RevenueCat vs Stripe

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RevenueCat

26
54
+ 1
11
Stripe

18.6K
11.9K
+ 1
1.5K
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RevenueCat vs Stripe: What are the differences?

Introduction

In this article, we will explore and provide a comparison between two popular payment processing platforms, RevenueCat and Stripe. Both platforms offer a range of services that enable businesses to handle online transactions, but they differ in several key aspects. Let's delve into the key differences between RevenueCat and Stripe in the following paragraphs.

  1. Integration and Focus: RevenueCat primarily caters to the needs of mobile app developers by providing in-app subscription management and analytics solutions. It focuses specifically on subscription-based businesses and offers features tailored to their requirements. On the other hand, Stripe offers a broader range of payment processing services, catering to various types of businesses, including e-commerce, marketplaces, and online platforms.

  2. Pricing Model: RevenueCat offers a pricing model specifically designed for app developers, based on the number of subscribers and in-app purchases. The pricing scales with the size of the app's user base, ensuring a fair and affordable payment system for app developers. In contrast, Stripe follows a more traditional pricing structure, charging businesses based on the volume of transactions processed. The pricing tiers are based on the business's needs and vary accordingly.

  3. Payment Features: Stripe provides a robust set of payment features, including support for various payment methods such as credit cards, digital wallets, and alternative payment options. It also offers advanced features like fraud prevention, automated invoicing, and subscription billing. RevenueCat, on the other hand, focuses specifically on managing in-app subscriptions, offering easy integrations with app stores, subscription tracking, and analytics tailored to subscription-based businesses.

  4. Developer Experience: RevenueCat emphasizes providing a seamless and developer-friendly experience by offering SDKs and APIs designed to make in-app subscription management straightforward for app developers. They provide documentation, guides, and resources tailored to mobile app developers. Stripe also prioritizes developer experience, with extensive documentation, APIs, and SDKs that cover a wide range of use cases beyond in-app subscriptions.

  5. Supported Platforms: RevenueCat primarily supports mobile app platforms such as iOS and Android. It aims to simplify the process of integrating and managing subscriptions for app developers on these platforms. Stripe, on the other hand, supports a broader range of platforms, including web-based businesses, mobile app platforms, marketplaces, and other online platforms.

  6. Business Model Compatibility: While both RevenueCat and Stripe can be used by a wide range of businesses, RevenueCat's specialization in managing in-app subscriptions makes it an ideal choice for businesses that heavily rely on subscription-based revenue models, particularly in the mobile app industry. Stripe, being a versatile payment processing platform, caters to businesses with various revenue models, including both one-time sales and recurring subscriptions.

In summary, RevenueCat and Stripe differ in terms of integration focus, pricing models, payment features, targeted developer experience, supported platforms, and compatibility with different business models. Businesses that require comprehensive in-app subscription management solutions with tailored analytics may find RevenueCat as the ideal choice, while those with diverse payment needs across multiple platforms and revenue models may prefer Stripe for payment processing services.

Decisions about RevenueCat and Stripe
Lucas Litton
Founder & CEO at Macombey · | 4 upvotes · 259.5K views

We use GoCardless to simplify the way clients and partners pay for our services. What intrigued us is the quick and easy ACH feature that gives our clients the option to log in with their bank account and shoot the funds directly to our account. The fee, compared to Stripe is less. Stripe and PayPal charge 2.9% + 30c and Stripe also forces the client to enter in all of their payment details manually and then if the payment doesn't work, the client has to try all over again. GoCardless charges 1% + 25c which is much more reasonable dealing with the large projects that we are currently working on.

We integrate GoCardless with Xero to easily send out quick invoices, receive the funds and track all revenue in one place.

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With COVID-19 looming over us, businesses are, more than ever, looking for ways to set up online payments.

And having recently gone through implementing both Stripe and GoCardless to get monthly subscriptions set up and automated on my company website, I felt there was no better time to write this blog post!

