Airwallex Payment Links: My Deep Dive and Hands-On Test
So, I’ve been messing around with payment links a lot lately, mostly using Stripe Checkout for quick sales or taking payments without building a whole website. Heard some buzz about Airwallex having their own payment links, so I figured, why not see if they can actually go head-to-head with Stripe’s offering? I mean, Stripe is the king, but competition is always good, right?
Kicking Off: Setting Up Airwallex
First step was diving into the Airwallex dashboard. I already had an account, which saved me some time. Logging in, it felt a bit cleaner than Stripe’s interface—maybe less overwhelming, which is nice if you’re not a full-time developer. I immediately hunted for the “Payment Links” section. Found it tucked away under “Payments.”
Creating a link was pretty straightforward. I picked a test product—let’s call it “Digital Guide to Better Coffee”—set a price, USD 19.99, and chose the currency. This part was super smooth. What I noticed immediately was the customization options. You can decide what information you want to collect (like shipping address, even if it’s digital—I disabled that), and you can set an expiration date for the link, which is a neat little feature for limited-time offers.
The Comparison with Stripe Checkout
I already had a similar link set up in Stripe, so the goal was direct comparison. Stripe Checkout is notoriously quick to deploy. You just define the product, price, and you get a link. Its strength is its familiarity and broad payment method support right out of the box.
With Airwallex, I generated the link. Clicking it, the customer-facing page loaded fast. It looked professional, had my test logo, and the input fields were clean. They offered options like card payments, obviously, but also local methods depending on the assumed location of the payer, which is a major selling point for Airwallex being more globally focused than just US-centric.
- Customization: Airwallex let me brand the page more easily than a basic Stripe Checkout link without diving into code. Good win there.
- Payment Methods: Stripe has everything, but Airwallex seems to push harder on region-specific methods (like local bank transfers or wallets outside of the typical Apple/Google Pay). This is crucial if your customers are truly global.
- Post-Payment Experience: I set up both links to redirect to a simple “Thank You” page on my site. Both worked flawlessly. Airwallex’s reporting dashboard updated almost instantly, showing the test transaction.
Hitting the Walls and Analyzing the Gaps
Where did Airwallex stumble compared to Stripe? Honestly, not much on the link creation front, but on the integrations side. Stripe integrates with practically everything—CRMs, fulfillment tools, analytics platforms. If you’re running a complex operation, that deep ecosystem integration of Stripe is hard to beat.
Airwallex is good, but their ecosystem felt less mature. If I needed this link to automatically trigger an event in Zapier or push data to my specific backend tool without custom API work, Stripe wins purely on pre-built connectors. For a simple direct sale, though, this isn’t an issue.
Another small thing: Stripe allows for subscriptions and recurring billing right from the link creation UI very easily. While Airwallex supports recurring payments, setting it up via a basic link felt a little less intuitive than Stripe’s designated subscription pricing model setup.
The Verdict for My Use Case
Can Airwallex Payment Links replace Stripe Checkout? For simple, single-product, non-recurring sales, especially if you deal with international customers and want to offer them local payment options without the hassle, yes, Airwallex is absolutely a viable replacement and maybe even better due to its superior global reach and easy branding.
However, if your business relies heavily on complex recurring billing models, deep existing integrations with specific third-party SaaS tools, or you just prefer the absolute familiarity of the biggest platform, then Stripe Checkout still holds a slight edge because its ecosystem is just enormous. For me, running smaller, international digital product sales, Airwallex is seriously tempting. I’m going to start routing more of those specific regional payments through their links and see how the long-term reporting looks. So far, though, they’ve impressed me enough to keep testing them seriously.