Stripe charges 2.9% + 30¢ per US card payment, yet most businesses pay 3.5% to 5%. Every fee, worked examples and alternatives, checked September 2026.
By Veracity Media Network · Published 2026-04-22 · Updated 2026-09-27
Stripe charges 2.9% + 30¢ for each successful payment made with a US card. International cards add 1.5%, and another 1% applies when the payment needs a currency conversion. ACH bank debits cost 0.8%, capped at $5, and in-person card payments cost 2.7% + 5¢. [1]
Here is what that means for a single payment:
| Payment | Stripe fee | Share of the payment |
|---|---|---|
| $50 online, US card | $1.75 | 3.5% |
| $50 online, foreign card, currency converted | $3.00 | 6.0% |
| $50 in person, US card (Terminal) | $1.40 | 2.8% |
| $400 by ACH bank debit | $3.20 | 0.8% |
| $1,000 by ACH bank debit | $5.00 | 0.5% (cap reached) |
There is no monthly fee for standard Stripe Payments. The costs grow once you add other Stripe products. Billing, Invoicing, Tax and Connect each charge their own fee on top of the card fee. A typical US subscription business with a $50 average payment ends up paying about 4.3% of revenue. With Stripe Tax switched on, that rises to about 4.8%.
This guide lists every fee line, shows the math at different sizes, and compares Stripe with eight alternatives we review on TreasuryMetric. We first published it in April 2026 and rechecked every rate against official pricing pages on September 27, 2026.
Stripe is a set of products, and each one has its own price. Most businesses use two to four of them. This table covers the ones that affect the cost of taking money.
| Product | What it does | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Payments | Card and wallet payments online | 2.9% + 30¢ (US cards), +1.5% international, +1% currency conversion, +0.5% manually entered cards |
| ACH Direct Debit | US bank payments | 0.8%, capped at $5 |
| Terminal | In-person payments | 2.7% + 5¢ (US cards), $0.10 per Tap to Pay authorization |
| Billing | Subscriptions and recurring charges | 0.7% of billing volume, or annual plans from $620 a month |
| Invoicing | One-off invoices | 0.4% per paid invoice on Starter, 0.5% on Plus (see the note on the $2 cap below) |
| Tax | Sales tax, VAT and GST | 0.5% per transaction (no-code) or 50¢ per transaction (API), or plans from $90 a month |
| Connect | Platforms and marketplaces | Free if Stripe prices your users. If you set prices: $2 per active account per month, 0.25% + 25¢ per payout, and 0.25% of payout volume for funds routing |
| Radar | Fraud screening | Radar Lite included free. Paid plans from $10 a month, or from $0.05 per screened payment |
| Instant Payouts | Same-day payouts to a debit card | 1.5% of the payout, 50¢ minimum (1% for Connect platforms) |
| Managed Payments | Stripe acts as merchant of record for digital products | 3.5% on top of the Payments fee |
| Issuing | Company or customer cards | $0.10 per virtual card, $3.50 per physical card |
| Revenue Recognition | Accounting automation | $25 a month, or annual plans from $190 a month |
Stripe publishes these rates on its main pricing page, including Invoicing at 0.4% per paid invoice with a $2 cap, Instant Payouts at 1.5% with a 50¢ minimum, and Managed Payments at 3.5% per transaction in addition to Payments fees. [2]
When a platform sets its own prices on Connect, Stripe charges $2 per monthly active account, 0.25% + 25¢ per payout sent, and a separately listed 0.25% of payout volume for funds routing and platform management. Instant Payouts cost 1% of payout volume. When Stripe handles pricing, the platform pays no account or payout fees. [3]
Radar Lite is included at no extra charge for businesses on standard pricing. Radar Standard, Plus and Pro start at $10, $14 and $20 a month. [4]
Two changes since our April edition are worth knowing. Radar is now split into a free Lite version and three paid plans. And Stripe's Invoicing page now shows a Plus plan at 0.5% that adds quotes.
