
Is Shopify Payments the same as Stripe? Not exactly. While Shopify Payments uses Stripe's payment infrastructure, there are important differences in fees, payout holds, account control, and payment processing...


Maria Sparagis has spent 20+ years helping online businesses find the revenue they didn't know they were losing. As president of DirectPayNet and a payment solutions expert, she knows that the difference between a good business and a great one often comes down to how you handle payments and conversions. On Click & Convert, Maria shares the strategies, tools, and insider knowledge that ecommerce founders and online entrepreneurs need to scale to 6 and 8 figures — from optimizing your checkout flow to maximizing what hits your bottom line. Featured in American Banker, Vice, Coindesk, and Yahoo. Connect at mariasparagis.com or directpaynet.com.
Required Pod Score for this podcast. PitchCentric checks your profile against host openness, topical fit, and audience signals before you generate a pitch.
Contact path
Public web form
Booking probability
34%
Guest openness
Selective
Sign up to generate a grounded pitch for Click & Convert with Maria Sparagis.
Signup to Generate a PitchMaria Sparagis has spent 20+ years helping online businesses find the revenue they didn't know they were losing. As president of DirectPayNet and a payment solutions expert, she knows that the difference between a good business and a great one often comes down to how you handle payments and conversions.
Recent episodes include "#259 Stripe vs Shopify Payments: The Differences That Could Cost You Money" (29 October 2026, 6 minutes), "257 Which Online Business Bank Account Is Best? Mercury vs Slash vs Airwallex vs Novo" (20 October 2026, 10 minutes), and "256 How to Stop Losing Money on Chargebacks" (13 October 2026, 10 minutes).
Click & Convert with Maria Sparagis publishes roughly weekly, with episodes averaging 11 minutes.
Booking probability for Click & Convert with Maria Sparagis is 34%, and the host is rated Selective on guests. Click & Convert with Maria Sparagis requires a Pod Score of 80 or higher. Click & Convert with Maria Sparagis's contact route on record: public web form.
The strongest fits for Click & Convert with Maria Sparagis are Business & Management Consulting and IT Services & Software Development. Click & Convert with Maria Sparagis has a business audience.
Click & Convert with Maria Sparagis is a business podcast.
Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

Is Shopify Payments the same as Stripe? Not exactly. While Shopify Payments uses Stripe's payment infrastructure, there are important differences in fees, payout holds, account control, and payment processing...

Which online business bank account is best for your business? In this episode, I compare Mercury vs Slash vs Airwallex vs Novo, including their banking partners, features, and what ecommerce businesses need to consider...

Episode #256
Chargeback prevention starts before a customer disputes a payment. Learn how to prevent chargebacks, reduce dispute losses, and protect your ecommerce profits. A $200 chargeback can cost your business far more than...

Scaling your Shopify store toward $1 million in revenue? Your payment processing setup may need to change before your sales do. As ecommerce volume grows, payment approval rates, routing, reserves, funding speed, fraud...

Most online business owners know how much revenue they're generating. Far fewer know how much money they're unnecessarily leaving on the table. After more than 20 years working behind the scenes in payments and...

Episode #251
Your ROAS might look great—but your business could still be leaving serious money on the table. The problem may have nothing to do with your ads or traffic. In this episode, I reveal an overlooked way to increase ROAS...

If you're a non-US resident with a US LLC and Stripe suddenly puts your funds on reserve, holds your payouts, or shuts down your account, finding another US payment processor may be harder than you expect. In this...

What happens to your business when you step away? If every important decision still needs your approval, growth eventually becomes harder — no matter how talented your team is. In this episode, I share what I learned...

Same product. Same customer. A $900 difference. Two businesses can sell almost identical products to almost identical customers, yet see completely different business revenue growth. One generates $100 from that...

Every month, I see which businesses are about to stop growing before they even notice it. Most founders blame marketing first. More ads, a new funnel, a better website. But because my company processes payments for...

Someone could be testing stolen credit cards on your website right now — and your payment processor isn't going to stop it. It's called a card testing attack. Fraudsters get their hands on stolen card numbers and run...

Shopify shut off her Shopify Payments entirely — with less than 48 hours' notice before she'd lose the ability to take payments at all. They flagged her account as high risk, disabled her processing as of June 21, and...

Are Stripe, Shopify Payments, PayPal, or another processor delaying payouts, adding reserves, or asking a ton of questions about your business? In this episode, Maria explains why your payment processor treats you as...

You could be losing thousands of dollars a month — and your marketing dashboard would never show it. Most founders respond to slow growth by launching new campaigns, testing new creatives, and tweaking landing pages...

If customers are reaching checkout but not completing payment, your checkout page may be missing the trust signals, payment options, and clarity buyers need before entering their card. Your ads are working. People are...

You added AI support agents to save money. It might be why your chargebacks are climbing. For ecommerce brands, AI support chatbots are an easy sell — fewer tickets, lower headcount, faster response times. But there's a...

Your Stripe account closed and Stripe is still holding your funds? Here's what's actually happening and how to recover Stripe money faster. When Stripe shuts down your account, your remaining balance doesn't get sent to...

Your customers are trying to buy. Their cards are valid. Yet the transaction still gets declined. Do Not Honor is one of the most misunderstood credit card decline codes, and for many businesses it's quietly costing...

Take back control of your payments before Stripe, Shopify Payments, PayPal, or Square take control of your business. Many ecommerce brands build their entire payment infrastructure around a single payment service...

Your account can get flagged long before you ever hit a 1% chargeback rate. For years, 1% was treated like the magical chargeback threshold. As long as your business stayed under it, most merchants assumed their account...
Recent guests on Click & Convert with Maria Sparagis. Study who booked and why before you pitch.
PitchCentric classifies Click & Convert with Maria Sparagis under these industries. Guests from them are the closest fit, and each links to the best podcasts in that industry.
Shows with the most semantically similar episode content. Pitch one, pitch all; producers cluster.

Commerce Talks with Alexander Graf

Commerce Talks with Alexander Graf

Commerce Talks with Alexander Graf

Click & Convert - A magyar ecommerce podcast I Ecommerce Hungary

The E-Sales Podcast

Talks That Convert
Is this podcast yours and you'd like to remove or correct details? Request removal or email privacy@pitchcentric.com.
Questions about the free trial? See the pricing FAQ