You probably move money through Stripe more often than you realize. The checkout button on countless online stores, the billing behind apps you open daily, and the payment rails used by giants like Amazon and Nvidia all run through it.

So it is fair to ask whether you can own a piece of the company itself, not just feed it transaction fees.

The short answer is that you cannot buy Stripe the way you buy Apple or Tesla, at least not yet. The longer answer matters more, because a few narrow doors are open and each one carries trade-offs you should understand before committing a dollar.

What Stripe Actually Is

Brothers Patrick and John Collison founded Stripe in 2011 to build payment infrastructure for the internet, and it has grown into one of the most valuable private companies in the United States.

The scale is hard to wave away. Total payment volume reached $1.9 trillion in 2025, up 34% from the year before, and the company says it was robustly profitable while still spending heavily on new products.

That combination of size and profitability is exactly why so many individual investors want in early.

Why You Can’t Just Buy Stripe On Your Brokerage App

Stripe is still privately held, so its shares do not trade on the Nasdaq or the New York Stock Exchange. There is no ticker to type into your app and no public price to track.

Rather than go public, the company has run repeated tender offers that let employees and early backers cash out while it stays private.

The most recent of those deals, completed in February 2026, valued Stripe at $159 billion, up from $107 billion a year earlier. Those tenders are reserved for existing shareholders and the investors Stripe invites, which means a retail buyer is simply not on the guest list.

The Accredited Investor Wall

A secondary market does exist where private shares change hands, and platforms such as Forge Global, EquityZen, Hiive, and Nasdaq Private Market sit at the center of it. In theory, pre-IPO Stripe shares can be bought there.

In practice, a wall stands in your way. These venues are generally limited to accredited investors, which the SEC defines as someone with more than $1 million in net worth excluding their home, or income above $200,000 individually ($300,000 with a spouse) across the prior two years.

Clearing that bar is only the start. Minimums can climb into the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, pricing is opaque, Stripe can block transfers, and your capital may be locked up for years with no guaranteed exit and no public financials to study.

The One Route Open To Almost Anyone

If you are not accredited, the most accessible option is a closed-end fund called Destiny Tech100 Inc. (NYSE:DXYZ), which trades on a public exchange and holds stakes in private companies.

Its portfolio includes economic exposure to Stripe alongside names like SpaceX, OpenAI, and Databricks, according to the fund’s SEC filing and later holdings reports. Buying it requires nothing more than a standard brokerage account, which is the entire appeal.

The catch is real, though. DXYZ has frequently traded at a steep premium to its net asset value, so you can pay far more than the underlying private stakes are actually worth.

Its expense ratio has also run near 5%, which is steep for any fund. You are buying a diversified basket rather than pure Stripe, so the share price reflects dozens of private bets, not a single one.

Before placing an order, it is worth checking the current premium to NAV, because paying a large markup can erase years of potential gains.

Why The IPO You’re Waiting For Might Not Come Soon

Plenty of retail investors plan to skip all of this and simply buy on day one of a Stripe listing. That patience may be tested for a while.

President John Collison has repeatedly waved the idea off, telling CNBC that for Stripe right now, “an IPO would be a solution in search of a problem.” The company is profitable and self-funding, so it does not need the capital a public offering would raise.

The recurring tender offers function as a pressure-relief valve, handing employees liquidity without the reporting and scrutiny that come with public markets. As long as that mechanism keeps working, the incentive to rush a listing stays low.

If You Just Want Payments Exposure

Maybe what you actually want is exposure to the digital-payments boom rather than Stripe specifically, and the public market already gives you ways in.

Publicly traded processors such as PayPal Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL) offer liquid, regulated access to the same shift toward online and embedded payments, and several other listed fintechs compete in the space.

None of these is Stripe, and their growth profiles differ meaningfully, yet they let you act today without the lockups, premiums, or accreditation hurdles that surround the private name.

The Bottom Line

You cannot buy Stripe stock directly, and the cleanest-looking routes are gated behind accredited-investor rules and illiquidity. The closed-end fund path is open to everyone, but it asks you to swallow premium-to-NAV risk and a hefty fee for the access.

That is not a knock on the business. It is a reminder that a great product and an investable asset are two different things, and the gap between them is exactly where eager buyers tend to get tripped up.

So before you chase any pre-IPO name, weigh whether the vehicle that grants you access is worth its cost, because with private companies the wrapper can matter as much as the stock inside it.

image credit: Author

Benzinga Disclaimer: This article is from an unpaid external contributor. It does not represent Benzinga’s reporting and has not been edited for content or accuracy.