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

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Checkout.com and Stripe are two of the most capable online payment processors available to UK businesses in 2026, but they serve very different audiences. Checkout.com targets enterprise and high-growth merchants who want custom pricing, deeper data, and a dedicated account team. Stripe suits developers and growing online businesses that need fast setup, transparent flat-rate fees, and an enormous library of pre-built integrations. Checkout.com does not publish standard rates and requires a sales conversation before quoting. Stripe charges 1.5% plus 20p per transaction for UK consumer Visa and Mastercard cards, with no monthly fee and no fixed contract. This page compares their fees, features, and honest weaknesses so you can decide which one fits your business.

Who Is This Page For?

This comparison is written for UK business owners and finance managers who are evaluating Checkout.com and Stripe as their primary online payment processor. It is most useful if you are processing card payments online and want to understand which provider offers better value at your current or projected volume. It is also relevant for developers assessing integration complexity, and for finance teams comparing authorisation rates, settlement speed, and support quality.

Key Facts: Checkout.com vs Stripe

Checkout.com Fees and Pricing Explained

Checkout.com pricing is not published publicly. The company uses a custom, negotiated model based on interchange-plus pricing, meaning your rate depends on your monthly processing volume, business type, card mix, and chargeback history. To get a quote, you must contact their sales team and go through an underwriting process. This lack of pricing transparency is a genuine drawback for any business that wants to compare costs quickly.

At high volumes, the model works in your favour. A business processing £100,000 a month on Stripe's standard rate of 1.5% plus 20p pays roughly £1,500 in card fees. A Checkout.com interchange-plus rate of interchange plus 0.3% on the same volume could reduce that total by several hundred pounds per month, depending on your specific card mix. The savings compound significantly at £500,000 a year or more.

There is no standard monthly fee from Checkout.com, but enterprise contracts often include minimum volume commitments or fixed terms that carry early-termination implications. Always read the contract terms before signing. For a full breakdown, see our Checkout.com review.

Stripe Fees and Pricing Explained

Stripe publishes its UK pricing clearly on its website. The standard rate is 1.5% plus 20p per transaction for UK consumer Visa and Mastercard cards, and 2.5% plus 20p for European consumer cards. Stripe does not itemise American Express separately; Amex transactions are typically priced at Stripe's international-card rate of 3.15% plus 20p. There is no monthly fee on the standard plan and no fixed contract. Stripe Plus, which includes priority support and volume discounts, costs £500 per month.

Stripe also charges for optional products. Stripe Radar for Fraud Teams costs an additional £0.04 per screened transaction. Instant Payouts, which move funds to your bank within 30 minutes rather than the standard two business days, carry a 1% fee with a minimum charge of 50p. These add-ons are optional, but they add up at scale.

The European card surcharge is worth watching. A UK e-commerce business with 30% of customers based in EU countries will pay 2.5% plus 20p on those transactions, not 1.5%. That gap makes Stripe more expensive for businesses with a large continental European customer base than the headline rate suggests. For a full breakdown, see our Stripe review.

Checkout.com vs Stripe: Full Fee Comparison

What is Checkout.com?

Checkout.com is a global payment processor founded in 2012 and headquartered in London. It operates its own acquiring infrastructure, which means it processes transactions directly rather than routing them through a third-party acquirer. That structure gives it more control over authorisation rates and the data it passes back to merchants. The company is regulated by the FCA in the UK under registration number 900816 as an authorised e-money institution, and it serves clients including Sainsbury's, Sony, and Grab. Its platform covers payment gateway, fraud tools, issuing, and data reporting within a single product.

Checkout.com does not offer a self-serve sign-up. You contact their sales team, go through an underwriting process, and receive a custom pricing proposal. This makes it a poor fit for a business that needs to start taking payments this week, but a strong candidate for one processing £50,000 a month or more that wants to negotiate a lower rate. For a full breakdown of features and fees, read our Checkout.com review.

Can Checkout.com Be Trusted for High-Volume Transactions?

Checkout.com is a well-established, FCA-regulated payment processor that handles billions of pounds in transactions annually for major enterprise clients including Sainsbury's and Sony. It owns its acquiring infrastructure, which typically produces higher card authorisation rates than processors that route through third parties. Its FCA registration number is 900816, and as an authorised e-money institution it is required to safeguard merchant funds separately from its own assets.

