A guide to payment methods

Businesses can use this guide to discover, understand, and select the right payment methods to reach a broader audience.

A guide to payment methods for SaaS

Duration 20 minute read Page count 33 pages

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About the guide

Starting from the customer

Payment method fragmentation varies strongly by geography. While some payment methods, such as major credit card brands, have become internationally available, others have remained confined to a single country. For example, in the Netherlands, 55% of online payments are made via iDEAL, and in Germany 40% of purchases are bank-based. The relevance of a payment method will depend on the audience you are looking to reach, and in some cases may require a complete overhaul of your checkout.

Why Stripe

The complete financial stack for startups

Everything you need to get started fast

The best way to test customer willingness to pay and find product market fit with Stripe Payment Links and Stripe Invoicing. These two hosted payment options enable you to accept one click payments or get paid via Email.

Grow your business with Stripe

No matter your business model—SaaS, direct-to-consumer ecommerce, platform, marketplace—the Stripe platform applies intelligent optimizations based on billions in transactions to help block fraud and maximize revenue.

Go global with Stripe

Launch new markets, currencies, and payment methods—with minimal changes to your code. Stripe handles all cross-border money movement and currency conversion so you and your users receive payouts in your local currency.

Do more with the full suite

Set up advanced fraud protection, automate tax and VAT calculation, verify identities, analyze business data, increase conversion, mitigate churn, and much more.

Payment methods matter

Deciding on the right payment methods

This guide outlines which payment methods are relevant to specific business models, helps identify questions that you should ask when considering adding payment methods to your checkout, and provides an overview of which methods Stripe supports.
  • Advice for deciding on the right payment methods
  • Strategies for managing fraud, risk, and disputes
  • Payment method taxonomy
  • Industry considerations
  • Payment method fact sheets

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