Acquired.com vs Stripe UK 2026: Fees, Features & Which to Choose

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Acquired.com and Stripe are two very different payment providers that happen to serve some overlapping UK merchants. Acquired.com is a London-based acquirer built around high-volume, high-risk, and regulated industries, offering bespoke interchange-plus pricing and a dedicated account manager from day one. Stripe is a developer-first payment platform with transparent pay-as-you-go pricing at 1.5% plus 20p per successful UK card transaction, designed for businesses that want to go live quickly with minimal negotiation. If you process above roughly £500,000 a year in card payments and operate in a complex or regulated sector, Acquired.com is likely the stronger fit. If you are a startup, SaaS company, or growing e-commerce brand that values self-serve onboarding and deep API documentation, Stripe is hard to beat.

Acquired.com vs Stripe: Fee Comparison

What is Acquired.com?

Acquired.com is a UK-founded payment service provider and acquirer, headquartered in London and established in 2015. It holds direct acquiring relationships with Visa and Mastercard, which means it processes card transactions under its own licence rather than routing through a third-party acquirer. This setup gives Acquired.com more control over underwriting decisions, which is why it can accept regulated and high-risk merchants that most mainstream providers will not touch. Sectors it actively serves include financial services, FX, regulated gambling, travel, and cryptocurrency businesses.

Pricing at Acquired.com is always negotiated. There is no published rate card, and the company does not offer self-serve sign-up. You deal with a dedicated account manager throughout, and fees are structured on an interchange-plus basis, meaning you pay the raw interbank interchange cost plus an agreed margin. For businesses processing north of £500,000 a year, this model frequently undercuts the blended flat rates charged by providers like Stripe. Read the full Acquired.com review on Compare Card Fees for a deeper look at its pricing and onboarding process.

What is Stripe?

Stripe is a US-founded payment technology company that launched in the UK around 2012 and has become one of the most widely used online payment platforms among British startups and scale-ups. It operates as an aggregated payment service provider rather than a direct acquirer, which means merchant accounts are pooled under Stripe's master account. The platform is best known for its developer documentation, fast API integrations, and a product suite that extends well beyond basic payment processing into billing, tax management, identity verification, and revenue reporting.

Stripe's standard pricing is fully transparent and published on its website. UK businesses pay 1.5% plus 20p for domestic Visa and Mastercard transactions with no monthly fee. Volume discounts and custom pricing are available, but Stripe does not negotiate heavily until you are processing several million pounds annually. The platform restricts a number of business categories, including most forms of gambling, certain financial services products, and any crypto-related activity that involves exchange or brokerage. Read the full Stripe review on Compare Card Fees for a complete breakdown of its fees and features.

Acquired.com vs Stripe: Features Compared

Payment Methods

Stripe supports over 45 payment methods including Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Apple Pay, Google Pay, SEPA Direct Debit, Klarna, Clearpay, and Bacs Direct Debit, all accessible through a single integration. Acquired.com covers the major card schemes plus open banking payments and supports alternative payment methods on request, though the breadth out of the box is narrower than Stripe. For a UK merchant wanting local European wallets or a long tail of alternative methods without bespoke development, Stripe has a clear practical advantage.

Hardware and In-Person Terminals

Stripe offers the Stripe Terminal range, including the BBPOS WisePOS E countertop reader and the Stripe Reader M2, both available for purchase rather than rental. In-person Stripe transactions cost 1.7% plus 0p per UK card swipe or tap using Terminal. Acquired.com does not have a proprietary card terminal product and is primarily an online and card-not-present acquirer. If a significant portion of your revenue comes from face-to-face sales, Stripe has a functional solution where Acquired.com does not.

Integrations

Stripe integrates natively with hundreds of platforms including Shopify, WooCommerce, Xero, Salesforce, and Zapier. Its API is widely considered one of the best documented in the industry. Acquired.com provides a REST API and hosted payment page options and integrates with a number of enterprise platforms, but the ecosystem of pre-built plugins is considerably smaller. Developers who need to move quickly will find Stripe's resources more immediately accessible, whilst Acquired.com suits businesses with in-house technical teams building bespoke payment flows.

International Support

Stripe is available in 47 countries and supports over 135 presentment currencies. UK businesses selling internationally can present checkout in the customer's local currency and settle in GBP. Acquired.com also supports multi-currency processing and has strong European and some global reach, though its footprint is more focused than Stripe's. For a UK business expanding into Asia-Pacific or Latin America, Stripe's infrastructure is further along.

Fraud and Risk Tools

Stripe Radar is included free in all accounts and uses machine learning trained on billions of global transactions to score each payment for fraud risk. Stripe Radar for Fraud Teams, at £0.04 per screened transaction, adds custom rules and deeper review workflows. Acquired.com takes a more hands-on, managed approach to fraud and risk. Its underwriting team reviews businesses in detail at onboarding, and risk parameters are agreed contractually. This suits businesses in inherently higher-risk sectors where a rule-based automated tool alone is unlikely to be sufficient. Both providers support 3D Secure 2 authentication in line with the FCA's Strong Customer Authentication requirements.

