Stripe vs Worldpay: Which is Better for UK Businesses?

Payment service providers (PSPs) are essential to allow UK companies to process customer payments on and offline. There are plenty to choose from, which each have their own features and fees. If you’re looking for a major global PSP to suit your own specific needs, you might be debating between Stripe¹ vs Worldpay².

Join us as we walk through a Worldpay vs Stripe review, plus a look at Wise Business which can help you receive international payments from either Stripe or Worldplay, with mid-market exchange rate currency conversion and low, transparent fees.

💡Learn more about Wise Business

Stripe vs Worldpay - Comparison overview

Before we get into our Stripe payments vs Worldpay review in detail, an overview.

It’s worth saying upfront that Worldpay provides custom built solutions based on an individual organisation’s needs, size, sector and average payment value. That means that the exact services you can get from Worldpay may vary depending on the type of business you have - however, their overall product and service range is extremely comprehensive, as we’ll see in a moment.

Stripe has a somewhat easier to navigate range of solutions which you can discover online without needing to generate a personalised quote. More on that later.

Worldpay reviews

Worldpay is now part of FIS Global, and offers a comprehensive range of services including options for SMEs, enterprises, platforms and marketplaces. Generally, it markets itself as a company which provides custom made solutions, so the information available online is relatively limited as you’re encouraged to talk to the sales team to learn more about how Worldpay may work for your business.

Overall, though, some of the Worldpay solutions you may be interested in for your UK business include:

• Take payments online and in person
• 300+ payment methods available, covering 126+ currencies
• Support billpay
• Manage payments to others at home and abroad
• Issue payment cards and offer banking as a service solutions
• Comprehensive back office support
• Access business financing

Worldpay gets an excellent 4.7 out of 5 stars on Trustpilot³, with a pretty solid 65% of reviews rating the service as 5 stars.

Is Worldpay safe?

Yes. Worldpay UK is FCA regulated and registered⁴, making it safe to use. Worldpay’s parent company, FIS, has a 99%+ uptime, and processes 40 trillion USD annually, making it one of the largest payment processing organisations in the world.

Worldpay fees

Worldpay fees depend on the type and size of business you have. You can generate an indicative quote using the Worldpay pricing quote generator⁵, or call the team for more information. To generate an indicative quote you’ll need to enter your approximate annual card payment volume, and the average cost per transaction, as well as the industry sector you’re in.

To give an example, we’ve included some indicative pricing for retail businesses in the UK at different turnover volumes. Bear in mind that all information is indicative only, and you’ll need to get a personalised quote to learn more.

For in-person or online payments an additional cost of 0.045 GBP (4.5p) applies for each transaction

Stripe payment reviews

Stripe is a large global business offering ways to get paid on and off line. Stripe has a pretty straightforward product and fee structure, allowing you to either access off the peg services or custom make a package to suit your own specific needs.

There are easy no code options to allow newer businesses and people with limited technical knowledge to get started quickly, as well as more complicated products which require technical help or know-how. Here’s a quick rundown of some of the options you may get with Stripe:

• Ways to get paid from 47 countries, using 50+ payment methods and 135 currencies
• Stripe payment terminals for in-person card payments
• Tools to accept payments with a smartphone
• Reusable payment links for customer transactions
• Invoicing and billing tools
• Different subscriptions and payment methods including pay per usage
• Prebuilt and optimised checkout for online card payments
• Platform payments and finance automation for enterprise customers

You can’t end a Stripe payments review without mentioning Trustpilot, which aggregates live customer feedback. At the time of writing, Stripe scores a poor 2.7 star rating out of 5 on Trustpilot⁶. However it’s worth mentioning that 47% of the reviews are 5 stars.

Stripe’s score is significantly pulled down because 42% of reviewers only give Stripe 1 star. As it seems to be a platform which divides customer opinion, reading through some of the reviews and comments may help you form your own view of their suitability for you.

Is Stripe payments safe?

Stripe is a safe and regulated option in the UK. As a large business, Stripe is classified as a level 1 Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS) provider⁷ and handles 250 million or more API requests a day, with a historical uptime of over 99.999%.

Stripe security measures include⁸:

• Annual onsite audits and additional quarterly checks
• Processes to spot and correct any vulnerabilities
• Industry level security to prevent malware and viruses

Stripe payment fees

If you opt for the Stripe off the shelf package, you’ll be able to easily see all your payment options and the costs involved online. This means you can compare these costs against alternatives like Worldpay to see which might work best.

Below we’ve got a roundup of the most important Stripe fees to know about. You can also get a complete Stripe payment fee review here.

Stripe vs Worldpay fees - Head to head comparison

As we’ve seen, the way that Stripe and Worldpay work is quite different, particularly when it comes to fees. Worldpay has custom made fees based on the business type and size, while Stripe has a more straightforward structure. That means that to compare the 2 on fees you’ll need to generate an indicative quote from Worldpay based on your own business type.

Below we’ve used an example for a Worldpay customer which has a 100,000 GBP/annum turnover and an average transaction of 10 GBP, in the retail sector.

Manage your international business with Wise

Check out Wise Business as a low cost way to hold, send, spend, receive and exchange 40+ currencies. Perfect if you use a PSP like Stripe or Worldpay, and you’re taking your business beyond borders.

You can open a Wise Business account online or in the Wise app, to get local bank details for 8 major currencies, apart from GBP, which you can use with Stripe and Worldpay for easy ways to get paid from international customers.

Receive payments to Wise conveniently and then convert to GBP with the mid-market rate and low and transparent fees from 0.43%¹¹, or hold your balance in a foreign currency for future business payments. Holding a foreign currency balance reduces the need to convert to and from GBP - and can mean you pay less on conversion fees overall.

Get started with Wise Business 🚀

Use this guide to help decide which payment service provider might suit your specific business needs - and if your business has global aspirations, remember to check out Wise Business for easy ways to manage your money across borders.

Sources used in this article:

Sources last checked January 16, 2024