Finix vs. Stripe Comparison

The world of payment processing is quickly becoming a crowded place. In 2022, Finix announced that it was becoming a payments facilitator (payfac), putting the SaaS startup head-to-head with payments giant Stripe.

When it comes to Finix vs. Stripe, which embedded payment solution is the best for your business?

In this article, we’ll compare the features and benefits that Finix and Stripe have to offer. Alongside their ease of integration and how quickly it is to onboard merchants. We’ll also check out how Finix and Stripe hold up as payment facilitators compared to Exact Payments.

Let’s dive in.

Stripe is a well-established player in the payment processing space, offering a range of services including online and mobile payments, subscriptions and recurring billing, and fraud prevention.

While Stripe Connect is a separate service from Stripe Payments, it operates under the same company.

Stripe Connect provides payment integration specifically for SaaS platforms and marketplaces. Connect shares similarities with Payments, but it’s designed to handle higher volumes of transactions between users on a single platform.

Connect is one of the easiest ways to set up shop. With intuitive API’s you can get everything you need to build an attractive customer experience and create new revenue streams without having to worry about complying with payment regulations. Stripe handles the burden of KYC verification and PCI compliance.

Stripe Connect is popular among ISVs and developers due to its user-friendly documentation and large developer community. Making it easy to integrate and enroll quickly, and solve problems without needing to contact customer support.

Stripe provides a range of methods for businesses to automate billing and invoicing. Clients can use Invoicing to collect payments from customers or send automatic payment links through one easy to integrate API.

Many SaaS businesses initially choose Connect as their go-to option because it’s easy to use. However, as the volume of transactions increases, Stripe Connect is not a sustainable solution for software businesses in the long run – due to how downright expensive it is. Stripe Connect also doesn’t offer flexible pricing structures or revenue share.

It may not be an immediate concern, but for software businesses that transact at any volume, becoming their own payment facilitator – or more simply partnering with a payfac-as-a-service provider like Exact Payments – outside of the Stripe ecosystem is a more profitable and long term solution.

For customers looking to onboard merchants quickly, Connect may be too restrictive. As you’ll need to wait for Stripe’s approval, which could create bottlenecks.

Finix, on the other hand, is a newer player in the space and focuses on providing a payments infrastructure platform to businesses.

Finix helps SaaS companies to manage their own payments stack and control their own data, allowing them to build custom payment experiences for their customers. Finix also provides a range of features like instant funding.

Finix offers its services to companies from their earliest stages. Any business can use Finix’s APIs from the start – even if they haven’t run a transaction yet. However, to become a payment facilitator and take on more responsibility for risk, underwriting, and compliance operations, Finix recommends an annual transaction volume of $50 million.

In comparison to Stripe, Finix offers a greater degree of flexibility by creating API building blocks that clients can mix and match. While this may be great for clients with in-depth knowledge of the payments space and development time, it may also be a downside for smaller clients.

Finix has developed an intuitive Fraud Detection API that customers can integrate to reduce chargeback losses. The API captures data from customer-facing websites and monitors transactions in real time.

Finix has limited customer service that is only available in the US from 9:00 – 17:00 PDT which could be costly for international clients experiencing problems. Finix is also only able to provide support and documentation in English.

Unfortunately, Finix does not provide a way for customers to automate their invoicing and billing process. Falling short against Stripe which allows customers to send invoices with built-in support for credit and debit cards.

Finix integrates with the leading processors in North America. As much of their focus and customers are based in the United States – clients based outside of the region may need to look for a local embedded payments solution.

Exact Payments is a robust and reliable payments gateway that offers embedded payments for SaaS – providing a wide range of payment options and advanced features. With an impressive 99.99% uptime and real-time transaction processing, Exact Payments is designed to handle high volume and scale with growing businesses. 

No matter how complicated your current payment infrastructure or business model is, with Exact Payments you can be set up and ready to go in less than a day. The Exact Payments REST API enables easy integration without eating up valuable engineering resources. Exact Payments developer portal and rich documentation guides teams through each step in the integration process, reducing complexities. Complete with an open sandbox environment that’s available for clients and curious developers.

The underwriting process is notorious for being complex and grueling. Exact Payments automates the underwriting for near real-time account decisioning. Eliminating the need for costly upfront and ongoing expenses such as hiring programmers to build platforms in-house, KYC/AML technology, underwriting/onboarding technology, etc. Meaning your customers will be live and ready to accept payments in minutes!

Whether you’re looking for payment facilitation as a service or becoming a fully-fledged payment facilitator yourself – Exact Payments offers fully customizable and flexible partnership models that grow with your business.

By integrating with Exact Payments, software platforms can see a reduction in payment costs and improve revenue. Exact Payments takes away the hassle of becoming a payment facilitator and handles the entire process from A to Z . With over 140+ currencies, and 100+ payment methods, Exact Payments helps businesses to get global coverage quickly and get the most out of global payments.