Adyen vs Stripe: Which payment provider suits your business best?

Key takeaways

• Stripe vs Adyen in New Zealand: both platforms serve Kiwi companies wanting to process customer payments, but which comes out on top? We compare price, currencies, scale, and features in this guide. 

• Stripe uses flat-rate pricing – straightforward but potentially costly at scale. Adyen uses interchange-plus pricing, meaning the rate varies by card type and transaction, which tends to be cheaper for high-volume merchants but harder to predict.

• If your business operates across borders, modern fintech platforms like Airwallex offer a third path: combining global payment acceptance with multi-currency accounts, interbank FX rates, and local payout rails – without the enterprise-focused minimum volume requirements that can make Adyen less practical for early-stage businesses.

Choosing between Stripe and Adyen is just as much a technical decision as it is a business one. Both are well-known payment processors operating globally, but they're built for very different types of businesses. Get the choice wrong and you could end up paying more than you need to, or outgrowing your provider faster than expected.

Here's how Stripe and Adyen compare across features, pricing, integration, and global reach so you can work out which one fits where your business is today, and where it's heading.

What is Stripe?

Stripe is an online payment processing platform founded in 2010, built for you if you want to start accepting payments quickly. It works as a payment aggregator, which can speed up onboarding significantly, so you can go from sign-up to accepting payments in minutes.

Stripe is known for its developer-first approach. Its application programming interface (API) is regarded as one of the most accessible in the industry. That means your engineering team can customise the checkout experience, build subscription billing, or embed payments into an app without starting from scratch.

Here's what Stripe covers:

• Payment methods: Cards, digital wallets (Apple Pay, Google Pay), bank debits, and buy now, pay later (BNPL)

• Currencies: Multi-currency support across 135+ currencies

• Integration: Pre-built checkout pages for non-developers; full API access for developers

• Pricing model: Standardised percentage + fixed-fee pricing (one rate for domestic cards and another for international cards), rather than passing through interchange on each card

• In-person payments: Stripe Terminal for physical point-of-sale (POS) transactions

• Fraud tools: Stripe Radar, a machine learning-based fraud detection system built into the platform

What is Adyen?

Adyen is a global payment processor founded in Amsterdam in 2006. Unlike Stripe, it gives you a dedicated merchant account — a direct relationship between your business and the payment network. You get more stability and control, but the application and approval process can take longer before you can start processing payments.

Adyen uses interchange-plus pricing. Every time you make a card payment, the card network (like Visa or Mastercard) charges a fee called the interchange fee. With interchange-plus, you pay that actual fee plus Adyen's fixed processing fee on top – so the total cost varies depending on the card type, the issuer's country, and the transaction type. It's more transparent than a flat rate, but harder to predict month to month.

Here's what Adyen covers:

• Payment methods: Cards, digital wallets, local payment methods, and BNPL across many markets

• Currencies: Wide multi-currency support with flexible settlement options

• Integration: API and software development kit (SDK) based; more set-up required than Stripe but greater control

• Pricing model: Interchange-plus – a fixed processing fee plus a variable fee set by the card network

• In-person payments: A full range of POS terminals for physical retail

• Fraud tools: RevenueProtect, a configurable risk management system with real-time scoring

Adyen vs Stripe

Both cover the core of what you'd expect from a payment processor – accepting cards, supporting multiple currencies, and handling fraud. But, the differences in how they're built, who they're built for, and how they charge you matter a lot depending on your business size and set-up.

Set-up and integration

Stripe's self-service sign-up is near-instant. You can create an account, connect a bank account, and start accepting payments within minutes.

Adyen takes a different approach. You submit a formal application, go through a review process, and typically spend an extended period of time in set-up before you're live. This reflects the dedicated merchant account model, which requires more due diligence upfront.

On the developer side, Stripe's documentation is more accessible for smaller engineering teams. Its pre-built components – like Stripe Elements and Stripe Checkout – let you go live quickly without deep coding knowledge. Adyen's drop-in UI and SDKs give your team fine-grained control, but you'll typically need more technical investment to implement it well.

International payments

Both Stripe and Adyen support a broad range of payment methods and currencies, but there are meaningful differences in how they handle cross-border transactions. Adyen holds direct acquiring licences in many markets, meaning it can process transactions locally rather than routing them through partner banks, which can help improve authorisation rates. Local acquiring tends to produce higher authorisation rates, which is the percentage of payment attempts that are approved. Even a small difference in authorisation rates can translate to significant lost revenue at scale.

Things get more complicated for both providers when it comes to multi-currency settlement – specifically, holding funds in foreign currencies without being forced to convert them immediately. If you're collecting payments in euros but paying suppliers in Singapore dollars, you don't want to convert twice and lose money each time. That's exactly where Airwallex comes in. Airwallex’s Global Accounts and multi-currency wallet let you hold and exchange 70+ currencies, and pay out to 200+ countries and regions, with over 90% of transfers routed via local payment rails in 120+ countries instead of SWIFT.

