Top 6 Stripe alternatives for lower UK payment fees (2026)

Adfin, Mollie, Square, PayPal, Access PaySuite and London & Zurich can each cost less than Stripe for at least one way your customers pay. Which one lowers your bill depends on your card mix: Stripe charges 1.5% + 20p on a standard UK card but 2.8% + 20p on a business card, and adds 0.4% or 0.5% to every invoice paid through Stripe Invoicing.

In this article

The short version

• Stripe charges 1.5% + 20p on standard UK cards and 2.8% + 20p on business cards, plus 0.4% or 0.5% per invoice on Stripe Invoicing.
• Adfin charges 1% + 20p, or 2% + 20p on business cards, with no invoicing fee and the percentage capped at £4 on bank payments.
• Mollie, Square and PayPal publish lower rates than Stripe on some card payments, but not on all of them.
• Access PaySuite and London & Zurich price direct debit by quote; read the contract terms before you sign.
• Start by splitting last month's Stripe payments by card type to see where the saving is.

Where Stripe's fees add up

You pay Stripe's headline UK rate, 1.5% + 20p, on standard consumer cards. Business, corporate and commercial Visa and Mastercard cards are priced as premium at 2.8% + 20p, so if you invoice other businesses, a good share of your card payments is likely to land on the higher rate. EEA cards cost 2.5% + 20p and other international cards 3.15% + 20p, and you'll pay 2% more if the currency has to be converted.

If you send invoices through Stripe Invoicing, there's a second charge on top: 0.4% per paid invoice on Starter or 0.5% on Plus. Stripe also takes its fees out before paying you, so each payout is a net figure that someone has to unpick against your invoices.

Here's how that adds up on a £1,000 invoice on Stripe Invoicing Starter:

• Paid on a standard UK card: £15.20 card fee plus £4.00 invoicing fee, so £19.20.
• Paid on a business card: £28.20 card fee plus £4.00 invoicing fee, so £32.20.

Six alternatives at a glance

The six alternatives

1. Adfin

Adfin takes card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, pay by bank, bank transfer and direct debit payments against your invoices, chases what's unpaid and matches every payment back to the invoice in Xero or QuickBooks.

• Pricing: 1% + 20p per successful payment. Business Visa and Mastercard, Amex and EEA cards are 2% + 20p, against Stripe's 2.8% + 20p on business cards. On direct debit and bank payments the percentage is capped at £4, so a bank payment costs at most £4.20. Direct debits over £2,000 carry an extra 0.3%.
• No invoicing fee: on the £1,000 invoice above, Adfin charges £10.20 on a standard UK card and £20.20 on a business card, and £4.20 if the client pays by bank.
• A failed payment costs you nothing, and Adfin retries failed direct debits for free.
• You're paid every weekday in full, with Adfin's fee invoiced separately, so each payment matches its invoice.
• Credit control is included. Adfin chases over email, SMS and WhatsApp from your own email domain, and its AI Customer Agents can add statutory late fees, offer instalment plans and send statements within rules you set.
• Limitation: Adfin collects in sterling only.

2. Mollie

A European payments company with UK pricing, aimed mainly at online businesses.

• Pricing: UK consumer Visa and Mastercard cards 1.2% + 20p; UK commercial and European cards 2.9% + 20p; other cards 3.25% + 20p. Pay by bank and Bacs Direct Debit are 0.9% + 20p each, with no cap published.
• Payment links and invoicing are included at no extra cost, and there's no monthly fee for online payments.
• Worth checking: you'll pay slightly more than Stripe on business cards, and without a cap, a large bank payment or direct debit keeps climbing with the invoice value.

3. Square

Square sells card readers, online checkout and invoicing.

• Pricing: online payments on UK cards 1.4% + 25p, and 2.5% + 25p on non-UK cards. Invoices and keyed-in payments are 2.5%, with 1.5% more on non-UK cards. There's no monthly fee on the free plan.
• Square's UK online rate doesn't change with the type of card, so a business card paid through its online checkout costs 1.4% + 25p, where Stripe would charge 2.8% + 20p.
• Worth checking: on most invoice sizes the 2.5% invoice rate costs more than Stripe charges on a standard card, so the saving depends on whether clients pay through your website or from an invoice.

4. PayPal

PayPal's rate depends on how the customer pays.

