Why I let freelancers skip Stripe entirely

Building Nvoyce, I hit a decision most invoicing tools get wrong: which payment rails to support.

The obvious move is to lock users into one processor. Cleaner to build, and there's usually a revenue share in it. But almost every freelancer I talked to already had a way they got paid, and it was rarely the same way twice. Some clients Venmo. Some do bank transfer. Some pay a Stripe link without blinking. A designer told me her best client had paid her via Zelle for four years and wasn't going to change for anyone's software.

So Nvoyce supports Stripe alongside Venmo, Zelle, Cash App, and PayPal, and you can skip Stripe entirely and keep 100% of the payment. There's a real tradeoff: alt rails have no API, so the client taps "Confirm I've Paid" and you verify it yourself. I took that friction on purpose. The freelancer keeps control of how their money moves, and that matters more than my integration being tidy.

Most tools in this space optimize for the vendor. I'd rather optimize for the person who did the work.

Curious how other builders draw that line: when do you meet users where they are, and when do you pick one path and force it?