Bill.com vs. Stripe: Which is a better choice?

The choice between Bill.com and Stripe comes down to a simple question: are you trying to automate your internal financial operations or process customer payments online? Bill.com is a dedicated accounts payable (AP) and accounts receivable (AR) platform built to manage and approve invoices, bills, and payments. Stripe is a powerful payment processing engine designed for e-commerce, SaaS, and online businesses that need a flexible way to accept money from customers.

What is Bill.com?

Bill.com is an all-in-one platform for automating your back-office financial processes. Its core purpose is to digitize and streamline how you pay vendors and get paid by customers. The system manages the entire AP workflow, from capturing invoices with AI to getting manager approvals and making payments via ACH, check, or virtual card. It does the same for AR, helping you create and send invoices, track their status, and automatically sync payment data back to your accounting software. Bill.com is designed for finance teams, accountants, and businesses that need control and visibility over their cash flow, particularly those with complex approval chains or a high volume of vendor bills.

What is Stripe?

Stripe is a technology company that builds economic infrastructure for the internet. Primarily, it's a payment processing platform that lets businesses of all sizes accept payments and manage their revenue online. Its developer-friendly API allows for deep customization, making it a favorite for online stores, subscription-based SaaS companies, and marketplaces. Stripe handles everything from simple credit card charges on a website to complex recurring billing, multi-party payments, and international transactions in over 135 currencies. While it offers tools for invoicing and billing, its fundamental role is to facilitate the transaction between a business and its customer.

Comparing Bill.com vs. Stripe

While both platforms deal with moving money, they operate in very different parts of the business finance ecosystem. Bill.com is an operational tool for your accounting department, while Stripe is a transactional tool for your sales function.

Comparison Area

Bill.com

Stripe

Core Functionality

Accounts payable & receivable automation, payment approvals

Online payment processing, subscription billing, invoicing

Primary Focus

Managing vendor bills and customer invoices

Accepting customer payments

Workflow Automation

Advanced, multi-level approval workflows for bills

Limited to payment flows and subscription logic

Payment Processing

Facilitates payments (ACH, check) as part of AP/AR workflow

Core strength; supports credit cards, ACH debit, digital wallets globally

Invoicing

Automated invoicing for B2B, with approval steps and sync

Online invoicing focused on collecting payments quickly

Integrations

Deep integrations with QuickBooks, Xero, NetSuite, Oracle

Extensive API for developers; pre-built add-ons for Shopify, WooCommerce

International Support

Limited to US, Canada, and select G20 countries

Extensive global reach with 135+ currencies supported

Pricing Model

Monthly subscription fees per user plus transaction fees
Tiered plans for different business sizes

Pay-as-you-go (e.g., 2.9% + $0.30 per card charge)
Ala carte pricing for additional features

Ideal User

Finance teams, accountants, businesses with formal AP processes

E-commerce businesses, SaaS companies, developers

Core Purpose: Financial Operations vs. Payment Transactions

The most important distinction lies in what each platform is built to do. Bill.com is an operational and workflow management tool. Its value comes from eliminating manual data entry, standardizing approval processes for expenses, and providing a single, auditable system for managing all payments going out and invoices coming in. It sits between your business operations and your accounting system of record (like QuickBooks or NetSuite) to keep things organized.

Stripe is a transactional tool. Its primary job is to provide the infrastructure for a customer to give you their payment information securely and for you to successfully collect that payment. It excels at making this process easy and flexible, whether for a one-time purchase, a monthly subscription, or a complex marketplace transaction. Its focus is external, centered on your customer-facing checkout experience and revenue collection.

Accounts Payable and Automation

This is where Bill.com stands completely on its own. It provides a comprehensive solution for managing vendor bills from start to finish. You can forward invoices to a dedicated Bill.com email address, where its AI intelligently extracts key information like the vendor, due date, and amount. From there, you can route the bill through customized, multi-step approval workflows, ensuring that an expense is reviewed by the right people before any money leaves your bank account. Finally, you can pay a batch of bills at once via multiple methods. Stripe does not offer accounts payable functionality; it is not designed to help you pay your vendors.

