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Stripe business account guide: Review and features
What does a Stripe business account offer? Here's the full breakdown.
Stripe is a financial technology company that provides payment processing software and APIs for businesses selling online. It’s used by companies of all sizes, from solo freelancers to large enterprises, such as Amazon and Shopify.
This guide covers what a Stripe business account includes, how much it costs, where it’s available, how to get started, and whether Stripe is the right fit for your business. And if your team travels internationally, we’ll show you how Holafly for Business can keep them connected.
Business travel made easy
What is a Stripe business account?
A Stripe account for business is a payment processing platform that lets companies accept payments and manage transactions online. It acts as an intermediary between your customers and your business, collecting payments and transferring the funds to your linked bank account.
Businesses can use Stripe to accept credit cards, debit cards, mobile wallets like Apple Pay, and ACH transfers.
Stripe services
Beyond standard payment processing, Stripe offers additional tools for businesses, including:
- Payments: Accept online and in-person payments via Stripe Terminal
- Billing: Manage recurring subscriptions and automated invoicing
- Connect: Route payments between multiple parties (designed for marketplaces such as Shopify or Lyft)
- Tax and fraud: Automate sales tax calculation with Stripe Tax and flag fraudulent transactions with Stripe Radar
- Atlas: Helps startup founders incorporate a company in Delaware and obtain an EIN
Stripe account types
Stripe offers several account structures, including:
- Standard: The most common option for independent businesses. You manage your own dashboard, settings, and disputes
- Express: A hybrid option used by platforms to pay out users, such as drivers or sellers, with a dashboard managed partly by the platform
- Custom: A white-label option where Stripe is invisible to the end user and the platform controls the entire experience
- Enterprise: For businesses processing over $5 million annually.
Stripe for business review: Features, fees, and regulations
Here’s a closer look at Stripe’s features, fees, and regulations.
Features
| Feature | What’s included |
|---|---|
| Global access | 195 countries, 135+ currencies, 100+ payment methods, 1 integration |
| Built-in fraud prevention | Machine learning, adapts to new fraud patterns, fraud analytics |
| Tools to optimize your checkout | Flexible UI components, pre-built payment forms, accelerated checkout, and no-code payments |
| Payments optimizations to boost revenue | Real-time retries, auto-updated cards, and customer authentication |
| Embedded payments for platforms and marketplaces | Instant onboarding, platform management, embedded components, and risk tools |
| Fast, predictable payouts | Flexible payout options, like-for-like settlement, and payout transparency |
| Phone, chat, and email support | 24/7 support, industry-leading documentation, and technical support on Discord |
| Security, reliability, and compliance | 99.999% average historical uptime, PCI compliant, and regulatory licenses globally |
Stripe business account fees
Stripe uses a pay-as-you-go pricing model without setup or monthly fees for standard accounts.
| Transaction type | Standard rate |
|---|---|
| Online card payments | 2.9% + $0.30 per charge |
| In-person (Terminal) | 2.7% + $0.05 per charge |
| ACH direct debit | 0.8% (capped at $5) |
| International cards | +1.5% on the base rate |
| Currency conversion | +1% |
| Instant payouts | 1.5% (min. $0.50) |
| Dispute/chargeback | $15 (refunded if you win) |
Add-on services carry additional fees: Stripe Billing charges 0.7% of recurring revenue, Stripe Tax adds 0.5% per transaction, and Stripe Atlas charges a one-time fee of $500.
Regulation
Stripe is regulated at both the federal and state levels, and the compliance standards include:
- AML and KYC/KYB: Stripe follows anti-money laundering laws and verifies individual and business identities before allowing accounts to process payments
- Money transmitter licenses: Stripe holds money transmitter licenses in various US states
- PCI Level 1 compliance: The highest security standard for payment card data
How to create a Stripe business account
Here’s what you need to get started and how the setup process works.
Stripe business account requirements
To open a Stripe business account, you’ll need the following:
- Legal entity details: Your registered business name, legal structure (e.g., sole proprietorship, LLC, or corporation), and a physical US address.
- Tax identification: A verifiable US Taxpayer Identification Number. That’s typically an EIN for companies or an SSN for sole proprietors
- Personal identification: Full legal name, date of birth, home address, and the last four digits of the SSN for the account representative and any beneficial owners with 25%+ ownership
- Business presence: A website, social media profile, or app store link that shows what your business sells
- Bank account: A physical (non-virtual) US bank account to receive payouts
Steps
Once you have everything ready, setting up your account involves the following steps:
- Create a Stripe account for business.
- From your dashboard, select “Activate payments” or “Add business information” to begin onboarding.
- Provide your business type, industry, and a brief description of what you sell.
- Submit the account representative’s details for identity verification.
- Set your statement descriptor (what customers see on their bank statements) and add a customer support phone number.
- Link your bank account.
- Set up two-step authentication.
- Submit your application.
Where is Stripe for business supported?
Stripe is available for business registration in 46 countries, and customers can pay from 195 countries.
| Region | Supported countries |
|---|---|
| North America | United States (including Puerto Rico), Canada, Mexico |
| South America | Brazil |
| Western and Northern Europe | United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Austria, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland |
| Southern and Central Europe | Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Romania, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia |
| Other European territories | Gibraltar, Liechtenstein |
| Asia-Pacific | Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, United Arab Emirates, Thailand |
| Asia-Pacific (preview) | India, Indonesia (limited functionality or by invitation) |
| Africa (via Paystack) | Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Côte d’Ivoire |
It’s worth noting that Stripe prohibits business activity linked to sanctioned regions, including Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, and the Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk regions of Ukraine.
Is Stripe right for your business?
Whether Stripe is the right fit depends on your business model and technical setup. It’s a developer-first platform, which means it offers more customization than competitors like Square or PayPal, but can be more complex to configure.
Stripe is likely a good fit if:
- You sell online
- You run a subscription model
- You’re building a marketplace
- You want a one-stop shop (beyond payments, Stripe covers tax automation, fraud protection, and business incorporation through Atlas)
Stripe may not be the right fit if:
- You run a physical retail store
- You operate in a high-risk industry (Stripe has a low tolerance for industries with high chargeback rates, such as gambling, certain supplements, or travel booking)
- You need person-to-person support (Stripe’s support is primarily chat and email-based)
Keep your international teams connected with Holafly for Business
Stripe makes it straightforward for companies to manage payments across borders. If your employees are traveling abroad to close deals, attend conferences, or meet clients, keeping them connected is just as important as keeping the money moving.
Holafly for Business is a business eSIM provider that gives your team mobile data in 160+ destinations and 24/7 multilingual customer support. It comes with a centralized management platform, the Holafly Business Center, which lets you manage eSIMs, invoices, and data usage.
There are four plans to choose from:
- On Demand (from €3.40 per day): for companies with occasional travel and no fixed costs
- Always On (€9.95 per year): includes 1 GB of data per month and is best suited for employees taking up to four short trips a year
- Unlimited (€57 per month per eSIM): comes with unlimited data, VPN, ad-blocker, and web protection
- Enterprise (custom pricing): offers customizable data limits and coverage, geo-blocking, and priority customer support
Not sure which plan is right for your team? Visit Holafly Plans for Business for a full breakdown or book a demo.
Business travel made easy
I’m a writer with over eight years of experience in digital content. My work has appeared in publications such as The New York Times, Forbes, Business Insider, and the BBC. At Holafly, I write clear, practical guides to help travelers stay connected with eSIM technology. In my spare time, I enjoy car detailing, biking around Warsaw, and capturing portraits.