Stripe Invoicing lists a Starter plan at 0.4% per paid invoice and a Plus plan at 0.5% per paid invoice that adds quotes, with Stripe Payments pricing applied on top. Businesses with large invoice amounts are asked to contact sales. [5]
The two Stripe pages disagree on one point. The main pricing page shows a $2 cap per invoice on Starter. The Invoicing page shows no cap. If you send large invoices, confirm the cap with Stripe before you rely on it.
The card fee has two parts: a percentage and a fixed 30¢. The fixed part matters more on small payments. So the size of your average payment decides your real rate more than anything else.
The table below assumes a US subscription business on Stripe Payments and Billing (pay as you go), US cards only, and a dispute rate of 0.3% at Stripe's $15 dispute fee.
| Average payment | Card fee alone | With Billing and disputes |
|---|---|---|
| $10 | 5.90% | 7.05% |
| $20 | 4.40% | 5.33% |
| $30 | 3.90% | 4.75% |
| $50 | 3.50% | 4.29% |
| $100 | 3.20% | 3.95% |
| $250 | 3.02% | 3.74% |
| $1,000 | 2.93% | 3.64% |
3.64-7.05 percent of revenue, Stripe Payments plus Billing
For a US subscription business on Stripe Payments and Billing, we calculate total Stripe fees at 7.05% of revenue for a $10 average payment, 4.29% at $50 and 3.64% at $1,000. Inputs: 2.9% + 30¢ card fee, 0.7% Billing, 0.3% dispute rate at $15 per dispute, US cards only. Rates checked against stripe.com/pricing on 2026-09-27.
At a $50 average payment, the monthly bill looks like this:
| Monthly revenue | Payments | Card fees | Billing 0.7% | Disputes | Total | Share of revenue |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $10,000 | 200 | $350 | $70 | $9 | $429 | 4.29% |
| $100,000 | 2,000 | $3,500 | $700 | $90 | $4,290 | 4.29% |
| $500,000 | 10,000 | $17,500 | $3,500 | $450 | $21,450 | 4.29% |
| $1,000,000 | 20,000 | $35,000 | $7,000 | $900 | $42,900 | 4.29% |
Stripe Tax Basic charges 0.5% on each payment where you are registered to collect tax. If that covers all your sales, the $1,000,000 month rises by $5,000 to $47,900, or 4.79%.
Correction to our April edition
Our April version put the $1,000,000 month with Tax at $52,900 (5.29%). That double-counted the Tax fee. The correct figure is $47,900 (4.79%). We also corrected the fee for a $30 subscriber from $1.18 to $1.38.
The Billing annual plan is cheaper than pay as you go once you are sure of your volume. Stripe sells annual Billing plans that cover a set amount of billing volume each month.
Stripe Billing costs 0.7% of billing volume on pay as you go, or $620, $1,500, $2,950 and $5,750 a month on annual plans covering up to $100,000, $250,000, $500,000 and $1,000,000 of monthly billing volume, with 0.67% on volume above the plan. [6]
At full use, those plans cost 11% to 18% less than 0.7%. At $500,000 a month, that is $2,950 instead of $3,500. The catch is the one-year contract. If your volume drops, you still pay the plan price.
Stripe's pricing page lists each product's fee on its own line. It is easy to read Billing at 0.7% or Tax at 0.5% as a full price. Each one is added to the card fee for every payment that uses it.
Billing's 0.7% is added to the card fee
A $30 monthly subscription paid with a US card costs $1.17 in card fees and $0.21 in Billing fees. The total is $1.38, or 4.6% of the charge.
Now take the same $30 subscription paid by a customer in France with a card that needs currency conversion, and with Stripe Tax Basic turned on:
| Fee | Rate | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Card fee | 2.9% + 30¢ | $1.17 |
| International card | 1.5% | $0.45 |
| Currency conversion | 1% | $0.30 |
| Billing | 0.7% | $0.21 |
| Tax Basic | 0.5% | $0.15 |
| Total | $2.28 (7.6%) |
That is more than double the 2.9% headline. If a large part of your revenue comes from abroad, run this calculation on your own mix before you choose a provider.