Payment Processing and Customer Billing

Stripe is the undisputed leader in online payment processing. It supports a vast array of payment methods, including all major credit and debit cards, digital wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay, and international payment options. Its billing and invoicing product suite is designed for modern businesses. Stripe Billing makes it easy to manage complex subscription logic, including tiered pricing, metered usage, and free trials. Stripe Invoicing lets you create and send professional, customized invoices that customers can pay online with a click.

Bill.com, while it processes payments, is not a customer-facing payment gateway. Its AR tools help you create and send invoices, but the payment options are geared toward business-to-business (B2B) transactions, primarily ACH and check. It's not suited for an e-commerce checkout experience or for collecting payments from a high volume of individual consumers.

Integrations and Customization

Both platforms have powerful integrations, but they are built for different audiences. Bill.com focuses on deep, two-way syncs with accounting software like QuickBooks (Online and Desktop), Xero, Sage Intacct, and Oracle NetSuite. This is critical for its function, as it ensures that all bill payment and invoice data is accurately reflected in your general ledger without manual reconciliation.

Stripe is built for developers. Its well-documented and flexible API allows it to be embedded into practically any website, app, or custom software. It also has a huge ecosystem of third-party integrations and pre-built plugins for platforms like Shopify, WordPress, and Squarespace. While Stripe can integrate with accounting software, its connections are more focused on recording sales revenue rather than managing complex AP/AR workflows.

Pricing Models

The two companies approach pricing in completely different ways, reflecting their core business models.

• Bill.com uses a subscription-based model. You pay a monthly fee per user or a flat fee for a bundled plan, which gives you access to the platform's features. On top of the subscription, there are often per-transaction fees for certain payment types, like non-standard ACH or sending physical checks. This pricing is predictable for businesses planning their operational software budget.
• Stripe primarily uses a pay-as-you-go model. You pay a percentage and a small fixed fee for each successful transaction (e.g., 2.9% + $0.30 for standard online card payments). There are no monthly fees for the basic payment processing. However, more advanced features like Stripe Billing, Invoicing, and Radar (for fraud prevention) carry their own usage-based or monthly fees. This model is perfect for startups and online businesses because costs scale directly with revenue.

Which One Should You Choose? Bill.com or Stripe?

The decision isn’t typically a matter of which is better, but which function you need to address in your business. They solve two different problems.

Choose Bill.com if:

• Your primary pain point is manually managing and paying a high volume of vendor bills.
• You need formal, multi-level approval workflows to control spending and maintain an audit trail.
• You operate a services-based business, consultancy, or non-profit that sends traditional invoices and needs to streamline AR.
• Deep, automatic synchronization with your accounting software (QuickBooks, NetSuite, etc.) is a top priority.
• You need an organized system for making payments via ACH and check.

Choose Stripe if:

• You run an e-commerce website, SaaS company, or online marketplace and need to accept customer payments online.
• You require a flexible, developer-friendly platform to build a custom checkout experience.
• Your business relies on recurring revenue and you need to manage complex subscriptions, metered billing, or trials.
• You need to process payments from international customers in multiple currencies.
• You prioritize a simple, pay-as-you-go pricing model that grows with your sales volume.

What if you need both?

Many businesses find they need both Bill.com and Stripe. It’s a very common and effective combination. In this scenario, you would use Stripe as your customer-facing payment processor to collect all revenue, whether from e-commerce sales or online invoice payments. Then, you would use Bill.com as your internal back-office engine to manage all vendor bills, employee reimbursements, and other operational expenses, ensuring everything is properly approved and synced with your accounting records. They work together side-by-side to cover the full spectrum of your company’s cash flow.

Final Thoughts

In short, Bill.com is for managing your financial operations "behind the curtain," while Stripe is for collecting money "on stage" from your customers. The best choice depends entirely on whether your priority is streamlining internal AP/AR workflows or optimizing customer-facing payment processing.

Implementing sophisticated tools like Bill.com and Stripe raises important questions about tax compliance, from tracking 1099-eligible vendor payments to understanding sales tax nexus triggered by online sales. Instead of searching forums for answers, you can get definitive guidance. When you have questions about reporting requirements for contractors you pay or the taxability of a transaction you processed, Feather AI provides instant, citation-backed answers from IRS code, giving you the confidence to manage your finances accurately.