An honest, side-by-side comparison. We’re not trying to replace Stripe for your SaaS checkout. We’re the rail for when your customers become AI agents — and we’ll tell you when you should use someone else.
| Stripe | Wise | BVNK | Raw x402 | AsterPay | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | Human checkouts | Cross-border FX | Stablecoin B2B | Crypto-native builds | Agent → merchant EUR |
| Agent-native protocol | MPP only1 | × | × | x402 only | x402 + MPP2 |
| Per-call micropayments | per-txn min | × | × | ✓ | ✓ from $0.01 |
| Agent identity (KYA) | account KYC | account KYC | account KYC | × DIY | ERC-8004 + Trust Score |
| Sanctions screening per call | at account level | at account level | at account level | × | ✓ <100 ms / call |
| EUR settlement speed | 2–7 days | seconds–hours | 1–2 days | crypto only | <10 s SEPA Instant |
| Merchant discovery by name (MPE) | × | × | × | × | ✓ MPE + payee validation |
| EU regulatory base | Ireland | EMI (multi) | UK / MiCA | N/A | Cyprus · technical service provider |
| Time to first payment | 2–5 days | 1–2 days | days | minutes | 60 seconds |
| EU-rail price (per settled txn) | ~1.4% + €0.25 | 0.43% + fixed | ~0.5–1% | n/a (no EUR) | 0.5% + €0.10 |
1 Stripe MPP launched March 2026; identity and screening remain at the merchant-account level, not per-call.
2 AsterPay verifies the agent on every call (per-call KYA) and screens for sanctions in <100 ms. Competitor pricing is from public pricing pages as of April 2026 and may differ for negotiated accounts.
If a Claude / ChatGPT / Cursor / OpenAI Operator / your-own-agent is the entity initiating payment, you need per-call KYA, ERC-8004 identity, and HTTP-402 / MPP at the protocol layer. Stripe, Wise and BVNK don’t do this — they were built when the buyer was a human with a session.
EUR-native settlement to a SEPA Instant IBAN, no FX games, no spread arbitrage on the back end. Crypto-native players settle in USDC and leave you to convert. We don’t.
Pricing models built for the per-call world — from $0.01 micropayments up to enterprise volume. No subscription gating, no minimum monthly.
MiCA-aligned, EU AI Act Article 50 transparency built in, Travel Rule at >€1,000, sanctions screening on every transaction. Cyprus entity, audit-ready.
Use Stripe. Stripe Checkout, Stripe Elements, Apple Pay, fraud tooling for human sessions — we don’t do any of that. We’re a different layer.
Use Wise or your bank’s SEPA. We’re a payments-acceptance layer, not a treasury / FX tool.
Use BVNK or Circle. We exist to convert stablecoins to EUR. If your accounting wants USDC on your balance sheet, you don’t need us.
Use raw x402 — the spec is open, the reference impl is on GitHub. You’ll handle KYA, sanctions, EUR settlement, banking partners, MiCA-aligned partner routing, Travel Rule and Article 50 yourself. Some teams want that. We exist for the teams that don’t.
AsterPay is a narrow product. We’re the EU-native EUR settlement layer for AI agent commerce. We win when the buyer is non-human, the seller wants EUR in their bank, and compliance can’t be a roadmap item. Outside that, you have better options — and we’ll point you at them.
Each of these pages is a focused side-by-side against one named alternative.