Stripe officially launched in India in late 2024, and the "which payment gateway should I use" question got harder. We've integrated both Razorpay and Stripe across 30+ production stores. Here's our honest, marketing-free comparison.
Pricing (the part everyone asks first)
For Indian domestic cards, both hover around 2%. Razorpay's UPI fee is lower (0.4% with caps). Stripe charges international card fees in INR that come out slightly higher on cross-border. Net: Razorpay wins on domestic; Stripe wins on global scale.
Developer experience
Stripe's developer experience is still the gold standard, docs, test mode, dashboard, error messages. Razorpay has improved enormously but is still a notch behind on test-mode realism and webhook reliability.
UPI & local methods
Razorpay is the clear winner here. UPI flows are deeply integrated, including QR, intent, and collect. Stripe supports UPI but the flow feels grafted-on. If >60% of your customers pay via UPI (typical for Indian D2C), this matters.
International cards & multi-currency
Stripe wins decisively. Currency auto-detection, real-time FX, settled in USD/EUR, Razorpay can do it but it's clunkier. If you sell to NRIs or globally, Stripe.
Subscriptions & recurring
Both handle it. Stripe Billing is more flexible (proration, mid-cycle changes, complex tax). Razorpay subscriptions are simpler and cheaper if you don't need the complexity.
Settlement & cashflow
Razorpay settles T+2 standard, T+1 on its premium tier. Stripe India is T+2 to T+4 depending on volume. For cashflow-tight businesses, Razorpay still wins.
Our recommendation
- Primarily Indian customers? Razorpay.
- Selling globally from India? Stripe.
- Hybrid? Run both, we've built dual-gateway routing for several clients (see the ecommerce work).
We build payment integrations for ecommerce, or hire a dedicated payments engineer, talk to us.
