Stripe
Why Stripe
Sigma is an analytics add-on within the Stripe Dashboard that lets you query cleaned tables of payment, subscription, customer, and refund data using SQL or AI-generated prompts. Built for founders, finance, and data teams, it turns queries into charts, dashboards, and scheduled email reports. Analyse revenue, billing trends, and customer lifetime value without leaving Stripe.
What it does
Stripe is payments infrastructure. You connect it once and it takes card and local payments, runs checkout, stores customers and payment methods, sends invoices and handles refunds and disputes. Around that core it sells add-on products: Billing for subscriptions, Tax, Radar for fraud, Connect for platforms and marketplaces, and Sigma for querying your own payment data with SQL.
Why you would need it
Any business that charges money online needs a payment layer that works every time. Building it yourself means card security, failed payments, retries, refunds, receipts and tax. Using a basic payment link works until you need subscriptions, usage-based pricing or reports your finance person trusts.
Stripe gives you that layer, and the same account grows from a first payment to a platform with serious volume.
Where it fits
It sits between your product or website and your bank. Your checkout or app creates charges, and Stripe sends events back. Those events feed your accounting tool, your CRM and your analytics. It replaces a patchwork of payment gateways and hand-built invoicing. Dutch businesses can accept local methods, such as iDEAL, alongside cards.
It is not an accounting system. You still need something like Moneybird or Exact Online for the books.
What stands out
- An API-first design with good documentation, so engineers like working with it.
- A wide product range on one account: payments, Billing, invoicing, Tax, Radar and Sigma.
- Webhooks, a CLI and a no-code Workflows builder for reacting to payment events.
- An official MCP server for connecting AI assistants.
My take
I'd pick Stripe by default when you build software or sell online and have a developer, or access to one. It is the safest first choice, because most tools in your stack already integrate with it.
What I'd watch is cost and dependency. There is no plan fee, but you pay per transaction, and that cut grows with volume. It is developer-led, so a non-technical founder will need help beyond basic payment links. And once your billing, tax and reporting all sit in Stripe, leaving is hard. Sigma is a separate add-on, so check which paid add-ons you actually need.
Verdict
Pick Stripe when you sell software or online and want payments, subscriptions and invoices on a platform with a strong API and wide integrations. Skip it when you are offline-first and just need a card reader, or when you want a provider that also acts as merchant of record, such as Paddle or Lemon Squeezy.
Notes
Your note
Before you choose
Fees are per transaction
There is no monthly fee for payments. You pay per transaction, with different rates for card type and region, and extra for currency conversion and chargebacks. That is cheap at the start and noticeable at scale. Model your expected volume and your mix of cards and local methods, including iDEAL if you sell in the Netherlands.
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Add-ons are separate products
Billing, Tax, Sigma and Data Pipeline are priced on their own. A simple payment set-up can become a stack of line items. Decide which you need on day one and add the rest when the problem appears.
It needs a developer for anything custom
Payment links and the Dashboard cover simple cases. Anything beyond that, such as custom checkout, usage billing or reconciliation, needs engineering time. If nobody can build it, a simpler tool or a merchant-of-record provider may fit better.
Lock-in and alternatives
Customers, subscriptions and payment methods live in Stripe. Moving them is possible but slow. Compare PayPal for buyers who prefer it, Paddle and Lemon Squeezy if you want tax handled for you, and Chargebee or Recurly if subscriptions are the whole business.