Getting Started with Payment APIs

Compare Stripe, [Adyen](/tools/adyen), and other payment APIs to pick the right processor for your stack.

Payment API choice determines which methods and markets a product can support, and changing provider later means re-integrating and re-certifying. The main axes of difference are acquiring model, market coverage, and who carries tax and compliance obligations.

Full-stack processors

Stripe remains the most developer-friendly option, with exhaustive documentation, SDKs in every major language, and a powerful dashboard. Its strength is simplicity — one API for payments, subscriptions, marketplaces, and more.

Adyen targets larger merchants with multi-acquiring, global processing, and unified commerce, including control over authorisation routing across payment methods and markets.

Merchant of record

Paddle and Lemon Squeezy operate as merchant of record, meaning they are the legal seller and handle VAT and sales tax registration, collection, and remittance. Per-transaction rates are higher than raw processing, and the end-customer payment relationship sits with the provider.

Spend, not acceptance

Payment acceptance and payment issuance are separate problems. Brex covers corporate cards and spend management rather than checkout.

How to choose

The differentiating factors are geographic markets, supported payment methods, fraud tooling, and whether the provider is full-stack or modular. Error semantics, webhook reliability, and refund and dispute handling are visible only from a sandbox integration, not from documentation.