Mollie

Mollie is one of Europe's most successful payment service providers, headquartered in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Founded in 2004 by Adriaan Mol, who remains CEO and majority shareholder, the company has grown to serve over 200,000 businesses across Europe. Mollie reported EUR 214 million in revenue for 2024, a 28% increase year-over-year, alongside EUR 115 million in gross profit and its first positive EBITDA since 2018. This financial milestone underscores Mollie's transition from a high-growth startup to a sustainable, profitable European fintech company that competes directly with global payment giants like Stripe and PayPal.

What distinguishes Mollie from its American competitors is its deep understanding of European payment habits and local payment methods. While Stripe and PayPal are built primarily around credit card payments common in the US, Mollie was designed from the ground up for the European market, where bank-based payment methods like iDEAL (Netherlands), Bancontact (Belgium), SOFORT/Klarna (Germany), and SEPA Direct Debit are far more popular than credit cards. This European-first approach means that businesses using Mollie can offer their customers the payment methods they actually prefer, leading to higher conversion rates and a better checkout experience.

Supported Payment Methods

Mollie supports an extensive range of payment methods tailored to European markets. These include credit and debit cards (Visa, Mastercard, Maestro, American Express), bank-based methods (iDEAL, SOFORT, Bancontact, EPS, Giropay, SEPA Direct Debit), digital wallets (Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal), buy-now-pay-later options (Klarna, in3, Riverty/AfterPay, Billie), and voucher systems (gift cards). This breadth of payment method support is critical for businesses operating across multiple European countries, where payment preferences vary significantly from one market to another.

The platform continually adds new payment methods as they emerge in European markets. Mollie's partnership with Riverty, for example, introduced a 30-day invoicing solution across the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, and Germany, allowing merchants to offer post-payment options that are increasingly popular with European consumers. This ongoing expansion of payment methods ensures that Mollie merchants always have access to the latest ways their customers want to pay.

Developer Experience and Integration

Mollie provides clean, well-documented REST APIs that developers consistently praise for their simplicity and ease of integration. Official client libraries are available for PHP, Python, Ruby, Node.js, and .NET, and the API follows RESTful conventions that make it intuitive for developers familiar with modern web APIs. The documentation includes comprehensive guides, code examples, and interactive API explorers that allow developers to test endpoints directly from the browser.

For businesses using popular e-commerce platforms, Mollie offers pre-built plugins for WooCommerce, Magento, Shopify, PrestaShop, OpenCart, and many others. These plugins handle the complete payment flow including checkout, payment confirmation, and refund processing, requiring minimal technical knowledge to set up. The combination of powerful APIs for custom integrations and turnkey plugins for standard platforms makes Mollie accessible to businesses of all technical capabilities.

Checkout and Payment Experience

Mollie's hosted checkout page, Mollie Components, provides a pre-built payment form that can be customized to match a merchant's branding. The checkout dynamically displays payment methods based on the customer's location, currency, and the merchant's configuration, ensuring that customers always see the most relevant payment options. The checkout page is optimized for mobile devices and supports 3D Secure 2 authentication for PSD2 compliance, providing a seamless and secure payment experience.

For merchants who prefer complete control over the checkout experience, Mollie's API allows building fully custom payment flows. The Payments API handles payment creation, status tracking, and webhook notifications, while the Orders API supports more complex scenarios including partial payments, partial refunds, and order management. This flexibility allows businesses to create checkout experiences that perfectly match their brand and user experience requirements.

Fraud Prevention and Security

Mollie includes intelligent fraud monitoring tools as standard, with no additional charges. The platform supports 3D Secure 2 for PSD2 compliance, AVS (Address Verification Service) and CVV checks for card payments, and real-time behavior analysis to detect suspicious transaction patterns. On the Mollie platform, the Netherlands has a card fraud rate of just 0.051%, among the lowest across Europe, demonstrating the effectiveness of these security measures.

The platform is PCI DSS Level 1 certified, meaning it meets the highest security standards for handling payment card data. Merchants using Mollie's hosted checkout or Mollie Components never directly handle card data, significantly reducing their PCI compliance burden. For businesses in regulated industries, Mollie provides detailed security documentation and compliance certifications upon request.

