WooCommerce Payments vs. Stripe Plugin Comparison

Because WooCommerce Payments is built in partnership with Stripe, it can sometimes be difficult to determine whether to use WooCommerce Payments or the Stripe plugin itself. In order to help you choose between the two, we’ve highlighted some important differences here.

It’s also possible to use both gateways at the same time, although this does cause a few issues to be aware of.

WordPress dashboard integration

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WooCommerce Payments is designed to integrate closely with your WordPress website. It does this by displaying all your transaction data, deposit records, Capital loan details, and other information right within your site’s dashboard. This means you don’t need to leave your site’s admin interface to perform common business tasks.

The regular Stripe plugin is not so closely integrated with the WordPress dashboard. As a result, some tasks will require you to log into Stripe’s dashboard to complete them. (For example, reconciling your payments or challenging disputes.)

Built-in subscriptions features

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With WooCommerce Payments, eligible merchants can charge for subscription products with no additional plugins. This lets you sell products that take regularly recurring payments from your customers, such a monthly magazine or a quarterly subscription box.

The regular Stripe plugin does not have this feature built-in. To be able to sell subscription products with the Stripe plugin, you would need our premium Subscriptions extension.

Accepting multiple currencies

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If you sell your products to customers in multiple countries, you can use the multi-currency features in WooCommerce Payments to receive payments in various currencies. It can also give your customers a choice of currencies to pay in.

The regular Stripe plugin does not have this built-in. Instead, you would need to install a second plugin to enable multi-currency support.

In-person payments for Canada

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WooCommerce Payments offers merchants in the U.S. and Canada the option to accept in-person payments using a card reader device.

The Stripe plugin only offers in-person payments for U.S. merchants.

Initial setup and API keys

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WooCommerce Payments creates a special kind of Stripe account for you during the signup process, called a Stripe Express account. This account is linked directly to your site, without you having to copy and paste any API keys. This makes the initial setup process less complex as compared to the Stripe plugin.

However, because WooCommerce Payments does not make the Stripe API keys available (even after setup is complete), it may not be suitable for certain merchants. For example, if you need to integrate with a third-party accounting service which requests the Stripe API keys, the Stripe plugin would be a better fit. This is because it connects to regular Stripe accounts, which do make their API keys available to you.

Country availability

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The regular Stripe plugin supports businesses based in more countries than WooCommerce Payments at this time. You can tell us where you’d like to see WooCommerce Payments next by filling out this form.

Instant deposit requirements

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Instant deposits give eligible merchant a way to request an instant deposit of some or all of their account balance. To help prevent abuse of this feature, both WooCommerce Payments and Stripe themselves have requirements that must be met before merchants can enable instant deposits.

WooCommerce Payments has slightly different requirements before merchants can enable Instant Deposits. Stripe’s Instant Payouts requirements are the relevant ones if you use the Stripe plugin. Here’s a comparison chart:

Advanced Stripe features

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Though WooCommerce Payments does take advantage of some of Stripe’s features, such as Radar for fraud protection or Billing for recurring subscriptions, the overall goal is to simplify the process of taking payments for your business.

If your business requires some of the more advanced features Stripe offers, you may wish to use the Stripe plugin in combination with a regular Stripe account.

Multiple businesses or websites

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WooCommerce Payments works by connecting to a single Stripe Express account and pulling all your transaction data and deposit information in the WordPress dashboard. This is very convenient and perfectly functional for most merchants.

However, if you need to take payments from multiple WooCommerce websites, but view reporting for those sites all in a single place, using the standalone Stripe plugin may be better.