants, and its feature set has traditionally catered to those core merchant needs, such as virtual terminals and in-person transactions. Their long history in the payments game gives them a deeply entrenched position with a foundational understanding of the commerce lifecycle.
What are the core philosophies behind Stripe and Authorize.net?
We’ve got two platforms here who, at a fundamental level, have very similar core purposes. They move money. That’s not all of it, but that’s what they do at their most basic level.
However, they do have really different approaches to how they get that done. It’s like the difference between the McLaren MCL39 F1 car and a Land Rover Defender. They’ll both get the job done, but you’re going to be driving them for very different reasons and on very different terrain.
Stripe’s business model centers around simple global payments. They’re useful for a really wide range of industries, including startups, enterprises, e-commerce businesses, marketplaces, embedded finance solutions, crypto companies, global businesses, and those operating in the creator economy.
It’s not by accident that Stripe made the decision to support local acquiring coverage in 46 markets and support for 135 currencies. This is the foundation of the platform’s utility, the chassis of the F1 car, if you will.
If you’re a business who sees international expansion and developer efficiency as key to your success, then you’d be hard pressed to do better than Stripe. You use one API to access the entire global ecosystem, which is a big deal for most businesses. Otherwise, you’d be spending money on the engineering time tax of managing multiple vendors.
Authorize.net, on the other hand, is serving a more narrow audience. Why? It’s simply because their availability is limited to the United States and Canada. If you’re a merchant, you might be interested in this one. It’s one of the top choices of the North American e-commerce industry.
What they do is provide a stable, reliable suite of services that any merchant can use to operate within those specific regions. They have solid fraud detection and automated recurring billing for subscription services, both of which are critical for North American merchants. Stability and ease of integration into existing, established commerce environments makes it an easy choice for a lot of merchants.
As you can see, these are two platforms with distinct value propositions. Stripe will get you a highly flexible, global operating system for payments, while Authorize.Net offers a stable, well-established suite of tools specifically tailored to the transactional needs of North American merchants. You simply need to decide if you are scaling globally, or optimizing locally.
Platform comparison of Stripe vs Authorize.net
Though Stripe and Authorize.Net share a common goal of facilitating smooth payment experiences, their offerings look quite different when you start to examine the finer details and functional capabilities. The following table provides a concise, high-level comparison of the most critical decision-making factors.
Pricing models of Stripe and Authorize.net
You’re always going to think about cost as a deciding factor. Then again, only thinking about the transaction fee is a bit like debating the price of a life raft while your ship is sinking. Let’s look beyond the initial numbers to better understand the architectural cost of each of these models.
Because a lower price per transaction won’t mean much if the system can’t scale with your business or protect you from revenue loss.
Stripe's flexible pricing: standard vs custom
With Stripe, you get a clear path to growth through two different pricing models.
The Standard model charges you only for what you use on the platform. Domestic card payments are 2.9% + 30¢. This pay-as-you-go structure is highly appealing to startups and businesses with fluctuating volumes because there are no monthly fees for basic service. You get a simple, transparent structure that aligns nicely with Stripe’s developer-first philosophy, all while removing early barriers to entry.
There’s also a Custom pricing model that offers flexible interchange-plus (IC+) pricing and volume-based discounted rates designed around the needs of large enterprises. If you’re a high-volume merchant who wants granular control over your costs and the ability to negotiate based on their size and transaction mix, then this is a good choice for you.
Businesses who are expanding aggressively into new territories where country-specific rates apply will find this model to be a basic requirement of getting that done. Stripe’s customizable pricing makes it an exceptional choice for businesses of all sizes and in almost all locations, with the aim to simplify global payments and increase the efficiency of cross-border transactions.
Authorize.Net's bundle pricing: all-in-one vs gateway only
Authorize.Net divides its services into two different bundles, forcing merchants to make an immediate architectural choice. This situation is a lot like being forced to choose a single fixed menu at a complex restaurant: it might be simple, but it assumes your entire financial situation is exactly the same as the next person. That one-size-fits-all approach does not work when your payment model is a high-stakes proposition. Structures like these are a kind of leftover legacy construct of the traditional payments industry model.
The All-in-one bundle includes both a merchant account and a gateway solution, which does simplify the vendor relationship for smaller merchants who prefer a single provider.
The Gateway only option is designed for merchants who already have an established merchant account with a different provider and only need Authorize.Net for its gateway capabilities. This option has a lower per-transaction fee but it does require you to manage two separate vendor relationships for your payments process.
You’ll have to be careful when modeling the cost-benefit of managing the additional vendor vs the daily batch fee and transaction savings. It’s really a choice between simplicity (All-in-one) and control over the merchant account relationship (Gateway only). Note, however, that both bundles carry a monthly fee, establishing a predictable fixed cost for the merchant.
Stripe’s complete payments platform: features and global strategy
The strength of Stripe’s platform is defined by its breadth, aiming to solve all problems a modern digital commerce business faces, not just transaction processing. With this platform, you get access to a large number of global payment methods, including alternative payments.
