A Stripe Alternative With Transparent, Published Pricing.
Stripe is a strong developer-first platform with flat-rate pricing. CoreGateway offers interchange-plus pricing, publicly published rates, direct signup, and built-in surcharging - with the same core gateway toolkit.
Customer vault · Recurring billing
Surcharging · Virtual terminal
CoreGateway vs Stripe, the honest comparison.
Stripe is a developer-first platform built for scale, and it is genuinely excellent at that. Here is where CoreGateway takes a different approach. Always confirm current Stripe pricing and features on stripe.com.
Pricing model
CoreGateway offers interchange-plus: the true card-network interchange plus a small fixed markup. Stripe is publicly known for a flat-rate model that blends one percentage across card types. Interchange-plus often wins as volume grows and on debit-heavy mixes.
Published pricing
CoreGateway publishes its rate: $20/month plus interchange-plus pricing, in plain sight. You can price out CoreGateway before you ever talk to sales. Confirm Stripe's current published rates on stripe.com.
Surcharging support
Surcharging is built into the standard CoreGateway plan, so eligible credit card costs can be passed to the customer where state rules allow. Stripe generally does not offer native surcharging for US merchants, which is a clear point of difference.
Interchange transparency
With interchange-plus, the card-network interchange is passed through and the CoreGateway markup is separate and visible. A flat-rate model bundles interchange, network fees, and margin into one blended number, so the underlying cost is harder to see.
Direct and partner access
You can sign up directly with CoreGateway, and it can also be resold by ISOs and agents. Stripe is primarily a direct platform, so this dual model is a structural difference.
Core gateway features
The standard CoreGateway plan includes a REST API, hosted payment page, customer vault, recurring billing, and virtual terminal. Stripe offers a broader, deeper global API and ecosystem; CoreGateway covers the core toolkit most merchants integrate against.
From sign-up to first payment.
Getting started on CoreGateway is straightforward.
Apply and get approved
Submit your business details and get a merchant account with published pricing. Standard low-risk approvals happen in 1 to 2 business days.
Integrate
Build against the REST API for a custom checkout, or drop in the hosted payment page in minutes. Migrate saved cards with the customer vault and set up recurring billing.
Go live
Switch your production traffic to CoreGateway and start processing. Your previous processor stays available as a fallback until you sunset it.
Pick what each merchant actually needs.
Virtual Terminal
Keyed-in payments from any browser. Phone orders, MOTO, ad-hoc charges.
Hosted Payments Page
Branded checkout pages, customizable in minutes.
Invoicing
Branded invoices with pay links. Customize with your brand name, logo, and address.
Recurring & Subscriptions
Flexible schedules, smart retries, Account Updater.
Customer Vault & Card Updater
PCI-scoped tokenization with automatic card refresh on expiration.
L2 / L3 + Surcharging
Interchange optimization on B2B/govt cards, state-rule-aware surcharging.
Stripe Alternative FAQ.
Considering a switch from Stripe?
20-minute call. We will look at your current Stripe setup, your effective rates, your feature usage, and map a clean path to CoreGateway. No pressure - if Stripe is the right answer for your situation we will say so.