• Pricing: a customer paying from their PayPal account costs 2.9% + 30p. A card payment from someone without a PayPal account is 1.2% + 30p, and the same rate applies to PayPal's payment links and its advanced card processing, both subject to PayPal's approval. International payers add 1.29% (EEA) or 1.99% (elsewhere).
• Disputes: £14 per chargeback and £12 per dispute.
• Limitation: PayPal doesn't offer Bacs Direct Debit in the UK, so for recurring invoices you're still relying on a card or the customer remembering to pay.

5. Access PaySuite

The direct debit business of The Access Group, authorised by the FCA as a payment institution.

• Pricing: from 8p per transaction for small and medium businesses, with no setup fee. Its own worked example, 500 payments a month at an average of £30, comes to around £215 a month, or about 43p a payment, so ask for a quote on your own volumes.
• You can collect under your own Service User Number (SUN, the number that identifies a business collecting direct debits), under the bureau's, or submit files to Bacs yourself.
• Worth checking: its published terms for direct debit services set a 12-month term that renews for further 12-month terms, three months' notice, an early termination fee equal to the previous three months' invoices on a bulk cancellation, and a reserve of at least 25% of average monthly collections held for at least six months after the agreement ends. If you want card payments too, they're a separate product.

6. London & Zurich

A UK direct debit bureau, authorised by the FCA, collecting with or without your own SUN.

• Pricing: Foundation is "around 1%", Business is from 0.5% or 20p, and Enterprise is banded by volume. You'll agree prices by quote, and there's no cap published on any tier.
• If you want card payments, they're an add-on.
• Worth checking: whether the 20p on the Business tier is a minimum, an alternative or an addition, and whether any cap applies, because an uncapped 1% on a £3,000 invoice is £30.

How to choose

Start with last month's payments in Stripe, split by how each customer paid: consumer card, business card, international card, direct debit. The split decides which alternative saves you money.

If you invoice other businesses and many of them pay by card, start with Adfin: business cards cost 2% + 20p and there's no separate invoicing fee. Moving regular clients to direct debit or pay by bank lowers the cost further, because the percentage on those is capped at £4, and the same platform chases the ones who haven't paid.

If most of your income comes through a website checkout from consumers, compare Mollie and Square on your own card mix, and check whether those customers tend to pay with a PayPal account. If your main cost is a large direct debit run, price it on Adfin's capped rate, ask Access PaySuite and London & Zurich for quotes, and read their contract terms before you sign.

If you take payments in other currencies, Stripe is likely to remain the better fit for that part of your business, because Adfin collects in sterling only.

Common questions

Is any UK provider cheaper than Stripe on business cards? Yes. Adfin charges 2% + 20p on business Visa and Mastercard cards, against Stripe's 2.8% + 20p, and doesn't add an invoicing fee on top.

Why did Stripe charge me 2.8% on a card payment? Stripe treats business, corporate and commercial Visa and Mastercard cards as premium cards, priced at 2.8% + 20p rather than 1.5% + 20p.

Does Stripe Invoicing cost extra? Yes, 0.4% per paid invoice on Starter and 0.5% on Plus, on top of the card or bank payment fee. Adfin has no separate invoicing charge.

What's the cheapest way to take a large invoice payment? Usually a capped bank payment or direct debit. On Adfin, the percentage on bank payments and direct debits is capped at £4, so a £5,000 invoice paid by bank costs £4.20.

Do these alternatives charge for failed direct debits? Adfin charges nothing for a failed payment and retries for free. With any other provider, ask before you sign whether failed collections are charged.

Is there a monthly fee or contract with Adfin? No. Adfin charges only on successful payments, with no monthly minimum, no contract and unlimited users.

Sources

• Stripe - Pricing and fees (accurate as of October 2026) https://stripe.com/gb/pricing
• Stripe - Invoicing pricing (accurate as of October 2026) https://stripe.com/gb/invoicing/pricing
• Adfin - Pricing (accurate as of October 2026) https://www.adfin.com/pricing
• Mollie - Pricing (accurate as of October 2026) https://www.mollie.com/gb/pricing
• Square - Pricing (accurate as of October 2026) https://squareup.com/gb/en/pricing
• PayPal - Business fees (accurate as of October 2026) https://www.paypal.com/uk/business/paypal-business-fees