PayPal vs Stripe

PayPal

The captured pages reference card payments and a combined business platform, but no payment method is listed with the countries and currencies it covers. We found no public information on local European methods, SEPA Direct Debit, or per-market coverage; the only region statement is that European Economic Area transactions in euro or Swedish krona are treated as domestic for fee purposes.

Stripe

The captured pages price cards by origin (1,5 % + 0,25 € für Standardkarten aus dem EWR, 3,15 % + 0,25 € für ausländische Karten), name SEPA Direct Debit at 0,35 € and Klarna, and mention Girocard on the German terminal reader. Beyond "Über 100 Zahlungsmethoden" we found no public information on which countries and currencies each method covers, on wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay, or on Benelux methods such as iDEAL or Bancontact.

PayPal

We found no public information on hosted or embedded checkout options, 3-D Secure, SCA exemption handling, fraud screening, or declined-payment handling anywhere on the captured pages.

Stripe

Fraud prevention appears as named products (Stripe Radar, and Betrugsprävention among the platform compliance tools) and PCI conformity is asserted as a bare label on the pricing page, but we found no public information on hosted versus embedded checkout, 3-D Secure or SCA exemption handling. For a regulated merchant the PCI scope attached to each integration type is the first thing I look for, and it is not stated anywhere we were shown.

PayPal

We found no public information on stored payment credentials, merchant-initiated transactions, SEPA mandate handling, subscription logic, dunning, or any process for exporting payment tokens to another provider.

Stripe

Subscription billing is evidently a core product — "200 Mio.+ aktive Abos, die über Stripe Billing verwaltet werden", selectable billing models and usage-based pricing at 0,01 € pro 1.000 Einheiten — while Link stores payment details for repeat use and SEPA Direct Debit is priced. We found no public information on merchant-initiated transaction handling, SEPA mandate management, dunning or smart retries, or a process for exporting stored credentials to another provider.

PayPal

We found no public information on payout cadence or settlement currencies, per-transaction fee itemisation, reconciliation to bank lines, or a documented API with webhooks and a test mode. The pricing page names its fee structures but says nothing about payout and reporting mechanics.

Stripe

Engineering scale is documented — "500 Mio.+ API-Anfragen täglich", SDKs and APIs, an app marketplace, developer documentation and "99,999 % historische Verfügbarkeit" — and payouts are mentioned as part of the financial infrastructure offering. We found no public information on payout cadence or settlement currencies, per-transaction fee itemisation, webhooks, or reconciliation reports that tie a payout to its transactions.

PayPal

The regulated entity is published in full — PayPal (Europe) S.à r.l. et Cie, S.C.A., supervised by the CSSF, carried as a bank EU-wide, with commercial register B 118 349, the general partner's register number, management and VAT ID all stated, which is exactly the identification a merchant needs. The bad day is unevidenced: we found no public information on reserves or rolling holds, fund freezes, termination notice, chargeback fees or a dispute process.

Stripe

The German imprint names Stripe, Inc., a Delaware corporation with register number 4675506, as the service provider — a company register entry, not a payment licence — and we found no public information on the EEA regulated entity, its supervisor, licence type or safeguarding of merchant funds. The terms are blunt on the bad day: "Stripe may terminate this Agreement or close User's Stripe Account at any time", with individual binding arbitration and a class action waiver; the published 20,00 € dispute fee and the 30-day fee-increase notice are the most buyer-protective items we found.

PayPal

The contracting and licensed entity is Luxembourg-based and CSSF-supervised, which is the part the vendor controls and states clearly. We found no public information on where transaction and cardholder data are processed and stored, on any subprocessor list with locations, or on a data processing agreement allocating controller and processor roles; the group parent sits in the United States per the capture provenance.

Stripe

The service provider on the captured legal notice is Stripe, Inc. of South San Francisco, California, while the privacy notice says the responsible Stripe entity varies by jurisdiction — and we found no public information on where transaction and cardholder data are processed or stored, and no subprocessor list. The privacy notice does state that Stripe acts as controller and/or processor depending on the activity, and a DPA with a Data Transfers Addendum is incorporated into the agreement; those are the only sovereignty-relevant disclosures on the captured pages.

PayPal

The pricing page says plainly that Interchange Plus, Blended and Interchange Plus Plus structures are available, that European Economic Area transactions in euro or Swedish krona count as domestic for fees, and it quotes a 1.29% surcharge for UK-based recipients of international transactions that applies only under separate agreements. No base rate per method is captured, micropayment and nonprofit rates are on application and pre-approval, and we found no public information on currency conversion markups, chargeback, refund, payout or monthly fees — the effective fee is not computable.

Stripe

Card pricing is differentiated publicly — 1,5 % + 0,25 € für Standardkarten aus dem EWR, 2,8 % + 0,25 € for premium EWR cards, 3,15 % + 0,25 € für ausländische Karten, a 2 % currency conversion markup and a 20,00 € dispute fee — alongside "Keine Einrichtungsgebühren, monatlichen Gebühren oder versteckten Gebühren" and IC+-Preisgestaltung named for custom tiers. We found no public information on payout fees, refund fees, or prices for the rest of the claimed "Über 100 Zahlungsmethoden" beyond SEPA-Lastschrift and Klarna.