Best Stripe Competitors In Canada For May 2024

• Square: Best for retailers
• Stax Payments: Best for established companies
• PayPal: Best for periodic use
• Clover: Best for free trial
• Payment Depot: Best for large-scale operations
• Helcim: Best budget-friendly alternative
• Gravity Payments: Best for customer support
• Merchant One: Best for easy approval
• Elavon: Best for multiple sales channels
• QuickBooks Payments: Best for current QuickBooks users

Deciding on the most effective credit card processing system involves considering multiple factors about your business operations. These include the nature of your transactions, financial capacity and business model. In this process, it’s essential to examine hardware and software capabilities, associated fees, the system’s ability to integrate with existing operations and overall reliability.

When it comes to hardware, the focus is on the physical devices used to process credit card transactions. Consider the following factors when selecting your system:

• Type of payments: Your hardware should be compatible with the payment methods your customers most frequently use, including chip and PIN cards, contactless cards or mobile wallet payments, such as Apple Pay or Google Pay.
• Environment: Depending on your business type, consider whether you need robust, stationary terminals for a brick-and-mortar setup or portable devices for more mobile operations.
• Ease of use: Devices should be user-friendly for both your employees and your customers.
• Durability: Hardware should be able to withstand the wear and tear of everyday use.

Software is just as critical as hardware in a credit card processing system. The following factors should be considered:

• Integration: The software should integrate seamlessly with your existing systems, such as your accounting software or e-commerce platform.
• Security: Ensure the software is Payment Card Industry (PCI)-compliant to protect your business and customers from fraud and data breaches.
• Reporting and analytics: Good software should provide valuable insights into sales trends, inventory and other business-critical data.
• Customer support: Look for software providers that offer comprehensive customer support to troubleshoot any potential issues.

Understanding the associated fees is important when choosing a credit card processing system:

• Transaction fees: Typically, these fees are a percentage of each transaction and may include a fixed cost per transaction.
• Monthly and annual fees: Some providers charge a flat monthly or annual fee for access to their services.
• Hidden fees: Be vigilant of hidden costs, such as cancellation fees, compliance fees or gateway fees.

While Stripe is a highly popular payment gateway, whether it is the best choice depends largely on your business’s specific needs and requirements. Consider the aforementioned factors and compare multiple options before making a decision. It’s vital to choose a system that offers the right balance of cost, features and support for your business.

Stripe Pros & Cons

Pros

You won’t pay a monthly fee to use Stripe, which isn’t always standard among Stripe alternatives. Plus, Stripe’s per-transaction fees are on the lower end, starting at 2.9% plus $0.30 CAD per transaction. With its open API, Stripe integrates with a wide range of software, from e-commerce platforms to accounting software and gives tech-savvy business owners infinite customization options.

Stripe also offers Stripe Sigma, which lets you use data from your Stripe account to create custom reports and dashboards. With this, you can make informed business decisions based on real data, rather than relying on hunches.

Cons

Stripe is notoriously difficult to set up thanks to its endless customization options and open API. It’s why so many rely on third-party solutions to integrate with Stripe and make it easier to set up solutions such as recurring payments or subscriptions. It doesn’t have a built-in shopping cart, either, so you’ll need to use a Stripe-compatible shopping cart solution or build your own Stripe integration.

The Stripe dashboard isn’t the most user-friendly, which can make it difficult to find what you’re looking for, especially if you’re not a tech-savvy individual. Stripe doesn’t offer telephone support, which can be frustrating if you need help and can’t find it in Stripe’s online documentation.

Stripe Cost

You won’t pay a monthly fee with Stripe, which is atypical among Stripe alternatives. Stripe’s per-transaction fees start at 2.9% plus $0.30 CAD, which is on the lower end compared to other Stripe alternatives. Compared to its competition, its invoicing and billing rates are much lower. To set up recurring subscriptions, it’s 0.5% and invoices are 0.8% per paid invoice.

It has a whole host of other features, such as Data Pipeline, which costs $0.03 CAD per transaction and allows you to send data to your warehouse and report to Redshift or Snowflake. Sigma makes it easy to analyze data and starts at $0.02 CAD per charge. With Atlas, you’ll pay a one-time fee of $500 USD ($674.33 CAD). This allows you to establish a limited liability company (LLC) or C corporation (C-corp) in just days, opens a U.S. bank account, gives you access to founder forums and lets you issue stock to C-corp founders.

When to Choose a Competitor Over Stripe

You may want to consider a Stripe competitor for your credit card processing system in these scenarios:

• Need for hands-on support: Stripe’s extensive customization options and open API can be complex for those not tech-savvy. If you need more direct assistance and support, alternatives that include Square or PayPal, which are known for their user-friendly platforms, might be more suitable.
• Requirement for telephone support: Stripe does not offer telephone support, which can be a limitation if your business needs that level of service. Competitors, including Merchant One or Elavon, which provide telephone support, could be better choices.
• Preference for all-in-one solutions: If your business requires a solution that integrates a shopping cart with payment processing, Clover or Shopify may be a better fit as they offer these comprehensive services.
• High transaction volume: If your business processes a high volume of transactions, it might be more cost-effective to consider a Stripe competitor with tiered pricing, such as National Processing, that could potentially reduce your transaction costs.

To identify the top Stripe competitors, we’ve developed a comprehensive methodology that evaluates various credit card processing systems against a weighted set of categories. The score of each system in every category is used to determine a product’s total score, which can be a maximum of five stars:

• Mobile app (5%): We consider whether the platform has a mobile app, checking both its presence and its ratings on the App Store and Google Play. This category accounts for 5% of a product’s total score.
• Customer reviews (10%): In this category, we analyze user reviews and ratings on trusted platforms, such as Trustpilot, G2 and Capterra. We also factor in Better Business Bureau (BBB) ratings, the number of BBB reviews and the ratio of BBB complaints to reviews. This category accounts for 10% of a product’s total score.
• Service and support (10%): We evaluate the quality of customer support, considering factors, such as live chat availability, the comprehensiveness of the knowledge base or help centre, phone support and whether 24/7 customer support is offered. This category accounts for 10% of a product’s total score.
• General features (35%): This category evaluates the system’s key features, such as a reporting dashboard, invoicing capabilities, data export options, support for contactless payments, software integrations, PCI compliance and volume-based discounts. Implementation, reliability and user-friendliness are the criteria used to score each feature. This category accounts for 35% of a product’s total score.
• Payment options (20%): We assess the variety of payment options supported, including Apple Pay, Google Pay, POS integration and acceptance of major credit cards such as Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express. This category contributes to 20% of a product’s total score.
• Expert opinion (20%): This category involves our own expert evaluation, where we review each system for its unique or standout features, assess its overall value for money, gauge its popularity among users and evaluate its ease of use. The aim of this category is to identify systems that offer something extra beyond the basics, be it innovative features, exceptional value or superior user experience. This category accounts for 20% of a product’s total score.

Please note that in this particular evaluation, pricing and fees are not included in the final score. They are still evaluated and discussed for transparency and clarity but do not contribute to the total percentage score.

Canadian specific editing and research (including pricing) conducted by Anna Rey.