Stripe
Payment processing platform with APIs for online businesses
Stripe lets you start accepting payments in an afternoon — no merchant account, no bank meetings, no weeks of paperwork. Copy a few lines of code (or use no-code Payment Links), and you have a working checkout. That is why almost every solo founder starts here.
The documentation is genuinely excellent — not just “good for a payments company” but one of the best developer docs on the internet. The dashboard shows you revenue, subscriptions, and customer data clearly. The catch: Stripe is a payment processor, not a merchant of record. That means you are still responsible for sales tax, VAT, and invoicing compliance. If selling internationally scares you, look at Paddle or LemonSqueezy instead.
What's good
- Working payment flow in under an hour with Checkout or Payment Links
- Handles 135+ currencies so you can sell globally from day one
- Fraud protection (Radar) included at no extra cost
Watch out for
- 2.9% + 30c adds up — Paddle and LemonSqueezy handle taxes but Stripe does not
- Account holds happen without warning and can freeze your revenue for weeks
- No built-in tax compliance — you need Stripe Tax ($0.50/transaction) or handle it yourself