These days, having a reliable and secure payment solutions platform is key to getting ahead in business. Discover how Stripe can do it for you.
How a business handles its payments can positively or negatively impact its growth. And these days, if a business does not have a streamlined payment process, it has the potential to lose customers no matter how loyal they could be.
This is especially true for online businesses that rely only on their customers’ compliance to produce a sale.
These businesses can miss opportunities for revenue and growth if they don’t have a reliable payment solutions platform that their clients will love. Payment solutions platforms are third-party companies that make it their goal to make payments as seamless as they can be.
Having a trusted and effective payment solutions platform is, therefore, necessary if you are bent on growing your business at any point in your career.
An example of a reliable payment solutions platform is Stripe. And in this article, we’ll talk about the extent of what Stripe can do for you and your business.
About Stripe
Stripe is an online payment processing tool created for online businesses. It helps process payments for any product or service-oriented company such as subscription services, on-demand marketplaces, an e-commerce store, or a crowd-funding platfor.
Stripe’s goal is to help its users create the best possible product by allowing them to bill customers on a recurring basis, set up a marketplace, or even simply accept payments across the globe.
Using Stripe’s platform, organisations can accept all major debit and credit card payments in over 135 currencies. It can also enable 3D Secure for any payment.
The Stripe billing application programming interface (API) can easily be integrated into any existing website, mobile app, or CRM system. Developers can even use Stripe’s composable API building blocks to create fully-customised subscription and pricing models.
Users can also create and manage subscriptions and invoices, as well as view detailed financial reports in their dashboard.
Stripe also does not set any limits to how many team members can be supported per account to help manage access.
Stripe’s 7 Typical Customers
Customer Type #1. Freelancers
These are self-employed individuals who are contracted to work on a project basis. They can accept many “clients” with different payment terms, including pay per milestone, per submission, or on a monthly basis.
Freelancers can also work in a variety of industries, like finance, business, automotive, healthcare, beauty, and entertainment.
As freelancers, they have the freedom to accept and decline projects and decide on the number of hours they work per day. They can be found specialising in a wide range of fields, including writing, graphic design, programming, and consulting.
They can use Stripe to send invoices and receive payments from multiple sources with ease.
Customer Type #2. Large Enterprises
Large enterprises are companies that have at least 5,000 employees or a balance sheet of over $2 billion. And such companies greatly benefit from using Stripe because of the magnitude of payments that they need to handle.
Examples of large enterprises that use Stripe are DoorDash, Booking.com, and Instacart.
They use Stripe’s platform not just to receive payments but also to onboard service providers and allow them to receive payments from their respective customers.
Customer Type #3. Small & Mid-Size Businesses
Small and mid-size businesses (SMBs) are typically privately-owned companies with a small number of team members. They often operate in specific locations and cater to specific niche markets.
SMBs can be found in many general industries like beauty, retail, and even technology.
Often, SMBs use Stripe not just to manage payments but also to streamline all financial processes through its many integrations.
Customer Type #4. Non-Profit Organisations
These are businesses that do not exist to take profit from their customers or clients. Instead, they serve a public good in some way. Because of this, non-profit organisations usually qualify for tax exemptions that vary depending on their location.
Some popular examples of non-profits include hospitals, universities, foundations, and charities.
Non-profit organisations can use Stripe to accept payments and donations from any point of the world so they can continue serving the public and expand their reach.
Customer Type #5. Public Administrations
These are government organisations that exist to advance the common good and enable positive change. Public administrations are similar to non-profits in the way they use Stripe, but they’re directly handled by government entities.
Some examples of public administrations are public offices and other government-linked groups.
Customer Type #6. Content Creators
These are subcategories of freelancers who use their social following to take a profit. Content creators often work within just one social media platform. But there are those who produce content across multiple channels.
Some content creators are experts in specific subject matters like fitness, health, finance, gaming, music, and productivity. While there are others who become content creators solely due to their appeal and creativity.
Once a content creator’s following becomes significant enough, brands tend to partner up with them to promote the brand’s products or services to their followers.
Content creators also earn by monetising their channels or profiles on different social media networks. Sometimes, they also get enlisted by nonprofit groups as volunteers to promote a social cause.
Many content creators utilise Stripe to manage their payments across platforms and record invoices that should be sent to their brand partners.
Customer Type #7. Crypto Businesses
Established or newly-established crypto businesses can use Stripe to gain access to a wide variety of financial infrastructure.
Stripe has a fiat-to-crypto onramp that makes it easy for crypto business customers to top up their wallets across a variety of chains in no time. And it gets done through secure bank transfers or card payments.
