Overview
Stripe is a financial technology company that builds payment infrastructure for online businesses. Brands use Stripe to accept cards and local payment methods in their webshops and apps, run subscriptions, handle tax and prevent fraud. For an e-commerce brand, Stripe is one of the main options for payments outside a platform's own payment system.
Who is behind Stripe
Stripe was founded in 2010 by the Irish brothers Patrick and John Collison and has headquarters in San Francisco and Dublin. It is a private company, valued at about USD 159 billion in early 2026. In 2025 businesses running on Stripe processed USD 1.9 trillion in total volume, up 34% from 2024, which Stripe says equals roughly 1.6% of global GDP.
What Stripe offers brands
- Payments. Cards, wallets and many local payment methods through one integration, online and in person.
- Checkout and Link. Ready-made checkout pages and Stripe's saved-payment feature for faster repeat purchases.
- Billing. Subscriptions and recurring payments.
- Radar. Fraud prevention built into payments.
- Tax. Calculating and collecting sales tax and VAT in many countries.
- Connect. Payments for platforms and marketplaces, including payouts to sellers.
New areas: AI shopping and stablecoins
Stripe is investing in "agentic commerce", where AI assistants help people shop. Together with OpenAI, it developed the Agentic Commerce Protocol, and it powers the first shopping experiences inside ChatGPT. Its Agentic Commerce Suite lets businesses sell across several AI interfaces with one integration. Stripe is also growing in stablecoin payments, which doubled across the market to almost USD 400 billion in 2025.
How pricing works
Stripe publishes standard pricing for each country, typically a percentage plus a fixed fee per successful card payment, with different rates for local and international cards and for other payment methods. Larger businesses can ask for custom pricing.
What a brand should think about
- Which payment methods matter in each market, since shoppers expect local options.
- Total payment cost, including international card fees and currency conversion.
- How Stripe fits the commerce platform, since some platforms prefer or require their own payment system.
- Development resources for a custom integration, or a platform plugin that already supports Stripe.
Why Stripe matters for brands
Payments affect both conversion and margin. Stripe gives brands a flexible, developer-friendly way to accept payments in many countries, and it is moving early into new ways of shopping, such as buying through AI assistants.
How eBrands looks at Stripe
eBrands works with brands on D2C webshops and marketplaces across Europe and North America. If you want to see how your payment setup, including options like Stripe, affects conversion and margin, we are happy to talk it through.
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