Stripe is the better choice for recurring payments and PayPal for buyer familiarity, and the fees are close enough that they should not decide it. What decides it is who owns the payment relationship when something goes wrong. One disclosure up front: we make Drry, which connects Stripe and does not support PayPal, so we are not neutral and we say so again below.
Which is cheaper, Stripe or PayPal?
Close enough that it should not decide this, and both publish their current rates on their own pricing pages. That is deliberately where this guide sends you: headline percentages vary by country, by card type and by whether a payment is recurring, so a rate quoted in an article is a rate that will be wrong for somebody reading it later.
The number that actually differs between two processors at your size is rarely the headline one. It is what happens on a failed recurring charge, on a refund, and on a dispute, and those are policy questions rather than pricing ones.
Which is better for subscriptions?
Stripe, for most recurring memberships, because recurring billing is the thing it was designed around rather than a feature added to a checkout. Retries on a declined card, proration when somebody changes plan, scheduled cancellations at period end and the reporting that goes with them are the daily mechanics of a membership, and they are where the difference shows up.
PayPal's case is different and it is real: some audiences pay more readily through an account they already have, and a checkout a buyer recognises converts better than one they do not. That is worth money, and it is worth more in some markets than others.
Who owns the payment relationship?
Whoever the subscription actually lives in, which is usually not the question people think they are asking when they compare processors. Two setups can both say "Stripe" and mean opposite things: one where the platform bills your members inside its own account and pays you out, and one where members subscribe directly through an account in your name.
The difference is invisible until you want to leave. In the first, the subscriptions belong to the platform and moving means asking every paying member to re-subscribe, which a meaningful share never will. In the second, you take the account with you and your members notice nothing.
How does this work on a membership platform?
It depends entirely on which of the two setups above the platform uses, and it is worth asking before you build anything. A percentage on top of the processor's own fee is the visible cost; the invisible one is whose account the subscriptions are in.
On Drry you connect your own Stripe account, members subscribe directly through it, and we take 0% of what they pay you, so the only deduction is Stripe's ordinary processing fee. The free plan runs to 100 members with no card.
- We do not support PayPal. Stripe is the only processor we connect. If PayPal is a requirement for your audience, we are the wrong choice, and we would rather you knew that now than after you had set everything up.
- The account is yours, not ours. The money lands in your bank, and if you ever leave, the subscriptions go with you because they were never in our account to begin with.
If the fee side is what you are weighing, our 0% commitment states what we do and do not take, with a dated comparison of what the other platforms charge.
Questions coaches ask
Should I use Stripe or PayPal for a paid membership?
Stripe, for almost any recurring membership, because subscriptions are what it was built around and the customer relationship stays yours. PayPal earns its place when a meaningful share of your buyers will only pay through an account they already trust, which is real in some audiences and worth nothing in others. The honest test is whether you have ever lost a sale to a checkout somebody did not recognise.
Which one is cheaper?
Close enough that it should not decide this, and both publish current rates on their own pricing pages, which is where to check rather than in an article that ages. Headline percentages in this market move rarely and vary by country, card type and whether the payment is recurring. Pick on the payment relationship and the recurring-billing behaviour, then confirm the rate for your own country before you launch.
Does Drry support PayPal?
No. Drry connects your own Stripe account and that is the only processor we support, so if PayPal is a requirement for your audience we are the wrong choice and we would rather say so here than after you have set everything up. What you get in exchange is that members subscribe through an account you own, the money lands in your bank, and we take 0% of it.
Who owns the customer if I use PayPal?
You do, but the relationship is mediated differently, and that is the part worth understanding before you choose. The question to ask of any setup is what happens if the platform disappears tomorrow: can you still charge the people who were paying you, from an account in your own name, without asking each of them to re-enter a card? That answer, not the percentage, is what you are actually choosing between.
Can I offer both?
On some platforms yes, and it is a reasonable thing to want. It costs you a second reconciliation, a second refund flow and a second place to look when a payment fails, so it is worth doing because your buyers asked rather than because more options feel safer.