Payments review
Stripe
The default payments stack for solopreneurs: invoices, subscriptions, one-off charges, all of it. If you take money on the internet, you probably end up here.
Last hands-on test:
Migrated a side product from Lemon Squeezy to Stripe Checkout over a week. Tested the new pricing-table builder and the EU VAT handling on actual cross-border purchases.
At a glance
- Pricing
- 2.9% + 30¢ per successful card charge, no monthly fee
- Category
- Payments
- Last hands-on test
- Best for
- Anyone taking payments on the internet: services, subscriptions, courses, products.
Disclosure: Some links on this page are affiliate links. I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend tools I've used and would happily suggest to a friend.
Benchmarks
How Stripe actually scores.
Five axes that matter for a one-person business. Each score is editorial, 1–10, higher is better. A tool that maxes every axis doesn't exist; the shape of the chart is the signal.
- Price
- Value for a one-person budget
- Solo fit
- Built with solo operators in mind
- Learning curve
- How fast a beginner gets useful work done
- Lock-in
- How easy it is to leave (high = easy)
- Support
- Quality and responsiveness of help
Scores are set by the editor after hands-on use and revised as the tool evolves. They're not paid for and don't change based on affiliate partnerships.
The case for
- Works out of the box for almost every payments shape: invoices, subscriptions, one-offs, marketplaces
- Best-in-class developer documentation and dashboard
- Stripe Atlas is genuinely useful if you are a non-US founder needing a US business
- Mature failure-handling: disputes, refunds, failed cards are all a few clicks away
The case against
- Does not handle international VAT/sales tax unless you pay extra for Stripe Tax
- Card fees add up. Lemon Squeezy / Paddle are cheaper for digital products at scale
- Customer support is good once you get to a human, but slower than the docs suggest
Why Stripe is the default
Stripe is what almost every solopreneur ends up using, and it is the default for a reason. Once you wire it up, payments just work. Recurring billing, one-off invoices, international cards, refunds, disputes are all handled in a dashboard that does not feel like a 2007 banking portal.
The developer experience is the headline feature even if you are not a developer. The hosted Checkout and Payment Links work without any code, and almost every tool you might integrate Stripe with (newsletters, course platforms, schedulers, link-in-bio tools) already speaks Stripe natively.
What Stripe is not
It is not a tax solution. If you sell digital products to customers in the EU, UK, or the dozens of US states with marketplace facilitator laws, plain Stripe leaves you handling VAT, GST and sales tax yourself. Stripe Tax automates a lot of that for around $15/mo plus a small per-transaction fee, and it is worth it the moment you cross your first international threshold.
For digital products specifically, Lemon Squeezy or Paddle can be cheaper because they act as merchant of record and handle tax for you in exchange for a higher fee. But for services, subscriptions, or anything where the buyer is mostly in your home country, Stripe is hard to beat.
How most one-person businesses use it
- Invoices for client services (the hosted invoice page is genuinely good and gets paid faster than a PDF)
- Subscription billing for memberships, courses, recurring retainers
- Payment Links for one-off product or workshop sales: a single URL, no website needed
- Stripe Atlas for non-US founders who need a US LLC and US business banking
Verdict
If you take money on the internet, you almost certainly end up using Stripe. The question is whether you also need a layer above it (Lemon Squeezy for digital products, an invoicing tool like Bonsai for services with contracts attached). Stripe itself is rarely the wrong choice.
Related reading: our Stripe vs Lemon Squeezy vs Paddle payment platform comparison.
Bottom line
Ready to try Stripe?
Anyone taking payments on the internet: services, subscriptions, courses, products.
Disclosure: Some links on this page are affiliate links. I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend tools I've used and would happily suggest to a friend.
Living document
What did we miss about Stripe?
Every review evolves. Spot something wrong, missing, or out of date — drop a note. The most useful ones land in our monthly "Reader corrections" post, with credit if you're up for it.
7 questions · ~60 seconds
Find the right stack for your business of one.
Seven quick questions, sixty seconds. We'll match you with the tools that actually fit, and tell you which ones to drop.
Build my stack