Challenge

As an AI-native company with a primarily B2B focus, WaveSpeedAI needed a payments infrastructure as reliable as its platform. Any payment disruption could interrupt service for customers and ripple through to end users – and for a platform where businesses depend on continuous API access, even brief downtime means lost revenue for Wavespeed's customers.

Beyond reliability, WaveSpeedAI needed an easy checkout experience that let customers bind cards quickly and with confidence so services could run uninterrupted. The company also needed to accept payments across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia, each with its own regulatory requirements and payment preferences. And on a fast-growing platform, stolen card attempts and high-risk transactions posed real threats to revenue and trust, requiring fraud tools that could scale without a dedicated risk team.

WaveSpeedAI needed a payment partner that could support fast, global growth, automate recurring usage-based charging and operate reliably at infrastructure scale – without expanding its team or creating a patchwork of manual tracking and country-specific regulations.

Solution

WaveSpeedAI chose Stripe Payments to power payments across its platform, giving the company a unified infrastructure to support fast, global growth.

"Stripe is a very strong signal that our website and service are trusted," said Zeyi Cheng, CEO of WaveSpeedAI. "It's important for people to try new products conveniently, without worrying about safety or service continuity."

To protect uptime and minimise manual customer actions, WaveSpeedAI implemented off-session charging below a customer-chosen threshold. Once customers have bound a card, Stripe automatically charges it when the balance runs low, eliminating the need for manual top-ups and ensuring uninterrupted API access.

For checkout, WaveSpeedAI implemented Stripe's Optimized Checkout Suite to create a secure, conversion-focused payment flow from sign-up to confirmation. The suite's AI models dynamically surface the most relevant payment methods for each customer, while Link, a wallet built by Stripe, further simplifies the experience by saving and autofilling payment details. Adaptive Pricing automatically displays localised prices, enabling expansion without custom integrations.

"Competition in our space is intense, so any advantage matters," said Cheng. "With Stripe, adding a new payment method takes minutes, not weeks."

For fraud prevention, WaveSpeedAI adopted Stripe Radar alongside 3D Secure to identify high-risk transactions and apply additional verification as needed, while keeping a smooth payment flow for trusted customers. The team uses Radar's built-in tools to create custom fraud rules – such as flagging users who cycle through multiple cards in a single day – without needing a dedicated risk team. Behind the scenes, Stripe automatically retries false declines in real time through Adaptive Acceptance, recovering revenue without requiring WaveSpeedAI or customer intervention.

Results

WaveSpeedAI implements Stripe in four days

WaveSpeedAI completed the implementation of its full Stripe integration in just four days, with minimal ongoing maintenance required. With Stripe's developer-friendly documentation and unified platform, the team was able to go from initial setup to accepting payments across multiple regions without a lengthy build or dedicated payments engineering resources.

Automatic charging ensures uninterrupted service

Off-session charging eliminated the need for manual reminders or top-ups, ensuring customers maintain continuous API access. WaveSpeedAI no longer needs to chase payments, and customers never experience service interruptions.

37% of transactions are processed through Link

With a secure, conversion-focused checkout in place, WaveSpeedAI reduced friction at the point of payment. Link has been particularly effective, now representing 37% of all transactions on the platform.

The Optimized Checkout Suite supports accelerated expansion into new regions

With the Optimized Checkout Suite, WaveSpeedAI quickly enabled 14 payment methods across regions through a single integration, including WeChat Pay for Chinese-speaking customers worldwide. This has supported the company's expansion into Southeast Asia and beyond without building custom integrations for each market.

WaveSpeedAI reduces fraudulent transactions by up to 80%

After a spike in stolen card disputes, WaveSpeedAI used Radar to set custom risk thresholds. The initial rules reduced fraud by 60–70%, and as Radar's automated detection improved, fraudulent transactions dropped by up to 80%.

Less than one full-time employee manages millions in monthly transactions

Stripe's unified infrastructure enables WaveSpeedAI to manage millions of dollars in monthly transactions with less than one full-time employee's oversight. Despite having a lean founding team of just 10 people, the company operates without a dedicated payments department or engineering resources. By simply checking the Stripe Dashboard once a month for fund transfers, the team maintains global operations with minimal manual effort – freeing them to focus entirely on customer growth and platform development.