If you're currently looking at working with a Payment Gateway provider API, or you're currently working with one but are not a fan, are looking to automate things a bit more, or are just generally thinking about changing, then you should have a read of my latest blog post where I compare Stripe and GoCardless.

I compare APIs in depth, specifically the subscription checkout flow that both offer (they're very similar, with some BIG differences).

There are plenty of code examples on how to set it up in a Node.js environment and right at the end, I rate each API based on the following factors:

  • API ease of use
  • API documentation
  • Payment pages
  • Costs / fees
  • Security
  • Developer appeal
  • Customer experience
  • Free Trial

So feel free to check it out, and I hope you like it. Please leave any feedback as it is very helpful. Thanks!

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Stripe was made with developers in mind first so the extensibility of it is great! This makes it very easy for us to integrate and automate as much as we need with its APIs and SDK. It allows a lot of customization of exactly what we need to build our applications. They also manage all of our customers from a tax and accounting perspective which makes it easy from a business standpoint.

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Pros of RevenueCat
Pros of Stripe
  • 3
    Integration with Facebook Ads
  • 2
    View real time metrics
  • 2
    Get data from app stores
  • 2
    Send data to Amplitude
  • 1
    Integration with Apple Search Ads
  • 1
    Easy integration
  • 302
    Easy setup
  • 292
    Developer friendly
  • 248
    Well-designed api
  • 191
    Great documentation
  • 169
    Clear pricing
  • 75
    Secure
  • 74
    Reliable
  • 63
    Full integration with webhooks
  • 43
    Amazing api
  • 38
    Great customer support
  • 11
    Easy
  • 6
    Credit cards never hit your server - no pci worries
  • 5
    Recurring billing
  • 4
    No merchant account/gateway required
  • 3
    BitCoin
  • 3
    Easy to integrate
  • 2
    Support for SCA (Strong Customer Authentication)
  • 2
    Fast UI
  • 2
    Great app
  • 1
    Payments without own backend (using Stripe Products)
  • 1
    Connect
  • 1
    Checkout.js
  • 1
    Great UI
  • 1
    So easy to use
  • 1
    Beautiful

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Cons of RevenueCat
Cons of Stripe
    Be the first to leave a con
    • 4
      Connect
    • 2
      CANNOT withdraw USD to a Canadian Bank Account
    • 2
      Does NOT have a currency conversion option like Paypal
    • 2
      They keep 25% of the income for 60 days

    Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

    What is RevenueCat?

    RevenueCat is a scalable backend for in-app subscriptions and purchases. It provides all of the tools you need to build, analyze, and grow subscription apps on any platform.

    What is Stripe?

    Stripe makes it easy for developers to accept credit cards on the web.

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    What companies use RevenueCat?
    What companies use Stripe?
    See which teams inside your own company are using RevenueCat or Stripe.
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    What tools integrate with RevenueCat?
    What tools integrate with Stripe?

    Sign up to get full access to all the tool integrationsMake informed product decisions

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    What are some alternatives to RevenueCat and Stripe?
    Paddle
    A platform that takes makes it incredibly simple to sell apps, games and other digital products.  We think that creators should be allowed to focus on building awesome products, so we handle all of the boring things like payments, analytics, customer support and VAT so that they can do just that. Using Paddle's software development kits, developers can easily set up trial versions, licensing mechanisms, in-app purchases and even track performance & usage with Paddle’s in-app analytics technology -- all under a single dashboard.
    ChartMogul
    Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR), Churn, ARPU, Lifetime value and much more. Choose between multiple churn formulas and filter your metrics by custom plans and regions.
    ProfitWell
    It provides free subscription metrics to help you identify opportunities and then tools to help you reduce churn, optimize pricing, and grow your subscription business end-to-end.
    Qonversion
    Qonversion allows fast in-app subscription implementation. It provides the back-end infrastructure to validate user receipts and manage cross-platform user access to paid content on your app, so you do not need to build your own server.
    Qonversion
    Qonversion allows fast in-app subscription implementation. It provides the back-end infrastructure to validate user receipts and manage cross-platform user access to paid content on your app, so you do not need to build your own server.
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