At high volumes, Checkout.com's direct acquiring infrastructure has a practical advantage. Because it connects to card networks without an intermediary, it can optimise authorisation at the transaction level, retry declined payments with different routing, and give merchants granular data on why transactions fail. Businesses processing £500,000 a year or more consistently report that Checkout.com's authorisation rates outperform those of PSPs that use third-party acquiring. That said, any business considering Checkout.com at scale should negotiate explicit SLA terms into their contract and ensure they have a contingency plan if the relationship breaks down.

What is Stripe?

Stripe is a US-founded payment platform launched in 2010 and now one of the most widely used processors among UK online businesses. It operates as a payment service provider (PSP), meaning merchants use Stripe's master merchant account rather than applying for their own. Setup is fast: a business can create an account, paste in a few lines of code or install a plugin, and accept card payments within hours. Stripe's published rates for UK businesses are 1.5% plus 20p per transaction for UK consumer Visa and Mastercard cards, rising to 2.5% plus 20p for European cards.

Beyond basic card acceptance, Stripe offers a broad product suite including Stripe Billing for subscriptions, Stripe Radar for fraud detection, Stripe Terminal for in-person payments, and Stripe Connect for marketplace and platform businesses. It supports over 135 currencies and handles Strong Customer Authentication automatically. The platform is developer-led, with API documentation widely regarded as the best in the industry. For a detailed look at its pricing and products, see our Stripe review.

Checkout.com vs Stripe: Features Compared

Payment Methods

Both providers support Visa, Mastercard, and American Express as standard. Stripe accepts Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal (via Stripe's integration), Klarna, Clearpay, and direct bank payments through its Link product. Checkout.com supports Apple Pay, Google Pay, and a wider range of local payment methods across Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa. For purely UK or European volumes, the difference in payment method coverage is small.

In-Person Payments and Hardware

Stripe Terminal offers a programmable card reader (the BBPOS WisePOS E at around £199) and integrates with Stripe's online stack, making it useful for businesses that want unified in-person and online reporting. Checkout.com does not offer a physical terminal product directly. If in-person payments are a significant part of your revenue, Stripe has the clearer answer. Checkout.com is designed primarily for card-not-present and online transactions.

Checkout.com Integration vs Stripe Integration

Stripe integrates natively with over 1,000 platforms including Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, Salesforce, Xero, and QuickBooks. Its plugin ecosystem is the broadest available for e-commerce, and a non-developer can be live using a CMS plugin within hours. Checkout.com integrates with major platforms including Magento, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, and SAP, but the breadth of pre-built connectors is narrower. Developers working directly with either provider's API will find both well-documented. Stripe's developer experience is widely regarded as the stronger of the two, with sandbox environments, detailed error messages, and an active community. Checkout.com's integration is more involved and better suited to teams with dedicated developer resource and a longer implementation timeline of days or weeks.

International Payments and Currency Support

Checkout.com supports 150-plus currencies and holds acquiring licences in multiple regions, including the US, EU, and several Asia-Pacific markets. That direct local acquiring can improve authorisation rates for cross-border transactions. Stripe supports 135-plus currencies and has expanded its global acquiring footprint, but in markets outside North America and Europe it still relies on third-party acquiring in some cases. Businesses with significant transaction volumes in Southeast Asia or the Middle East will typically find Checkout.com's local infrastructure more suitable.

Fraud and Risk Tools

Stripe Radar uses machine learning trained on data from millions of businesses worldwide. It blocks fraudulent transactions automatically and is included in the standard plan at no extra cost. Businesses wanting custom rules and deeper reporting can upgrade to Stripe Radar for Fraud Teams at £0.04 per screened transaction. Checkout.com's fraud suite, called Fraud Detection Pro, is built on similar machine-learning principles but is tailored around the higher transaction volumes its clients typically process. Both tools handle 3D Secure 2 and Strong Customer Authentication natively. For more on SCA requirements in the UK, see our guide to 3D Secure and Strong Customer Authentication. At high volumes, Checkout.com's fraud tooling can be configured with greater granularity. For most UK e-commerce businesses, Stripe Radar is more than adequate.

Customer Support

This is one of the clearest differences between the two providers. Checkout.com assigns a dedicated account manager to enterprise clients, giving you a named contact for commercial and technical queries. Stripe's standard support is email and chat-based with no dedicated account manager unless you are on the Stripe Plus plan at £500 per month or a custom enterprise arrangement. Businesses that want a phone call with someone who knows their account should lean towards Checkout.com. Those comfortable with self-serve documentation and community forums will find Stripe perfectly adequate.