The complete list of global payments supported by Stripe is sorted into eight categories: Debit and credit cards, Bank debits, Bank redirects, Bank transfers, Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) options, Real-time payments, Vouchers, and Wallets.
Along with this diverse selection of accepted payments, Stripe also offers local acquiring in 46 markets around the world. The company actively works to increase availability, even offering services like Stripe Atlas to help businesses become incorporated in the U.S..
And as for cross-border payments, Stripe offers cross-border payment options for 195 countries.
Advanced features for revenue automation
Stripe sorts its platform features into three main categories: global payments, money management, and revenue and finance automation. Each category is made up of several different services and solutions.
- Global Accessibility: Through just one integration, you can connect your payment system to 195 countries from 46 global markets. You can transact in more than 135 currencies with the payment methods you and your customers prefer. This eliminates the need for expensive, custom integrations for every new market you enter.
- Built-in Fraud Prevention: Powerful machine learning capabilities allow Stripe to adapt to new fraud patterns quickly without any additional integrations needed. The platform can also provide you with detailed fraud analytics to improve your fraud strategy in the future.
- Checkout Optimization Tools: Flexible and embeddable user interface (UI) toolkits and pre-built payment forms give you everything you need to create and launch a checkout page in no time. These are no-code tools, making it friendly even to those without an experienced developer’s skillset.
- Payment Optimization: You can both protect and grow your revenue with features like real-time retries and auto-updated cards. These features are the shock-proof Casio you can rely on every time, especially for recurring payment scenarios where a reliable automated payment initiation process is required. They actively work to combat involuntary churn, which is losing customers not because they canceled, but because a payment failed.
- Embedded Payments: Platforms and marketplaces can utilize Stripe’s embedded payment solutions to simplify their payment management across platforms. Stripe enables key capabilities like instant onboarding and risk tools.
- Predictable Payouts: Flexible payout options that can be sent straight to your bank account make Stripe a standout option for improving your financial transparency.
- Compliance Expertise: Stripe is PCI-compliant and holds global regulatory licenses. Its average historical uptime is 99.9%.
Developers love Stripe because they have such a wide range of free developer tools. They’ve got software development kits (SDKs) and UI components, API management and error handling, testing environments, webhooks, event destinations, the Stripe CLI (for managing Stripe resources in test mode directly using the command line), and the Stripe Shell (for managing Stripe resources in test mode from the Stripe docs site). It’s enough to make any developer feel good about working with this platform.
Stripe payment method pricing model details
Here’s Stripe’s pricing models by payment method that is broken down for the different payment categories. This will help you with accurate cost modeling and revenue forecasting.
Authorize.Net’s merchant account and gateway solutions
Authorize.Net maintains a strong and relevant position in the market by offering a specific suite of tools that serve the North American merchant with precision and stability. This is the platform that is focused on doing one thing extremely well within a defined boundary.
Pricing model and advanced features
Authorize.Net splits its solution into two bundles, each offering the same assortment of advanced features, which are foundational for a thriving North American e-commerce business.
The included Automated Recurring Billing is a core asset for any subscription business, providing the technical feature set needed to manage recurring charges reliably. The Advanced Fraud Detection Suite is also a key feature for merchants concerned about high chargeback rates, giving them a robust, established tool to mitigate risk. The Customer Information Manager allows merchants to store sensitive customer data securely, which simplifies PCI compliance efforts and speeds up repeat purchases.
The consistency of features across both bundles means that you will only have to choose between their merchant account provider and the associated transaction fees, not functional capabilities. Both bundles also provide 24/7 live support and detailed reporting and analytics to help merchants track payment performance and financial metrics.
Should you use Stripe or Authorize.net?
The reality is that Stripe and Authorize.Net are built for fundamentally different missions. Your choice should be a strategic alignment with your growth goals. What are you looking for? You’re looking for the simplest and most cost-effective path to getting paid.
Stripe's worldwide presence, developer-centric tools, and customizable pricing make it the easy choice for businesses aiming for global growth and complex, API-driven payment needs. If your business is part of the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) industry (which could surpass $253 billion by the end of 2025), or if your strategy includes new international markets in the next two to three years, Stripe has the scalability you need, along with an incredibly advanced feature set. Not to mention that its real-time payment optimization tools are essential for subscription models that rely on maximizing card-on-file success.
Authorize.Net is a solid, established gateway best suited for small to mid-sized businesses in the U.S. and Canada that need a reliable, basic merchant solution with strong security and reliable recurring billing. Simplicity and clear integration are the name of the game here, so it’s great for those prioritizing ease of use within a defined regional market.
Obviously, the goal of any payments infrastructure is simple: to make sure the money hits your bank account every time, on time. Stripe aims to achieve this globally through advanced automation and developer flexibility. Authorize.Net aims to achieve this regionally through established reliability and strong merchant features.
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