Security, offline and access rules that differ between Stripe and PayPal. Rows where both tools are the same (3) are left out; the full side-by-side is on each tool’s page: Stripe, PayPal.
Card numbers AES-256 at rest; TLS 1.2+ required in transitsource
Not published
Offline limits
Offline mode works only with supported Terminal readers; Tap to Pay on Android doesn't support itsource
Reconnect within 24 hours of the first offline payment; offline mode requires a PayPal Reader on the latest softwaresource
Office & room hardware
Stripe Terminal supports pre-certified card readers (Stripe Reader S700/S710, BBPOS WisePOS E, Stripe Reader M2, BBPOS WisePad 3, Verifone) and Tap to Pay.source
PayPal sells the Bluetooth Card Reader and the PayPal Reader for in-person chip, contactless and mobile-wallet payments through the Point of Sale app.source
You have single sign-on in Stripe but we found none documented for PayPal. Plan how people will sign in, and how you will remove leavers, before cut-over.
Checked September 19, 2026 against each vendor’s own trust center, help docs and app pages. Hover or tap “source” to see the exact wording we relied on. “Not published” means we could not find the vendor saying it on its own site; it doesn’t mean the feature is missing. Plan names are the lowest plan the vendor says includes the feature. Security · Offline · Remote vs office · Download the data
PAYMENTS · MIGRATION GUIDE
Switching from Stripe to PayPal
Moving off Stripe usually isn’t about missing features; it’s about wanting PayPal’s built-in buyer trust and checkout familiarity for a specific audience, even though it means giving up Stripe’s developer-first tooling.
Quick verdict: This move makes sense if your customers specifically expect a PayPal button at checkout (marketplaces, consumer resale, some international buyers) — it rarely makes sense as a wholesale replacement for Stripe’s API-driven billing and reporting.
Why teams switch from Stripe to PayPal
Buyer familiarity at checkout
Some consumer audiences trust and recognize the PayPal button more than a generic card form, which can lift conversion on certain storefronts.
No dev resources to maintain Stripe’s API
Teams without engineering bandwidth sometimes prefer PayPal’s hosted buttons and invoicing tools over maintaining Stripe API integrations and webhooks.
Simpler dispute flow for some sellers
PayPal’s built-in buyer/seller protection and dispute resolution feels more turnkey to non-technical sellers than configuring Stripe Radar and chargeback handling.
Estimate the real hidden cost of moving from Stripe to PayPal, not just the transaction fees.
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Estimated migration time
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Data friction rating
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Total hidden switching cost
Data mapping & cleaning labor—
Migration / cleaning tooling fees—
Team retraining overhead—
Switching friction buffer (10%)—
Assumes a blended $45/hr internal labor rate with no PayPal importer for Stripe customers, so subscriptions and saved payment methods are rebuilt and re-authorized by hand. Adjust the sliders to match your team.
How to migrate your data
There’s no vendor-provided importer in this direction, so this is a manual rebuild of your billing surface rather than a data migration.
Step
What happens
1Export Stripe customer and transaction history
Pull customer, subscription, and transaction records from the Stripe Dashboard or API for your own records; none of this imports into PayPal.
2Re-create products and pricing in PayPal
Rebuild your subscription plans or invoice templates directly inside PayPal’s Subscriptions or Invoicing tools, since Stripe’s Product/Price objects don’t transfer.
3Re-collect payment authorization from customers
Existing card-on-file subscriptions in Stripe cannot be silently moved to PayPal; customers must re-approve billing through PayPal’s own checkout or a new subscription agreement.
4Swap checkout integration
Replace Stripe.js/Elements or Checkout Sessions on your site with PayPal’s JS SDK buttons or Smart Buttons integration.
5Rebuild webhook-driven logic
Any code reacting to Stripe webhooks (invoice.paid, customer.subscription.updated, etc.) needs to be rewritten against PayPal’s IPN/webhooks event names and payloads.
6Run both in parallel during the cutover
Keep Stripe live for existing subscribers while routing new signups to PayPal, so nobody’s active billing breaks mid-migration.