Three smaller costs often get missed.
Stripe does not return its processing fees from the original payment when you refund it. Cancelling a payment before it completes costs nothing. [7]
So refunding a $100 payment usually costs you the $3.20 fee you already paid. There is one exception: a refund made very soon after the payment can go through as a reversal, and Stripe keeps no fees on reversals. If you refund often, Stripe suggests placing a hold and capturing the payment later, so you can cancel instead of refunding.
For disputes opened after June 17, 2025, Stripe charges a second fee when you counter a dispute, on top of the fee for receiving it. In the US both fees are $15, and the counter fee is returned if you win. [8]
Stripe also offers Smart Disputes, which submits evidence for you and takes 30% of the disputed amount, but only when you win. It is still rolling out gradually.
These examples use the rates above. We show the inputs so you can swap in your own numbers.
A US company with $10,000 a month from 200 subscribers at $50, all paying with US cards.
| Fee | Monthly cost |
|---|---|
| Card fees (2.9% + 30¢) | $350 |
| Billing (0.7%) | $70 |
| Radar Lite | $0 |
| Disputes (0.3% at $15) | $9 |
| Total | $429 (4.29%) |
At this size, Stripe's Billing fee buys a lot: retries for failed cards, proration, trials and a customer portal. Building that yourself would cost more in engineering time than the $70 a month.
A platform with 500 active sellers, $200,000 a month in sales from 4,000 payments of $50, a 10% commission, and weekly payouts. The platform sets its own prices on Connect.
| Fee | Monthly cost |
|---|---|
| Card fees (2.9% + 30¢) | $7,000 |
| Active accounts ($2 × 500) | $1,000 |
| Payouts (0.25% of $180,000 + 25¢ × 2,000) | $950 |
| Funds routing (0.25% of $180,000) | $450 |
| Disputes (0.3% at $15) | $180 |
| Total | $9,580 (4.79% of sales) |
About $2,400 of that comes from Connect itself. Stripe lists the payout fee and the funds-routing fee as separate lines, so we count both. If you let Stripe price your sellers directly, those platform fees drop to zero, but you give up control over what sellers pay. Instant Payouts, if you offer them, add 1% of each payout on Connect.
$1 million a year in revenue ($83,333 a month) from 300 customers on annual invoices of about $3,333. 60% of revenue is from the US and 40% from Europe. About 25 invoices go out each month.
| Fee | All paid by card | US customers pay by ACH |
|---|---|---|
| US payments | $1,455 (card) | $75 (ACH, $5 cap) |
| International payments (5.4%) | $1,803 | $1,803 |
| Invoicing (0.4%, $2 cap) | $50 | $50 |
| Tax Complete (entry plan) | $90 | $90 |
| Disputes | about $1 | about $1 |
| Total per month | $3,399 (4.08%) | $2,019 (2.42%) |
If the $2 Invoicing cap does not apply to your account, Invoicing costs about $333 a month instead of $50, and both totals rise by about $283.
For large B2B invoices, the ACH cap makes the biggest difference in this guide. A $3,333 card payment costs $97 in fees. The same payment by ACH costs $5. Asking US customers to pay by bank transfer saves this company about $16,500 a year.
Stripe Tax Complete starts at $90 a month on a one-year contract, covering 2 registrations a year, 200 transactions a month, 2,000 API calls a month and 4 filings a year. Additional fees can apply for registrations and filings outside the US. [9]
A merchant of record such as Paddle would charge about $50,150 a year on the same revenue at its 5% + 50¢ rate, against about $40,800 on Stripe with card payments. For that difference, Paddle registers, files and pays sales tax and VAT for you. Note that Paddle quotes invoicing separately, so check that the standard rate applies to your case.
