Adyen vs Stripe

Fees, tax handling, payouts and coverage side by side, plus how many verified RevMRR startups use each.

The short version

Neither is a merchant of record, so with either one you register for and remit sales tax and VAT yourself.
Pick Adyen for: mid-market and enterprise merchants with international or omnichannel needs — ecommerce retailers, marketplaces, and platforms that want acquiring, routing, POS, payouts, and issuing behind a single integration and can take advantage of local acquiring and custom settlement logic..
Pick Stripe for: online-first businesses — SaaS, ecommerce, subscriptions, marketplaces — with access to developer talent, and any company selling internationally that needs multi-currency support and rich analytics..

	Adyen

RevMRR Score	A86	B74
Type	Platform & Vertical SaaS	Payment Processor
Standard fee	0.6% + 0.60	2.9% + $0.30
Monthly fee	no universal monthly fees	None
Merchant of record	No	No
Sales tax / VAT	You handle it	Paid add-on
Subscriptions	Supported	Supported
Payouts	1-2 business days (varies by currency, bank, pa…	First payout 7-14 days; then a rolling schedule…
Who can sign up	Founded in 2006, based in Rokin 49, 1012 KK Amsterdam, The Netherlands	Founded in 2010, based in San Francisco, CA
Payment methods	Cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Local Payment Methods	Cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Local Payment Methods
Best for	Mid-market and enterprise merchants with international or omnichannel needs — ecommerce retailers, marketplaces, and platforms that want acquiring, routing, POS, payouts, and issuing behind a single integration and can take advantage of local acquiring and custom settlement logic.	Online-first businesses — SaaS, ecommerce, subscriptions, marketplaces — with access to developer talent, and any company selling internationally that needs multi-currency support and rich analytics.
Used on RevMRR	Not connectable yet	0 verified startups

Adyen

Adyen is one of the strongest enterprise payment platforms available — a genuinely unified stack for global, omnichannel merchants, priced on transparent Interchange++ at a published 0.60% markup over interchange, with no monthly fees. The cautions are real but concentrated: support quality drops off sharply below the enterprise tier, and the negotiated, interchange-based model rewards merchants with the volume and sophistication to use it.

+ Unified global platform covering online, in-person POS, payouts, and issuing in one stack
+ Transparent Interchange++ pricing — a published 0.60% markup on Visa, Mastercard and Maestro — with no setup, monthly, PCI, or statement fees
+ Strong developer tools, SDKs, documentation, and a full sandbox
+ Built-in risk and fraud management (RevenueProtect) at the platform level
+ No early termination fee and no fixed term on main merchant contracts
– Support, onboarding, payout, and billing complaints are common outside enterprise account tiers — Trustpilot sits at 1.3
– Pricing and contract details are negotiated, which can be opaque and complex for smaller merchants
– Interchange++ means your effective rate fluctuates with card mix rather than staying predictably flat
– Sales-led onboarding with no self-serve signup — a poor fit for very small merchants who need to be live quickly

Adyen pricing ↗

Stripe

Stripe earns its A grade: transparent flat-rate pricing with no fixed fees, an unmatched developer platform, and product breadth that covers everything from subscriptions to marketplace payouts. The honest caveats are the 7-14 day first payout, the possibility of holds while underwriting catches up with instant onboarding, and pricing that stops being a bargain at serious volume until you negotiate custom rates.

+ Best-in-class developer experience: clean APIs, SDKs, and documentation that set the industry standard
+ Transparent flat-rate pricing with no monthly, setup, PCI, or statement fees
+ Global reach with broad payment-method and multi-currency support
+ Deep feature set — subscriptions, invoicing, marketplace tools, virtual terminal — on one platform
+ No contract or early-termination fee on standard pay-as-you-go service
– First payout takes 7-14 days, and new or unusual accounts can face holds and verification friction
– Flat-rate 2.9% + $0.30 gets expensive at volume compared with negotiated interchange-plus pricing
– Complex for non-technical users — much of the value assumes you will build on the API
– Prohibits many high-risk categories and is not available in every country

Stripe pricing ↗