Stripe Alternatives for Product Sellers: Square, Shopify Payments, PayPal and SumUp

The best Stripe alternative for someone selling physical products is usually Square if you also sell in person, or Shopify Payments if you want a full online shop with stock built in. PayPal and SumUp suit smaller sellers who mainly need a card reader or a checkout buyers already trust. Stripe still wins on developer tools, country coverage and its no-monthly-fee online pricing, but it has no stock counts beyond limiting how many times a Payment Link can be paid.

Who this comparison is for

It is for people who sell things you can hold: clothes, sneakers, cards, books, homeware, handmade goods. If you sell software subscriptions, Stripe’s billing tools put it in a different class and most of this page will not apply. Here we compare each provider on four things a product seller cares about: whether it keeps a product catalogue, whether it counts stock, how it handles in-person sales, and what it charges. Every fee below is from the provider’s own pricing page, checked in October 2026.

Card fees side by side

Sources: Stripe UK and US, Square UK and US, Shopify UK, PayPal UK and US, SumUp UK and US. Stripe’s UK in-person rate applies to UK and EEA cards; other cards cost 2.9% + 10p. SumUp’s UK page quotes its online rate only for the Payments Plus subscription, so the pay-as-you-go online rate is not shown here.

On a £40 item bought online in the UK, Stripe takes 80p, Square 81p, Shopify Payments on Basic £1.05 and PayPal £1.46. Sold in person, the same item costs 66p with Stripe, 70p with Square or PayPal, 68p with Shopify POS on Basic and 68p with SumUp. Fees on everyday items are close; what separates the providers is the rest of the toolkit.

Square: the closest like-for-like swap

Square is the alternative most product sellers end up comparing first, because it covers online, in-person and stock in one account with no monthly fee. Its inventory tools are free: you can update quantities in bulk, import products from a spreadsheet and get a daily email listing items that are low or out of stock. Square’s UK online store and point of sale start at £0 a month, and its basic reader costs £19 + VAT.

Where Stripe wins: Stripe works in more countries and has far more developer tooling. Our Stripe vs Square comparison goes through the differences in detail.

Shopify Payments: a full shop with stock built in

Shopify Payments is not a standalone payment account. It only comes with a Shopify store, so the real comparison is Stripe against Shopify as a whole. On Shopify’s UK pricing page the Basic plan costs £19 a month on yearly billing or £25 month to month, and the card rate drops as you move up to Grow (1.7% + 25p online) or Advanced (1.5% + 25p). Inventory management is listed as included on every plan, and the POS Pro add-on for a shop counter is £69 a month per location.

Where Stripe wins: no monthly fee at all, which matters if you sell a few items a month. Where Shopify wins: you get a storefront, a catalogue with stock levels and a till without stitching tools together.

PayPal: the checkout buyers already know

PayPal’s strength is recognition. Many buyers already have an account and will pay without typing a card number. That convenience costs more: PayPal Checkout in the US is 3.49% + 49¢, against Stripe’s 2.9% + 30¢, and the UK standard rate is 2.9% + 30p. For selling in person, PayPal’s card reader charges 1.75% per card-present payment in the UK and 2.29% + 9¢ in the US, with no monthly fee.

Where Stripe wins: lower online fees and more control over the checkout. Many sellers run both, offering PayPal as an option inside a Stripe or Shopify checkout.

SumUp: cheap readers for stalls and pop-ups

SumUp is built around the card reader. In the UK its pay-as-you-go plan charges 1.69% per in-person payment with no monthly fee, and the Solo Lite reader costs £25 excluding VAT. Its paid POS Pro system adds real-time stock updates for shops that need them. In the US, SumUp charges 2.6% + 10¢ in person and 3.5% + 15¢ online.

Where Stripe wins: online selling, Payment Links and developer options. SumUp is best if most of your sales happen at a table.

What Stripe does better

It would be wrong to leave the impression that Stripe is the weak option. It has no monthly fee, a clear rate in dozens of countries, Payment Links that take five minutes to set up, QR codes you can print for each item, and Tap to Pay on a phone for in-person sales. For a seller who wants simple online payments with no subscription, it is hard to beat. Our guide to Stripe fees and guide to selling in person with Stripe cover those tools.

The gap is stock. Stripe’s Payment Links can be set to stop after a number of payments, which works as a stock limit of sorts, but there is no quantity on a Stripe product and no count that goes down when you sell the same item elsewhere.

Which one to choose

• You sell online and at markets, and want stock counts free: Square.
• You want a proper online shop: Shopify, with Shopify Payments.
• Your buyers expect PayPal: add PayPal alongside whatever you use, rather than instead of it.
• You mostly sell face to face and want the cheapest reader: SumUp.
• You want online payments with no monthly fee and little setup: stay with Stripe.

Works with FLUF

Whichever you choose, most product sellers also list on marketplaces such as eBay, Depop, Etsy and Vinted. FLUF Connect works with Stripe, Square and Shopify. PayPal and SumUp are not connected to FLUF.

With Stripe, your products come into FLUF and can be listed on those marketplaces, and when an item sells on one of them FLUF switches its Stripe Payment Link off. A sale made through Stripe itself is not picked up automatically, so you mark it sold in FLUF and the marketplace listings come down. Our Square guide and Shopify guide explain how those two connect.

Crosslisting and inventory sync are on every FLUF plan. Relisting, offer management and smart pricing come with the Pro plan and above. You can start with 7 days for £1, then from £9/month.

New to the Stripe App Marketplace? Read how Stripe apps work for product sellers, from permissions to uninstalling.

Sources

• Stripe: Pricing (UK) (checked October 2026)
• Stripe: Pricing (US) (checked October 2026)
• Stripe Docs: Customize Payment Links (checked October 2026)
• Square: Our fees (UK) (checked October 2026)
• Square: Our fees (US) (checked October 2026)
• Square: Pricing (UK) (checked October 2026)
• Square: Inventory management (UK) (checked October 2026)
• Shopify: Pricing (UK) (checked October 2026)
• PayPal: Merchant fees (UK) (checked October 2026)
• PayPal: Merchant fees (US) (checked October 2026)
• SumUp: Pricing (UK) (checked October 2026)
• SumUp: Card readers (UK) (checked October 2026)
• SumUp: POS Pro (UK) (checked October 2026)
• SumUp: Pricing (US) (checked October 2026)