$500,000 a month from 10,000 subscribers at $50, on Stripe's annual Billing plan, with Revenue Recognition.
| Fee | Monthly cost |
|---|---|
| Card fees (2.9% + 30¢) | $17,500 |
| Billing (annual plan up to $500,000) | $2,950 |
| Revenue Recognition (annual plan up to $500,000) | $860 |
| Disputes (0.3% at $15) | $450 |
| Tax | Not included (see below) |
| Total before Tax | $21,760 (4.35%) |
Stripe Revenue Recognition costs $25 a month on a monthly plan, or $190, $450, $860 and $1,650 a month on annual plans covering up to $100,000, $250,000, $500,000 and $1,000,000 or more. [10]
Tax depends on how you buy it. Tax Basic at 0.5% would add $2,500 a month. The largest listed Tax Complete plan costs $1,500 a month for 5,000 transactions, and Stripe says extra fees may apply above a plan's limits.
At this size it is worth asking Stripe for a custom price (see below).
Stripe now sells its own merchant-of-record service for digital products, called Managed Payments. It competes directly with Paddle.
With Managed Payments, Stripe (through Link) is the merchant of record. It calculates, collects, files and remits sales tax, VAT and GST in more than 80 countries, and handles fraud, disputes and transaction-level customer support. It works with Stripe Checkout and Payment Links, and customers see purchases as sold through Link. [11]
Managed Payments is limited to digital products such as software, SaaS, video games, digital media and online courses. It does not cover physical goods, professional services, Connect platforms or marketplaces, and it is available to businesses in the US, Canada, much of Europe, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore. [12]
Stripe's Managed Payments overview lists support for subscriptions as available with Billing. [13]
The fee is 3.5% on top of the normal 2.9% + 30¢. Stripe does not say whether Billing's 0.7% is also charged on Managed Payments subscriptions. Our subscription column assumes it is, so treat that column as an upper estimate. Paddle charges 5% + 50¢ with no extra fees for tax or billing.
| Payment size | Stripe Managed Payments, one-off | Stripe Managed Payments, subscription | Paddle |
|---|---|---|---|
| $20 | $1.58 | $1.72 | $1.50 |
| $50 | $3.50 | $3.85 | $3.00 |
| $100 | $6.70 | $7.40 | $5.50 |
| $500 | $32.30 | $35.80 | $25.50 |
14.29 USD payment size where Paddle's published rate becomes cheaper than Stripe Managed Payments for one-off sales
Stripe Managed Payments costs 6.4% + 30¢ per one-off US card payment (2.9% + 30¢ plus 3.5%). Paddle's published rate is 5% + 50¢. The two are equal at about $14.29. Above that, Paddle's published rate is lower. For subscriptions, adding Billing's 0.7% moves the crossover down to about $9.52. Paddle asks for custom pricing on products under $10.
On published prices, Paddle costs less for almost any real product. Managed Payments can still make sense if you already run on Stripe and want to keep one account, one dashboard and one integration.
Stripe offers custom packages for businesses with large payments volume or unique business models, including interchange plus (IC+) pricing, volume discounts, multi-product discounts and country-specific rates. [14]
Stripe does not publish a volume threshold for custom pricing. Our April edition quoted an industry range. We could not find a primary source for it, so we removed it. What we can say is this: at $1 million a month in card volume, every 0.1 percentage point you negotiate off saves $1,000 a month.
Three setups cover most businesses:
A rough rule: below $50,000 a month, the first setup is usually best. If more than about 30% of your revenue comes from abroad, price the third setup. Once you pass about $1 million a month, ask Stripe for a custom price and get a quote from Adyen at the same time.