Pros and Cons

Checkout.com Pros and Cons

Pros

• Owns its acquiring infrastructure, which typically produces higher card authorisation rates than third-party routed processing
• Custom pricing can be significantly cheaper than Stripe's flat rate at volumes above £50,000 per month
• Dedicated account management included for enterprise clients
• Stronger local payment method coverage in Asia-Pacific and the Middle East
• Detailed real-time reporting and data dashboards built for high-volume finance teams
• FCA-authorised e-money institution (registration 900816), with merchant funds safeguarded

Cons

• No self-serve signup; you must go through a sales and underwriting process that can take days or weeks
• Pricing is not published, so you cannot compare costs without speaking to their team
• No physical card terminal product; not suitable as a primary solution for businesses with significant in-person revenue
• Integration is more complex than Stripe; smaller development teams may find it harder to implement quickly
• Enterprise contracts may include minimum volume commitments or fixed terms with early-termination clauses

Stripe Pros and Cons

Pros

• Transparent published pricing: 1.5% plus 20p per transaction for UK consumer cards, with no monthly fee on the standard plan
• Can be live within hours using Stripe Checkout or a CMS plugin, with no underwriting delay for most business types
• Over 1,000 pre-built integrations covering virtually every major e-commerce, accounting, and CRM platform
• Stripe Terminal gives unified in-person and online payments under one dashboard
• Stripe Connect makes it straightforward to build marketplace and platform payment flows
• No fixed contract on the standard plan; you can switch providers without an early-termination fee

Cons

• Flat-rate pricing becomes expensive at high volumes: a business processing £100,000 a month pays around £1,500 in Stripe fees versus a potentially lower negotiated rate elsewhere
• Account stability can be an issue: Stripe is known to freeze or terminate accounts with limited notice if its automated risk systems flag unusual activity, which is a genuine operational risk for some business types
• No dedicated account manager on the standard plan; support is primarily self-serve
• European card fees at 2.5% plus 20p are notably higher than UK card fees, which adds up for businesses with a large continental European customer base

Which is Better For...?

Small and Growing Online Businesses

Stripe is the better choice for most small UK online businesses. There is no application process, no minimum volume, and no monthly fee. A business turning over £5,000 a month in card payments pays around £75 in Stripe fees on that volume. Setup takes hours rather than days. Checkout.com's opaque pricing and longer onboarding make it the wrong tool at this stage.

High-Volume E-commerce Merchants

Once you are processing £50,000 a month or more, it is worth getting a quote from Checkout.com. At £100,000 monthly volume, Stripe's standard rate costs roughly £1,500. A negotiated Checkout.com rate at interchange plus 0.3% could reduce that by several hundred pounds per month, depending on your card mix. The savings justify the more involved setup and the loss of self-serve convenience.

Businesses Selling Internationally

Checkout.com has the edge for merchants with meaningful transaction volumes in Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, or Africa. Its local acquiring licences improve authorisation rates in those regions, and its local payment method coverage is broader. For businesses selling primarily into the UK and EU, the difference is smaller and Stripe's simpler setup may outweigh the marginal advantage.

Platforms and Marketplace Businesses

Stripe Connect is one of the most mature marketplace payment products available. It handles split payments, onboarding of sub-merchants, and compliance at scale, and it is used by platforms including Deliveroo and Shopify itself. Checkout.com has marketplace capabilities but they are less plug-and-play. If you are building a platform where money flows between multiple parties, Stripe Connect is the more practical starting point. For a broader look at marketplace payment options, read our guide to marketplace payment solutions.

Our Verdict

For most UK businesses, the decision comes down to volume and complexity. Stripe wins on convenience, pricing transparency, and breadth of integrations. Its published pricing means you know exactly what you will pay before you sign up, and there is no contract to escape if something better comes along. It is the sensible default for any business processing under £50,000 a month online.

Checkout.com earns its place at higher volumes or where authorisation rates and dedicated support genuinely matter. Its custom pricing model means you need to negotiate, and you will not get a useful quote without sharing your processing history. That friction is worth it if you are processing £500,000 a year or more and a 0.2% difference in your effective rate translates into thousands of pounds annually. The lack of a physical terminal is a real limitation for omnichannel retailers.

Neither provider is right for every business. The best way to find out whether there is a better deal available is to compare quotes directly. Compare Card Fees is a free, independent advisory service that has helped UK businesses find better card payment deals since 2012. Use our merchant services comparison tool to get tailored quotes and see whether Checkout.com, Stripe, or another provider gives you the best rate for your specific volume and business type.