For independent software vendors and SaaS companies that are looking to integrate payments into their platforms, Adyen Payments and Stripe Connect may seem like viable solutions.
While both offer some great features and functionality, there are some key differences between them that are worth considering.
In this article, we’ll compare both of these solutions based on their features, benefits, pricing, and customer reviews so you can make an informed decision.
Let’s get started.
TL;DR
- Adyen offers a single platform that simplifies payment acceptance, processing, and settlement—both online and in-person—for businesses as well as marketplaces. Stripe Connect is a solution designed specifically for platforms and marketplaces that want to offer payment functionality to their users.
- Both solutions support a variety of payment methods, offer several APIs for integrations, ensure security and compliance, manage risk, and have robust reporting features. On the flip side, both of these solutions are quite expensive and have a complicated pricing structure. User reviews on popular forums aren’t great either.
- ISVs and SaaS companies looking to facilitate payments may be better served by Stax Connect whose easy-to-use UI, excellent customer support, and robust integration capabilities can help them build a complete payments ecosystem from scratch in as little as 30 days. Plus, they can enjoy generous revenue-sharing programs and benefit from a custom pricing plan based on their unique needs.
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Adyen Payments vs. Stripe Connect: An Overview
Founded in 2006, Adyen is a Dutch financial technology solution provider that enables businesses worldwide to accept electronic payments using a wide range of payment methods. The company also enjoys the status of an acquiring bank and provides an all-in-one payments platform for end-to-end payment processing, financial data reporting, and other financial products.
Stripe Connect is a service offered by the Irish-American financial services provider Stripe, that helps platforms and marketplaces integrate payments into their offerings. The Stripe Connect API enables these marketplaces to own the payments experience—from onboarding sub-merchants to facilitating payouts and creating additional revenue streams—while Stripe manages payments KYC.
Adyen Payments: Features
Adyen calls itself a “financial technology platform for the modern era.” Essentially, it manages end-to-end payment processing including risk management, authentication, and issuing. The main features of Adyen Payments include:
- A single platform that simplifies payment acceptance, processing, and settlement—both online and in-person—for businesses as well as marketplaces (like Uber or eBay). It supports a wide range of currencies and payment methods including credit cards and debit cards (Visa, Mastercard, Amex, etc.), digital wallets (PayPal, Apple Pay, etc.), buy now pay later, direct debits, and so on.
- Adyen offers merchant accounts, point-of-sale (POS) systems for in-store payments, a payment gateway for online payments, and integrations for mobile or in-app payments. Its omnichannel payment solution (called Unified Commerce) collates customer info from all sales channels to give you a holistic view of shopper behavior.
- Multiple pre-packaged plugins allow easy integration of the Adyen platform with your website, app, or business tools (e.g., billing, clienteling, or eCommerce software). That means you don’t need to spend time and resources on development. Instead, you can go to market faster by leveraging existing plugins for BigCommerce, Adobe Commerce, Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365, etc.
- The payment processor takes care of security and compliance with regulations like PCI DSS, GDPR, PSD2, etc., so you can focus on what matters most—running your business.
- Adyen has complete control over the entire payment flow, which means businesses can benefit from better authorization rates and lower transaction fees through local processing—but without the hassle of managing multiple providers.
- The platform has a risk management feature called RevenueProtect with several tools for data analysis that help prevent chargebacks from payment fraud. These also run risk experiments, analyze customer behavior, and include 3D authentication.
- Its in-depth reporting functionality displays data from all your sales channels to give you useful insights into channel performance, global payments, customer behavior, etc.
Stripe Connect: Features
Stripe Connect is a solution designed specifically for platforms and marketplaces that want to offer payment functionality to their users. Its main features are:
- Stripe’s hosted onboarding allows sub-merchants to launch their platforms faster without having to spend a lot of time and money on development. It supports 135+ currencies and multiple payment methods including credit cards, debit cards, digital wallets, ACH payments, direct debits, recurring billing, invoicing, payment links, and so on.
- Sub-merchants can benefit from additional revenue streams by marking up transactions or participating in Stripe’s revenue-share program. They can also monetize Stripe’s other products like expense cards, financing, or money management accounts.
- Its pre-built, conversion-optimized verification flows allow sub-merchants to onboard users quickly while ensuring compliance with local regulations. Stripe takes care of identity verification, MATCH list checks, risk-based AML and KYC checks, sanctions screening, etc., and ensures compliance with regulations like PCI DSS, PSD2, etc.
- Stripe’s global routing and payout engine enables sub-merchants to facilitate payouts quickly while minimizing operational overhead. They can route international payments instantly, split payments between multiple users, and specify markups on each transaction.
- Stripe Connect also comes with robust record-keeping capabilities so you can easily create custom reports, track and reconcile payments, issue refunds, generate tax forms, and so on.
Adyen Payments vs. Stripe Connect: Pricing
Adyen has a complex pricing structure that consists of a fixed processing fee and a payment method fee for every transaction. These fees may vary by geography. For example, a Visa payment made in the US will have a fixed processing fee of $0.13 while the payment method fee will be the interchange fee.
While there are no cancellation fees, setup fees, monthly fees, or integration fees, Adyen does have a minimum invoice criterion depending on the industry or business model. The pricing of Adyen for Platforms, which is their offering for platforms and marketplaces, isn’t mentioned on the website.
As for Stripe Connect, the pricing is based on usage and the capabilities you need. If you choose the Standard account—which lets your users directly accept payments—there are no platform-specific fees involved.
However, if you choose the Express or the Custom account—which lets you customize the payments experience—you’ll incur $2 for every monthly active user, 0.25% of payout volume + $0.25 per payout, along with tax reporting fees. Stripe’s processing fees start from 2.9% + $0.30 and will vary based on currency. Extra fees will also apply for currency conversion.
Adyen Payments vs. Stripe Connect: Reviews
Adyen has a rating of 1.5/5 on Trustpilot based on 142 reviews. Many customers have reported issues with their payments getting stuck and extremely poor customer service. The company isn’t accredited by the Better Business Bureau and has an F rating.
Stripe has a rating of 3.2 based on 11749 reviews on Trustpilot with 50% of users rating the company 5 stars and 39% rating it 1 star. Some users have praised its onboarding process and support while some have complained about its lack of fraud protection, unresponsiveness, and account holds and terminations. The company is BBB accredited and has an A+ rating.
Final Verdict
There doesn’t seem to be a clear winner between Adyen Payments and Stripe Connect. Both have their pros and cons. However, while Adyen’s all-in-one platform caters to a variety of different businesses, Stripe Connect has been designed specifically for platforms and marketplaces that want to integrate payments.
Even so, both solutions are quite expensive and have a complicated pricing structure. ISVs and SaaS companies looking to facilitate payments may be better served by our very own Stax Connect.
With an easy-to-use UI, excellent customer support, and robust integration capabilities, Stax Connect can help you build a complete payments ecosystem from scratch in as little as 30 days. Plus, you can enjoy our generous revenue-sharing programs and benefit from a custom pricing plan based on your unique needs. No tiers, no upcharges.
