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17 Comments

Why I chose PayPal checkout over Stripe

I needed a global payments solution for my recent project, https://luckyresumemaker.com. I used Stripe in the past, but it lacks support for many countries, and the payment flow varies greatly depending on country. That’s when I noticed PayPal had released a checkout integration similar to Stripe. I ended up integrating PayPal checkout and am really happy:

  • It supports more countries than Stripe.
  • Less friction than Stripe, because existing PayPal users don’t need to locate or enter card/bank information.
  • PayPal offers a credit (pay later) option, but pays merchants immediately.
  • Good UX. The integration renders a form on my page rather than taking users to a separate page like Stripe Checkout.

I’m really happy with it as I’ve already had payments from countries which aren’t supported by Stripe.

  1. 9

    paypal has a history of freezing people money I'll never trust them with my hard earned income

    1. 1

      Do you have any details on this?

      1. 1

        They freeze your account for example to ask you for identification documents.

        1. 1

          I mean Stripe froze my account until I provided some documents. How is that bad or unusual in Paypal's case?

  2. 2

    Stripe is a much more trustworthy company in my experience, and since these kind of integrations are time consuming and hard I wouldn't go near PayPal honestly! Happy to hear you had a different experience though.

  3. 2

    PayPal literally froze my account 2 weeks ago because they wanted some "more" verification documents - but their email went to spam. Good thing I only had $20 in it!

  4. 2

    I'am from Argentina and somehow this relieves me such as Stripe does not support this country, so for one project, I'm creating I'll have to use Paypal.

    1. 2

      Nice to see another Argentine! You can create a LLC from here and have all the benefits of stripe.

  5. 2

    Hi Alex, thanks for sharing this with us!

    I wonder if the credit card payment is just as straightforward as Stripe? I'm just curious because I never integrated PayPal myself.

    I think it is very important to offer PayPal as a payment option that's why I will integrate it in Independly in any case. Your post makes me wonder if I even need Stripe in addition or if PayPal makes it completely redundant.

    1. 3

      Yes, card payment is straightforward. Simply click "Download PDF" on luckyresumemaker.com and you'll see the payment buttons. Click the credit/debit card option and you'll see it displays a credit card form.

      I don't have the "Pay Later" option enabled, but if it is enabled PayPal also shows a button to "Pay Later" where the customer can pay without having money, on credit.

      1. 1

        Your implementation looks pretty smooth! Great example, thanks :)

  6. 1

    No Stripe or Paypal in Turkey. 😭

  7. 1

    It would be really nice to offer PayPal on my site.. last I checked (4 years ago..) looked impossible for me to figure out. Hopefully they have hired some non technical people to write their documentation.

  8. 1

    I'd be curious about the difference in fees though. Paypal has to be higher right?

  9. 1

    Cool, thanks for sharing!

  10. 1

    This comment was deleted 7 months ago.

  11. 1

    This comment was deleted a year ago.

    1. 1

      PayPal also offers subscription management. I just had a quick look at the docs but in practice, I have no experience with it. Have you already compared this to Stripe? Are there important features missing?

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