Recurring Payments and Subscriptions

Mollie supports recurring payments through its Mandates and Subscriptions APIs. Businesses can set up direct debit mandates (particularly useful with SEPA Direct Debit and iDEAL recurring), create subscription plans with flexible billing intervals, and manage customer payment methods through a secure vault. The recurring payment functionality supports variable amounts, making it suitable for usage-based billing models as well as fixed subscriptions. Failed payments are automatically retried according to configurable rules, reducing involuntary churn.

Marketplace and Platform Payments

For marketplace operators and platform businesses, Mollie offers split payments that automatically divide transaction funds between sellers, the marketplace, and other parties such as referrers. This feature supports commission-based business models without requiring manual fund distribution. Mollie Connect, the platform's OAuth-based onboarding flow, allows marketplaces to onboard sellers quickly while ensuring regulatory compliance including KYC (Know Your Customer) verification for each seller.

Multi-Currency and International

Mollie supports transactions in multiple currencies and provides automatic currency conversion for supported payment methods. While the platform's primary strength is European payments, it also processes payments from international customers through credit card networks and PayPal. For businesses expanding beyond Europe, Mollie's multi-currency capabilities ensure that international customers can pay in their preferred currency while the merchant receives settlement in euros or their chosen currency.

Regulatory Status and Compliance

As of February 2025, Mollie B.V. is authorized by De Nederlandsche Bank (the Dutch central bank) as an electronic money institution, enabling services including issuance of electronic money, payment transactions, and payment initiation services. This regulatory status provides merchants with the assurance that Mollie operates under rigorous financial supervision. The company is fully GDPR compliant, with payment data processed and stored within European data centers under the jurisdiction of EU privacy laws.

Mollie's PSD2 compliance extends beyond basic requirements, with strong customer authentication (SCA) built into the checkout flow for all card payments. The platform handles the complexity of SCA exemptions automatically, applying transaction risk analysis to determine when full authentication is required and when exemptions can be applied, balancing security with conversion rate optimization.

Pricing Structure

Mollie operates on a transparent transaction-fee-only model with no monthly fees, no setup costs, and no minimum commitments. Payment method fees start from EUR 0.29 per transaction for iDEAL, with card payment fees from EUR 0.29 + 1.8% for European cards. Each payment method has its own transparent fee structure, published openly on Mollie's website. There are no hidden charges, and businesses only pay for successful transactions. This pay-as-you-go approach makes Mollie particularly attractive for small and medium-sized businesses that cannot commit to the monthly minimums or volume requirements of enterprise payment providers.

Dashboard and Analytics

Mollie's merchant dashboard provides comprehensive reporting and analytics including transaction volumes, revenue tracking, payment method breakdown, refund statistics, and settlement reports. The dashboard supports team access with role-based permissions, allowing different team members to have appropriate levels of access. Real-time notifications keep merchants informed of payment status changes, disputes, and other important events. For businesses needing to integrate payment data into their own analytics systems, the API provides endpoints for programmatic access to all reporting data.

Agentic Commerce and Future Direction

Mollie has positioned itself at the forefront of emerging payment trends, announcing in late 2025 that it is ready to support secure payments through AI assistants such as ChatGPT. This compatibility with OpenAI's Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) positions Mollie as one of the first European payment providers prepared for a future where AI agents handle purchasing on behalf of consumers. This forward-looking approach ensures that businesses using Mollie will be ready for the next evolution of e-commerce without needing to switch providers.

Limitations and Considerations

While Mollie excels in European markets, businesses with significant operations in North America, Asia, or other regions outside Europe may find that providers like Stripe offer broader global payment method coverage. Mollie's feature set, while comprehensive for payment processing, does not include the full financial infrastructure stack (issuing, treasury, etc.) that some competitors offer. Enterprise businesses with very high transaction volumes or complex requirements may also need to negotiate custom pricing, as the standard transparent pricing is optimized for small to mid-size businesses.