Path 02 · You are the seller

Direct payment providers

These products are not one category. Each moves money differently, but your business normally remains responsible for the sale, tax, disputes, billing, and support.

8 representative profiles · not a popularity ranking
You are the merchant established

Adyen

A global payment platform and acquirer for larger businesses needing online, in-person, marketplace, and multi-region payment infrastructure.

Public pricing A fixed processing fee plus a payment-method fee; card economics can use interchange-plus-plus pricing.
  • Large international businesses
  • Omnichannel commerce
View evidence-led profile
You are the merchant growth

Airwallex

A global financial platform combining online payment acceptance, multi-currency accounts, FX, transfers, cards, invoicing, and subscription billing.

Public pricing US domestic online cards are 2.8% + $0.30; international cards are 4.3% + $0.30, with regional rates elsewhere.
  • Cross-border online businesses
  • SaaS with global treasury needs
View evidence-led profile
You are the merchant established

Braintree

PayPal's API-oriented payment platform for cards, PayPal, wallets, vaulting, recurring billing, and enterprise checkout.

Public pricing US standard card and wallet pricing is 2.89% + $0.29, with additional international and non-USD fees.
  • Businesses needing PayPal plus cards
  • Established recurring-payment products
View evidence-led profile
You are the merchant established

GoCardless

A specialist bank-payment network for recurring and one-off account-to-account collections through Direct Debit, ACH, and open-banking payment rails.

Public pricing US Standard is 0.5% + $0.05 for domestic ACH, capped at $5; international payments are 1.5% + $0.05.
  • Recurring bank payments
  • Invoice collection
View evidence-led profile
You are the merchant established

Mollie

A European payment service provider for cards, bank methods, wallets, hosted checkout, recurring payments, and platform payments.

Public pricing Public per-method pricing with country-specific rates; volume and IC++ pricing are available.
  • European SaaS and ecommerce
  • Businesses prioritizing European bank methods
View evidence-led profile
You are the merchant established

PayPal Checkout

A buyer-wallet and checkout product for PayPal, cards, Venmo, Pay Later, and eligible alternative methods.

Public pricing US PayPal Checkout is 3.49% + $0.49; standard card payments are listed separately.
  • Businesses whose buyers expect PayPal
  • Creators adding a familiar wallet
View evidence-led profile
You are the merchant established

Square

An omnichannel payments and commerce platform spanning online checkout, invoices, subscriptions, APIs, point of sale, and hardware.

Public pricing US online payments are 2.9% + $0.30; country, channel, subscription, and international rates vary.
  • Omnichannel small businesses
  • Creators selling online and in person
View evidence-led profile
You are the merchant established

Stripe Payments

A developer-focused global payments platform for cards, wallets, bank methods, hosted checkout, payment links, and custom payment flows.

Public pricing US standard pricing starts at 2.9% + $0.30 for domestic online cards; country, method, international, and FX fees vary.
  • Developer-led SaaS
  • Businesses wanting checkout control
View evidence-led profile
Service models

Do not compare unlike products.

Processor / PSP

Accepts and processes multiple payment methods for your merchant business.

Wallet checkout

Uses an existing buyer account and trusted wallet inside your checkout.

Gateway / acquirer

Connects payment data, networks, acquiring, routing, and settlement at different layers.

Billing layer

Manages catalog and subscription logic, but may still need a processor and tax operations.

The direct stack

You choose which layers to assemble.

  1. 01
    Checkout and payment methods

    Hosted, embedded, or custom acceptance for cards, wallets, bank methods, and local options.

  2. 02
    Billing and invoicing

    Catalog, subscriptions, usage, credits, dunning, customer portal, and invoice state.

  3. 03
    Tax and compliance

    Registration, calculation, evidence, filing, remittance, invoices, PCI scope, and authentication.

  4. 04
    Operations and accounting

    Fraud rules, disputes, refunds, support, reconciliation, reserves, payouts, and ledger exports.

The control dividend

More ownership can be the right answer.

Remaining the merchant can provide broader product eligibility, direct customer identity, flexible checkout, modular vendors, and better economics at scale. Those advantages are real only when the retained tax, security, support, dispute, billing, and finance work has an owner.

Map the retained work →