Which Payment Providers Work Best for Mobile App Payments?

The top payment providers for mobile app payments in 2025 are Stripe, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Braintree, and Square. Stripe and Braintree offer the best API flexibility for developers, while Apple and Google Pay provide seamless integration for iOS and Android. Choose based on your app’s platform, user base, and recurring payment needs.

What you’ll learn in this article:
In this article, you’ll discover the best payment providers optimized for mobile apps. You’ll learn how each platform supports different payment models, user experience, and global transactions. Finally, you’ll get a comparison to help choose the right one for your app’s success.

Excerpt of Which Payment Providers Work Best for Mobile App Payments?

Choosing the right payment provider for a mobile app is crucial for smooth user experience and business growth. With the surge in mobile app usage, integrating fast, secure, and global payment options is more important than ever. Payment providers like Stripe, PayPal, and Square offer easy SDKs for developers and support everything from one-time to recurring subscriptions. Additionally, Apple Pay and Google Pay are dominating in-app purchases due to their frictionless checkout experience. The ideal provider for your app depends on factors like platform compatibility, global reach, ease of integration, and fees.

Whether you’re building a gaming, e-commerce, streaming, or utility mobile app, how users pay is critically important. An easy and secure payment process can determine whether users complete their purchases or not. That’s why selecting the right payment provider is an important decision in your mobile app’s development.

A payment provider, also known as a payment service provider or PSP, is a company or platform that allows you to accept both online and offline payments. These platforms usually handle the transfer of funds from your customers to your business. Some popular examples of payment providers include Stripe, Apple Pay, Square, and PayPal.

Another distinction of these platforms is that they bundle in payment gateways. These backend software solutions authorize, process, and secure transactions during checkout. So, payment providers are user-facing solutions that your app can integrate to collect payments across locations, currencies, and devices.

Why Payment Providers Matter

No matter what mobile app you’re designing, from subscription services to niche mobile casino apps, frictionless payments are the foundation of your revenue. This is especially important in high-stakes industries like iGaming, luxury goods, and high-end subscription services, where high rollers play, expect speed, security, and seamless checkouts.

Gambling editor Genevieve Cruz makes an example of high roller experiences in regulated and licensed no-limit casinos. These platforms do not have a set limit on how much high-stakes players place on bets, nor do they have a set limit for payments and payouts. 

In these high-stakes industries, customers expect premium payment experiences with fast transactions, high limits, instant deposits or withdrawals, and application security. A payment provider that is slow or glitchy could cause a big spender to abandon your app altogether. Even if you’re not in the luxury goods or gambling industries, a payment provider that can scale, secure, and streamline every transaction is a must.

Top Payment Providers for Mobile Apps

Now that we’ve laid the groundwork, let’s take a look at the most trusted and widely used payment providers that work best for mobile apps.

1. Stripe

Stripe is a developer-friendly and feature-rich platform that is great for startups, SaaS, subscription apps, and e-commerce platforms. It has been the gold standard of payment providers for a number of years and is particularly loved for its elegant APIs, SDKs, and extensive documentation.

Stripe offers features like one-click checkout for mobile apps, subscription billing, support for over 135 currencies, integrations with Apple Pay and Google Pay, and real-time fraud protection with Stripe Radar. Users can also create a native feel for their app’s checkout flow with Stripe’s custom UI components.

As a bonus, Stripe has recently ventured into banking-as-a-service and now features branded debit cards as a new monetization option for apps.

2. PayPal and Braintree

PayPal is one of the most recognized names globally in digital payments and offers seamless mobile SDKs for in-app purchases through its developer-friendly arm, Braintree. It’s a great app for targeting global users or marketplaces.

Some key features of PayPal include one-touch checkout, storage of customer data, recurring billing, and support for major wallets, including Venmo, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. The PayPal brand equals trust for many users, which can increase conversions for your mobile app in a market where people are hesitant to enter their credit card information.

3. Apple Pay and Google Pay

Both Apple Pay and Google Pay are native wallets that make the payment process a little easier, with less friction for mobile payments as they allow users to complete their transactions without entering card details. Users just need a tap or face ID. Both wallets work perfectly for apps targeting iOS or Android-heavy audiences.

These wallets feature biometric authentication via face ID or fingerprint, fast, one-touch payments, and support for loyalty cards, coupons, and passes.

While you will need a PSP like Stripe or Square to process these payments, Apple Pay and Google Pay can dramatically improve UX and conversion rates.

4. Square

Square is best known for its point-of-sale systems, but the Square In-App Payments SDK allows developers to accept payments in iOS and Android apps. It’s a solid choice for small businesses, particularly those with physical and mobile hybrid apps.

Square offers seamless payment services for businesses whose app connects to a brick-and-mortar app, those who need a single provider for in-store and mobile payments, and those who need a quick setup with little development time.

Square is perfect for small businesses because its ecosystem includes customer management, loyalty tools, and reporting.

5. Adyen

Adyen powers payments for brands like Uber, Spotify, and eBay and is built for performance at scale. As such, it works well for enterprise apps, global e-commerce platforms, and marketplaces.

Adyen’s features include support for over 250 payment methods and over 150 currencies, smart routing to optimize payment success rates, risk management tools, and a combined gateway, acquirer, and risk engine.

While Adyen may be overkill for an early-stage startup, it’s worth exploring if you’re targeting a global audience and need deep analytics.

6. Checkout.com

Checkout.com is entering the playing field and holding its own against more well-known competitors with its clean, modern infrastructure, developer-first design, and strong API performance. It’s a great option for tech-forward apps that need maximum flexibility.

Features of Checkout.com include fast settlement times, modular integration for custom user flows, deep reporting, machine learning-based fraud tools, and competitive rates for high-volume apps.

This payment platform is an ideal alternative to Stripe if your business is focusing on scaling across regions and needs transparency in pricing and performance.

7. Skrill and Neteller

Skrill and Neteller are owned by Paysafe and are widely used in the digital gambling and gaming industries. They are e-wallets that allow users to deposit and withdraw payments without directly linking to a bank account, which is perfect for users who are conscious about privacy and for fast-moving apps. 

These e-wallets are best suited to iGaming apps, forex platforms, and regions with limited banking access. They’re particularly useful in regions like Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, and Latin America.

For those apps that operate in luxury and gambling niches, integrating Skrill or Neteller can help engage an audience with unique spending habits.

What to Look for When Choosing a Mobile Payment Provider

There are several core factors that every developer or founder should consider when choosing a payment provider, beyond just the fees and features.

It’s important to look at the PSP’s security and compliance. Some key features here include PCI-DSS compliance, tokenization of payment data, and built-in fraud detection. Global coverage is an important consideration, to ensure your app can handle multiple currencies and popular local payment methods, as well as factoring in country-specific compliance.

You’ll want to consider ease of integration when designing your app, making sure there’s developer documentation, sandbox environments for testing, and plug-ins for common frameworks like Flutter and React Native. As you’re choosing a payment provider for a mobile app, mobile optimization is obviously an important consideration, ensuring SDKs for iOS and Android, support for native app UIs, and wallet integrations.