Crypto businesses that can benefit from Stripe also include NFT marketplaces that buy and sell non-fungible tokens (NFTs) like artworks, in-game valuables, or membership tokens.
Stripe also has enough safeguards to prevent fraud and data privacy concerns for any crypto business owner.
Stripe’s Pricing Plans
Stripe takes pride in its pricing which is built for businesses of all sizes. Their promise is this:
You will always know what you’ll pay.
Note that Stripe only has two pricing plans: an integrated plan and a customised plan.
Integrated Pricing Plan
The Integrated Pricing Plan gives customers access to Stripe’s complete payments platform. However, its price depends on its usage, which begins at 2.9% + 30¢ per successful card charge.
You do not have to pay setup fees, hidden fees, or any other monthly fees.
The features that are included in this plan consist of the following:
- Tools to build optimised checkout flows
- Global payments
- Comprehensive security and compliance
- Fast, predictable payouts to your bank accounts
- Financial reconciliation and reporting
- 24/7 phone, chat, and email support
- Programmatic dispute handling
- Unified dashboard
- Robust developer platform and third-party integrations
Customised Pricing Plan
Stripe offers its customised pricing plan to select businesses only. To be eligible for customised pricing, your business must:
- Deal with large payment volumes
- Have high-value transactions, or
- Have a unique business model
The 6 Ways Stripe Can Boost a Business’s Revenue
Way #1. Higher Payments Acceptance Rates
The payment acceptance rate is the percentage of accepted transactions out of all attempted payments.
This means the higher your payment acceptance rate is, the better your customer’s experience will be. And if you can offer seamless payment transactions, customers will likely return to your business for more.
So how does Stripe help you have higher payment acceptance rates?
It uses intelligent acquiring to improve acceptance rates. The platform leverages its insight into unique issuer-level preferences and access to network features to route transactions using optimal formatting of payment data to maximise acceptance.
In other words, it uses AI features to make payments smoother and hassle-free for your customers.
Way #2. Fraud Protection
Stripe stands out from its competitors mainly due to its focus on fraud protection. It offers advanced fraud management and data security to all its users—including small merchants.
Since Stripe processes payments from nearly 200 countries for every industry, even if a card is new to your business, chances are that Stripe can recognise it.
By learning from its billions of previous transactions, Stripe can offer you peace of mind that all accepted transactions are safe and legitimate.
Way #3. Offers Scalability Through Unified Experiences
Scaling your business involves not just thinking about your next locations, inventory, and manpower. It also includes making sure that your payments are in order at your new places.
And this is something that Stripe specialises in.
Stripe provides all the tools you’ll need to accept payments both online and in-person from any customer around the world. The platform is designed to maximise conversion at every step of the payment flow to help you grow revenue.
Way #4. Can Help Recover Declined Payments Through Machine Learning
Payments can fail for a variety of reasons.
For instance, your customer could have insufficient funds. They might have used a different card (or inputted the wrong details). Or, they could be involved in some sort of fraud.
Whatever the reason, declined payments can generally hurt your bottom line. It can even cause you to miss opportunities.
Stripe uses machine learning with its network to prevent payment declines before they even happen. If a payment is declined, Stripe’s Adaptive Acceptance feature uses machine learning to identify the next best course of action.
The company claims that through this smart feature, businesses can reduce declines from recurring charges by up to 45%.
Way #5. Payment Element Feature Helps Increase Conversion at Checkout
These days, customers expect to be able to pay using their preferred method—regardless of whether that’s through a card, local payment, or instalment plan. They also expect that they could complete the checkout process within seconds.
Hence, businesses need to have a smooth checkout process to increase conversion.
Stripe just launched its Payment Element feature to make it easier for online businesses to accept global payment methods with a single integration. In fact, Stripe users who have successfully migrated to it have seen their sales increase by an average of 7%.
Way #6. The payment Links Feature Allows the Creation of Payment Pages Without Using Code
Another great way for you to generate more revenue through Stripe is by using its Payment Links feature.
This allows you to create a payment page that you can share with all customers without using a code. In fact, over 100,000 businesses across the globe are already using this feature to launch their businesses, sell through new channels, and improve pricing.
In other words, through Payments Link, you can better tap the global market and get higher revenue in no time.
Grow Your Business with Stripe
Overall, Stripe is such an amazing tool that can help any business improve its customer experience, scalability efforts, and profits. There are so many ways that Stripe can bring value to your business—whether you’re just starting out or already looking to level up.
Now, if you need help in integrating Stripe as the payment gateway for your business, get in touch with our Automation Agency Heroes today. We can assist you in setting it up to improve the overall customer experience, which is a key factor for business growth.
