Best Credit Card Processors for SaaS
SaaS processing is fundamentally different from one-off retail or e-commerce. Recurring billing, account updater (auto-refreshing expired cards), dunning workflows, and global currency support determine whether your MRR survives the inevitable card lifecycle issues. Stripe Billing dominates for a reason: the recurring billing tooling is genuinely best-in-class. Braintree, Adyen, and Recurly's underlying processors are real alternatives once volume justifies the migration.
- 1Stripe8/10
Developer-first online payments with transparent flat-rate pricing.
Pricing: 2.9% + 30¢ (online)Contract: month-to-month✓ Best-in-class developer documentation and APIs✗ Flat-rate is expensive once you cross ~$15K/mo in volume - 2
PayPal's developer-focused gateway — Stripe alternative for online businesses.
Pricing: 2.59% + 49¢ (cards)Contract: month-to-month✓ PayPal + cards in a single integration✗ Same account-hold risk patterns as PayPal - 3Adyen7.5/10
Enterprise-grade global payments — built for companies, not SMBs.
Pricing: Interchange + €0.11 + processor fee (custom-quoted)Contract: varies✓ Single platform for global multi-channel processing✗ Designed for enterprise — high minimums - 4Authorize.net7.7/10
Veteran payment gateway — almost always paired with another processor.
Pricing: $25/mo + 10¢ per transaction (gateway only)Contract: month-to-month✓ Massive integration library — works with virtually everything✗ Adds $25/mo + 10¢/txn ON TOP of your processor's fees - 5Shopify Payments7.2/10
Bundled with Shopify storefronts — penalty fees if you use anything else.
Pricing: 2.4%–2.9% + 30¢ (online, varies by plan)Contract: month-to-month✓ Native to Shopify — zero setup friction✗ Effectively forced — third-party processors get penalty surcharge
Bottom line
Stripe is the default for new SaaS — and a good one until you're processing $200K+/month in subscriptions. At that scale, Adyen's lower per-transaction cost and global acquiring footprint pay back the engineering investment. Braintree is the natural Stripe alternative for businesses that want PayPal acceptance without a separate integration.
Fees that affect this category
Definitions, typical ranges, and how to negotiate them.