Customer Support

Acquired.com assigns a named account manager to every merchant from onboarding. This means you have a direct phone number and email address for someone who knows your account. Stripe's support model is primarily self-serve documentation and ticket-based. Phone support is available but not guaranteed for standard accounts, and response times on complex issues can stretch to 24 hours or more. For businesses that need fast escalation or operate in time-sensitive sectors, Acquired.com's dedicated support model is a meaningful advantage.

Pros and Cons

Acquired.com Pros and Cons

Pros

• Accepts high-risk and regulated sectors including gambling, financial services, and crypto, where most providers decline
• Interchange-plus pricing becomes cost-effective at scale; typically cheaper than blended rates above £500,000 annual card volume
• Dedicated named account manager available by phone throughout the contract
• Direct acquiring relationships with Visa and Mastercard give greater underwriting flexibility
• Open banking payment options available alongside card processing

Cons

• No self-serve sign-up; onboarding requires underwriting and typically takes days to weeks
• Pricing is not published publicly, making early-stage cost comparisons difficult without speaking to sales
• Minimum contract terms typically apply; switching mid-contract may incur penalties
• No proprietary card terminal product for face-to-face payments
• Smaller library of pre-built third-party integrations compared to Stripe

Stripe Pros and Cons

Pros

• Fully transparent pricing at 1.5% plus 20p per UK card transaction, with no monthly fee on the standard plan
• Self-serve onboarding; most accounts can accept payments on the same day as sign-up
• No fixed contract and no early termination fee
• Supports over 45 payment methods and 135-plus currencies through a single integration
• Stripe Terminal provides a workable in-person payment solution alongside the online gateway
• Extensive API documentation and developer tools that are among the best in the market

Cons

• Blended flat-rate pricing becomes expensive at high volume; at £1 million monthly turnover the 1.5% fee costs £15,000 per month versus a lower negotiated interchange-plus rate
• Stripe prohibits or heavily restricts gambling, many financial services products, and crypto exchange activity, making it unsuitable for those sectors
• Customer support is primarily ticket-based; there is no guaranteed direct account manager on standard plans
• Account holds and reserves are occasionally applied without advance warning, which can disrupt cash flow
• Stripe is an aggregated PSP, not a direct acquirer, meaning dispute resolution sits one step removed from the card schemes

Which is Better For...?

Small and Growing E-commerce Businesses

Stripe is the stronger choice for most small UK online retailers. The 1.5% plus 20p rate is predictable, there is no monthly commitment, and the Shopify and WooCommerce plugins make integration straightforward. A business turning over £20,000 a month in card payments would pay around £340 in transaction fees under Stripe's standard rate. That is a reasonable cost for a provider that handles PCI compliance, fraud screening via Radar, and multi-currency checkout without additional setup work.

High-Volume Merchants

Above roughly £500,000 annual card volume, Acquired.com's interchange-plus pricing model starts to outperform Stripe's flat rate. A merchant processing £100,000 a month would pay around £1,520 per month under Stripe's 1.5% plus 20p rate. Under a typical interchange-plus arrangement with Acquired.com, the effective rate on UK debit cards could fall to around 0.6% to 0.8% all-in, saving potentially £700 to £900 per month at that volume. The savings justify the more complex onboarding and contractual commitment.

Regulated and High-Risk Businesses

Acquired.com is the clear recommendation for businesses in regulated sectors. If you operate an FCA-regulated financial services firm, hold a Gambling Commission licence, run a travel business, or deal in cryptocurrency, Stripe will likely decline your application or terminate your account. Acquired.com was built specifically to serve these sectors. Its underwriting team understands the compliance requirements and its contractual terms reflect the realities of chargeback exposure in higher-risk verticals.

SaaS Platforms and Marketplaces

Stripe Connect is one of the most capable tools available for platforms that need to split payments between multiple parties, for example a marketplace that pays out to individual sellers. Stripe Connect supports both standard and custom account types and handles KYC for sub-accounts within the platform's flow. Acquired.com does not have a comparable off-the-shelf marketplace payment product. For SaaS businesses or marketplace operators, Stripe is significantly ahead in this specific area.

Our Verdict

Acquired.com and Stripe are both credible, FCA-regulated payment providers, but they serve genuinely different types of UK business. Stripe wins on speed, transparency, and breadth of payment methods. It is the right default for startups, developers, and e-commerce businesses that want a reliable, no-contract payment layer they can deploy quickly. The 1.5% plus 20p rate is not the cheapest available, but it is fair for what you get at lower volumes.

Acquired.com wins on sector coverage and cost efficiency at scale. If your business is in gambling, financial services, travel, or crypto, it may be the only mainstream acquirer that will take you on. At volumes above £500,000 a year, the negotiated interchange-plus pricing also produces real savings compared to any blended flat-rate provider. The trade-off is a slower onboarding process, a contractual commitment, and less self-serve flexibility. The dedicated account management model is a genuine benefit if you value direct access to someone who knows your account.

For most businesses reading this page, the decision comes down to one question: does your sector make Stripe viable? If yes, start there. If not, or if you are processing enough volume that fees are eating into margin, Acquired.com is worth a direct conversation. Compare Card Fees is a free, independent advisory service that has helped UK businesses find better card payment deals since 2012. Use our payment provider comparison tool to get tailored quotes from both providers and others suited to your volume and sector.