For platforms and marketplaces

If you're building a platform or marketplace – somewhere that other businesses sell through you – Stripe Connect is worth knowing about. It lets you onboard sub-merchants, split payments between parties, and manage payouts to multiple sellers with relatively low set-up complexity. It's one of Stripe's strongest product areas.

Adyen has platform capabilities too, but they're typically suited to larger, enterprise-scale platforms with more complex needs and bigger engineering teams. If you also need to manage cross-border payouts, hold funds in multiple currencies, or embed financial products for your users, Airwallex's Connected Accounts and Payments for Platforms are worth exploring — particularly if you're operating across multiple countries.

Adyen vs Stripe: Pricing

Pricing is often the deciding factor — and the two models work very differently.

Stripe charges simple percentage + fixed-fee rates, plus a 2% surcharge when currency conversion is required. That predictability is useful when you're budgeting, but it also means you're potentially overpaying on lower-cost transactions.

Adyen's interchange-plus model passes the actual card network fee through to you, then adds its own processing fee on top. If you're processing high volumes with a predictable transaction mix, this can work out cheaper – but it does take more analysis to forecast accurately. Here's the catch: Adyen also has a minimum monthly invoice requirement, which effectively rules it out if you're early-stage or not yet hitting that volume threshold.

Which payment provider fits your business?

There's no single right answer – it depends on your business size, transaction volume, technical capacity, and how much of your revenue comes from international customers. Here's a look at which type of business each provider tends to suit best.

Why businesses choose Airwallex

If a meaningful share of your revenue comes from overseas customers, or you're paying suppliers, contractors, or staff in other countries, Airwallex is worth a close look. It's not just a payment gateway – it's an all-in-one financial platform that combines payment acceptance, multi-currency accounts, FX, Corporate Cards, and Expense Management in one place.

You'll get the most from Airwallex if:

• You collect payments in multiple currencies and want to hold those funds without forced conversion

• You pay overseas suppliers, contractors, or staff and want to avoid SWIFT fees and poor exchange rates

• You want a single platform covering payment acceptance, FX, and spend management

• You're scaling internationally and need local payment methods and local acquiring in key markets

You want transparent FX pricing rather than a mark-up buried in the processing fee

Frequently asked questions

What is the main difference between Stripe and Adyen?

Stripe is a payment aggregator with flat-rate pricing and self-service onboarding. Adyen provides dedicated merchant accounts with interchange-plus pricing and is best suited to larger or higher-volume businesses processing across multiple channels.

Can you negotiate custom pricing with Stripe or Adyen?

Yes – both offer custom pricing if you're processing high volumes. Stripe's custom pricing is available on request above certain volume thresholds; Adyen's pricing is negotiated, particularly if you're an enterprise.

Does Adyen require a minimum monthly spend to use its platform?

Yes – Adyen has a minimum monthly invoice amount, which means you may not meet the threshold if you're processing low volumes. That makes Adyen less practical if you're early-stage or just getting started.

Do Stripe and Adyen charge extra fees when converting currencies?

Both platforms apply additional fees when your transactions involve currency conversion. Stripe charges a fixed 2% fee on top of its standard rate; Adyen's conversion costs are factored into its interchange-plus structure but still add to the total cost of cross-border transactions.

Can you use Stripe or Adyen alongside other payment providers?

Yes – you can absolutely use more than one payment processor to improve redundancy, test authorisation rates across providers, or cover markets where one performs better. It's especially common if you're enterprise-scale.

How does Stripe's fraud detection differ from Adyen's?

Both use machine learning-based fraud detection – Stripe through Stripe Radar, and Adyen through RevenueProtect. Stripe Radar is built in by default; Adyen's tools are more configurable but typically better suited to your team if you have the technical capacity to tune the rules.

What are the alternatives to Stripe and Adyen for international payments?

If your business has a strong cross-border focus, Airwallex can offer payment acceptance alongside multi-currency accounts, interbank FX rates, and local payout infrastructure in a single platform — something Stripe and Adyen don't provide natively.

Sources 

• https://www.adyen.com/en_AU/pricing

• https://stripe.com/nz/pricing 

• https://stripe.com/nz/payments

The information in this article is based on our own online research. Airwallex was not able to manually test each tool or provider. The information is provided for educational purposes only and a reader should consider the specific requirements of their business when evaluating providers. This research is reviewed annually. If you would like to request an update, feel free to contact us at [[email protected]]. Airwallex (New Zealand) Limited is registered with the New Zealand Financial Service Provider Register (FSP No. 1001602) to provide a range of financial services in New Zealand.