Stripe Alternatives for International Payments

Sokin Pay is part of the Sokin multi-currency offering.

Other features of Sokin

It offers cheaper international payments than Stripe for most locations, although US business will pay the same percentage as Stripe, but with a slightly lower fee.

With Sokin Pay, you will also get access to the Sokin platform. This allows you to open a number of multi-currency accounts.

A multi-currency account will give you access to local account details, so you do not need to convert funds into another currency.

This can be cost on top of accepting a payment and taking a fee. Local accounts with Sokin include USD, GBP and EUR. You can also earn interest on balances with a balance boost. This will lock funds in for 60 days and give you 3% of the funds.

For things like accepting payments in the UK, where the fee is 2.50%, locking money in a balance boost for 60 days could actually help make this money back. Of course, it would need to be considered alongside cashflow, as if you withdraw the funds early you lose the interest on the balance.

Then, you can also access over 75 IBAN accounts. These aren’t quite the same as local accounts, in that you will get an IBAN number, but not an account number. They have the perk of being able to hold funds though, and to be able to send money from them.

Essentially, Sokin goes beyond being a payment gateway and allows you to manage business finances internationally as well.

Like Sokin, Airwallex is an alternative offering access to multi-currency accounts as well. It also comes with a great range of expense management options. Both of these elements are where it shines.

Transaction fees for international payments are pretty good. The starting point is 2.80%, a little more than Sokin but about 0.7% cheaper than using Stripe.

This starting point is also for domestic payments as well, whereas Sokin and Stripe tend to have a lower base - at 1.5%. So, if there’s a huge reliance on domestic payments as well. Airwallex could be used as an addition to Stripe in some locations, but may feel pricey if just domestic payments are being made.

Other features of Airwallex

Airwallex does have the perks of multi-currency options as well. In fact, Airwallex has one of the biggest multi-currency business account offerings on the market, with 12 currencies available.

Beyond this, there’s access to a nice range of marketplace integration, including accounting software. This can sync every incoming payment from multiple countries to your central workflow. Effectively, it puts managing cross border finance in one place.

Another perk is the issuance and management of cross border cards. These can be used for expense management and to manage internal budgets. Individual workflows per card or team can be set as well, with central accounting teams getting access to all options.

GoCardless is similar to Stripe in many ways. It offers access to exchanging currency at the mid-market rate, but does not support local accounts and sending money like Sokin or Airwallex.

The cost of GoCardless tiers:

Other features of GoCardless

GoCardless is regarded as one of the better international payment gateways for cost.

Notably, the company is partnered with Wise Business, so whilst you can’t send money into a multi-currency account like you can on Airwallex or Sokin, you can convert it at the mid-market rate.

As a comparison, Airwallex charges from 0.5% and Sokin will charge from 0.3% as a markup on currency conversion.

GoCardless is also one of the closer options to Stripe for marketplace and integration support. This makes it popular for those looking for easier integration. Also, with settlement timeframes at 5 days, you’ll be waiting less time for payments to reach your account.

Then, for payment acceptance you get pretty much every option you can think of with GoCardless, including PayPal support.

For businesses looking for cheaper options than Stripe, with payment methods available, GoCardless is a great choice.

Payoneer is another cross border payment platform offering some benefits on top of a payment gateway. Again, these include multi-currency account support (7 in total) and marketplace integrations.

Checkout fees and transaction costs with Payoneer are a little confusing and will change based on the amount of transactions you have.

This is broken down into the same options, a percentage of the amount of the transaction and a fixed fee on top.

Other features of Payoneer

As a perk of Payoneer is its offering to freelancers, there’s some decent support for Amazon marketplace.

The benefit here is that you can accept payments in your online store, Amazon, Ebay, Etsy and other marketplaces and have all the funds end up in a selected, or multiple, accounts.

Also, a perk that you don’t get with any of the other marketplaces is that Payoneer can be selected also as a payment method. In effect, this becomes a P2P payment. As there’s no money leaving or entering the Payoneer network, and there is no card payment to process, this removes any fees you might otherwise have associated with payments.

Overall, Payoneer is a decent option when compared to Stripe. This being said, if you were to put Payoneer and Airwallex head-to-head for example, Airwallex wins.

Zen is a payment gateway provider with a fair amount that it can offer. The account is split into two levels, the Smart Plan and the Enterprise plan.

Notably, the account offers instant settlements on payments. Making money accessible at the point of purchase.

Fees on Zen are a little complex as they differ based on the payment method. This being said, the wide-range of options and transparency on the fees is a positive. With Stripe, it can be difficult to pin down actual costs and with help portals not always offering the answers, there’s scope for an element of uncertainty to creep in.

Here’s the Zen fees by payment method:

These fees are competitive in the market, particularly the starting point of 0.89% for Visa and Mastercard acceptance.

Other features of Zen

Offers multi-currency and functionality with a number of marketplaces, again this makes it simple to put all international finance through the one option. You can also issue cards, as you can with Airwallex.

The downside of Zen is that there’s no accounting integrations, this might put off businesses where you have a need to sync with different accounts for example.

This being said, the API build allows you to work as needed, and in particular create custom reports based on the accounting software in question.

Rapyd is a payment gateway with some large names attached to it, including Uber.

The company is a gateway but also serves automatic payments / subscriptions, multi-currency accounts (IBAN), batch payments and API use.

Costs with Rapyd are one of the best on the market, in some cases starting from 0.2%. Like GoCardless, and currency conversion is offered at the mid-market rate.

Other features of Rapyd

Outside being a payment gateway, there’s some more features that make Rapyd a decent option.

Access to 25 accounts is a nice option to have, just be aware these are IBAN accounts. If you want local bank details, Airwallex, Sokin, Payoneer and Zen all offer these alongside payment gateways.

With Rapyd you can get access to over 900 payment methods. Similar to Zen, the goal is really to provide as much scope as possible for payment options. This is great for companies that want to be in control of being able to accept all sorts of payment types.

You should be aware that Rapyd $99 monthly fee that others do not, and refund fees are higher at $25 when sent via a bank transfer.

For the lower transaction costs, the fee in our opinion is offset. Although, for companies with a high amount of refunds, such as ecommerce, be clear on what the level of cost is you’ll pay with Rapyd before committing.