What PayPal’s importer doesn’t handle: PayPal has no bulk importer for Stripe customers, subscriptions, or saved cards — every recurring billing relationship has to be manually rebuilt and re-authorized, which is the single biggest hidden cost of this direction.
Pricing during the transition
Both tools are pay-as-you-go with no monthly platform fee, but the per-transaction math and what counts as a ‘plan’ differ.
Plan
Stripe
PayPal
Standard online transaction
2.9% + $0.30 per successful charge
3.49% + $0.49 for PayPal Checkout; 2.99% + $0.49 for standard credit and debit card payments (US domestic)
Micropayments / small-ticket rate
custom volume pricing available on request
4.99% + $0.09 with Micropayments pricing (by application, for lower-value transactions)
Monthly platform fee
$0 — pay-as-you-go
$0 — pay-as-you-go on a standard business account
Neither tool sells tiered ‘Free/Entry/Mid’ plans the way SaaS products do; both charge per successful transaction, so the real comparison is your blended effective rate at your actual ticket size and volume, not a plan name.
Feature-parity checklist
The two tools solve different problems: Stripe is a programmable payments platform, PayPal is a checkout brand and wallet.
Feature
Stripe
PayPal equivalent
Developer API / webhooks
extensive, industry-standard API
a real downgrade for teams that lean on Stripe’s API surface and event model
Recurring billing engine
flexible Billing/Subscriptions objects
workable for simple plans, less flexible for usage-based or metered billing
Checkout conversion for consumer buyers
generic card form unless customized
a genuine upgrade for audiences who specifically trust the PayPal button
Dispute / chargeback handling
Stripe Radar plus manual chargeback response
PayPal’s built-in buyer/seller protection is more turnkey but less configurable
Global currency / payment method coverage
very broad local payment method support
strong in consumer markets, narrower for B2B and local payment methods
Can I move my Stripe subscribers to PayPal without them re-entering payment info?
No, there’s no token-import path from Stripe into PayPal, so every subscriber has to re-authorize billing through PayPal directly.
Will my Stripe webhook code work with PayPal?
No, the event names, payloads, and verification method are completely different, so webhook-driven logic needs to be rewritten, not just re-pointed.
Is PayPal cheaper than Stripe?
It depends on your ticket size and transaction mix: PayPal’s US rates are 3.49% + $0.49 for PayPal Checkout and 2.99% + $0.49 for standard card payments, against Stripe’s 2.9% + $0.30 for domestic cards, so run your own volume through both fee schedules before deciding.
Do I have to fully cut over at once?
No, most sellers run both processors in parallel during a transition window, keeping existing Stripe subscribers on Stripe while sending new signups to PayPal.
Does PayPal support the same reporting/reconciliation depth as Stripe?
Not natively: Stripe’s Dashboard and Sigma/reporting tools are considerably deeper; most PayPal-only sellers lean on their accounting software or a third-party reporting layer instead.
Canonical data for the tools on this page
Every pricing fact, rating, AI billing model and switching guide we hold on each tool, on one page, with the date each figure was last verified.
Prices on this page were recorded from each vendor’s own pricing page on the date shown at the top of the page. Vendors change pricing often — check the live source before you buy.
Verified prices costed for your team size, a check against your must-have requirements, the questions to settle before you sign, and a source for every figure. Print it, or paste it into an email to whoever approves the spend.
Built for the leader who owns the selection, answers for the spend, drives the rollout, and lives with the results. HelpCompare covers the whole decision, not just the first step.
Engineer by training, operator by experience, marketer by choice. Bill spent eight and a half years as an engineer at HP, was COO of Auctiva (the number one third-party selling platform on eBay, past 200,000 users) and ran Google’s $70M/year search syndication partnership at Alot.com. Then he spent 13 years building his own web properties with his own money at stake. He has bought, trialled, integrated and cancelled more SaaS tools than he can count, and started HelpCompare because the real cost of switching tools is the part nobody covers.
“I’ve sat on both sides of the table: the agency recommending the tool and the client paying for it.”
Researched and fact-checked by the HelpCompare team. Pricing on this page was last verified on September 16, 2026. No paid sponsorships, no affiliate commissions.
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