Given the need for small wind turbine systems to reduce their costs while maintaining a level of reliability, other approaches are needed. Derived from the observation above, the following two-fold objective of the present work was formulated: first, a practical simulation-based methodology for assessing fatigue life in small wind turbines, consistent with the recommendations of the standard IEC 61400-2, is proposed and demonstrated. This approach is believed to simplify the design process of small wind turbines greatly, allowing for a greater accuracy (as compared to the option of the simplified design method proposed in the standard) or a faster design process (as compared to conventional processes). Having introduced the methodology, a comparative study of the fatigue behavior of stall- and pitch-regulated small-scale wind turbines is carried out. The stall-regulated rotor was designed as part of the project P09 of the Mexican Center for Innovation in Wind Energy (CEMIE Eolico); the study of different power/rotor speed control schemes was part of the project P19 of the CEMIE Eolico. The design of the stall-regulated rotor resulted from an co-optimization of three objectives: (a) a high power coefficient at partial load (i.e., below nominal power), (b) overspeed control to guarantee structural stability up to 20 m/s without the need for additional braking systems, and (c) a high starting torque to overcome the generator cogging torque at low wind speeds. The third requisite somewhat restricted the power production at medium wind speeds, but enabled the rotor to work with a variety of generators. The detailed design considerations will be described elsewhere and are not part of the present work. The comparative assessment of stall- and pitch-regulated small-scale wind turbines was partly motivated by the fact that the CEMIE Eolico considered both technologies. However, while investigating the subject, it became apparent that comparative assessments of the impact of power/rotor speed regulation on fatigue damage are very scarce. To the best knowledge of the authors, only [PERSON] et al. [25] addressed this issue, albeit in the context of tidal, not wind turbines. As opposed to [25], in this work, all wind turbine designs studied have (almost) the same power curve, leading to an identical energy production for any given wind regime (at least under steady-state conditions) and allowing for a direct comparison of the analyzed schemes. This paper is organized as follows: In Section 2, the basic relations used to calculate the fatigue life of small wind turbine blades according to the simplified methodology in standard IEC 61400-2 are briefly reviewed, followed by an overview of the complete methodology, including the different design and simulation tools available in the public-domain suite QBlade [26]. A general description of the blade geometry and materials, as well as the design curves for power, rotor speed, and pitch angle is also provided for the case of the stall-regulated wind turbine and two pitch-regulated alternatives. The full information about the outer geometry of both blades is provided in the Appendix A. A brief description about the setup of the wind field generator and the dynamic simulation, using FAST, is also included. The results obtained with the methodology proposed in this work are presented and discussed in some detail in Section 3. The summary and conclusions are presented in Section 4.