We have no affiliate relationship with any company in this section. Each links to our full review on TreasuryMetric. Rates were checked on each vendor's official pricing page on September 27, 2026.
| Provider | Standard online card rate (US) | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Stripe | 2.9% + 30¢ | Online businesses that want one developer-friendly platform |
| Adyen | Interchange + scheme fees + 0.60% + $0.13 | High-volume businesses, online and in store |
| Paddle | 5% + 50¢, tax and billing included | Software sold worldwide |
| PayPal | 2.99% + 49¢ for cards, 3.49% + 49¢ for PayPal Checkout | Shops where customers expect a PayPal button |
| Square | 2.9% + 30¢ (Plus and Premium), 3.3% + 30¢ (Free plan) | Businesses that sell mostly in person |
| Airwallex | 2.8% + 30¢ domestic, 4.3% + 30¢ international | Businesses that hold and move many currencies |
| Nickel | 2.9% on cards, free ACH | US B2B companies paid by bank transfer |
| Payoneer | Up to 3.99% + 49¢ | Freelancers and sellers paid from abroad |
| Tipalti | Not a card processor. Plans from $99 a month | Paying suppliers and contractors at scale |
Adyen.
Adyen charges a fixed processing fee plus a payment method fee on each transaction. For Visa and Mastercard that is $0.13 plus interchange, scheme fees and 0.60%. Adyen has no monthly, setup or closure fees, but applies a minimum invoice that depends on industry and business model. [15]
Your total with Adyen depends on your card mix, because interchange varies by card type. That makes it harder to compare at a glance. Businesses with large, stable volume often come out ahead. Onboarding goes through sales and takes longer than Stripe.
Paddle.
Paddle charges 5% + 50¢ per checkout transaction, covering payments, billing, tax compliance, fraud protection and support, with no monthly fees. Products under $10 and invoicing need a custom quote. [16]
Paddle is the merchant of record, so it appears on your customer's card statement. You give up some control over checkout and billing in exchange for not handling sales tax and VAT yourself.
PayPal.
For US merchants, PayPal charges 3.49% + 49¢ for PayPal Checkout and Venmo payments and 2.99% + 49¢ for standard card payments. International transactions add 1.5%, the chargeback fee is $20, and fees are not returned when a payment is refunded. [17]
On a $50 card payment, PayPal costs $1.99 against Stripe's $1.75. When the customer pays with their PayPal balance through PayPal Checkout, the fee is $2.24.
Square.
Square charges 2.6% + 15¢ in person on its Free plan, 2.5% + 15¢ on Plus ($49 a month per location) and 2.4% + 15¢ on Premium ($149 a month per location). Online payments cost 3.3% + 30¢ on Free and 2.9% + 30¢ on Plus and Premium. Manually keyed cards cost 3.5% + 15¢. [18]
Square's in-person rate on its Free plan is close to Stripe Terminal's 2.7% + 5¢. The difference is in the fixed part: 15¢ against 5¢. For online sales on Square's Free plan, you pay 0.4 points more than on Stripe.
Airwallex.
Airwallex US offers a free Explore plan and a Grow plan at $12 per user per month plus a platform fee based on team size. Currency conversion costs 0.5% above the interbank rate for major currencies and 1% for others. Card acceptance costs 2.8% + 30¢ for domestic cards and 4.3% + 30¢ for international cards. SWIFT transfers cost $15 to $25. [19]
Airwallex is strongest when you hold balances in several currencies. Converting at 0.5% costs half of Stripe's 1% conversion fee.
Nickel.
Nickel charges nothing for sending or receiving ACH on any plan and 2.9% for cards, plus 1% for international cards. The Core plan is free with a $25,000 transaction limit. Plus ($35 a month on annual billing, $45 month to month) and Pro ($300 a month) raise the limit to $1 million. Pro adds API access and a dedicated account manager. [20]
For a US B2B company whose customers pay large invoices by bank transfer, Nickel's free ACH beats Stripe's 0.8% with a $5 cap. Nickel works only in the US.
Payoneer.
Payoneer charges up to 3.99% + 49¢ when a client pays by credit card and 1% for US ACH debits or EU and UK bank payments. Withdrawing to a local bank account in the same currency costs $1.50. An annual fee of $29.95 applies only if the account receives less than $6,000 in 12 months. [21]
Tipalti.
Tipalti Accounts Payable plans start at $99 a month and Mass Payments plans start at $249 a month, both with unlimited users, plus transaction fees for each payment. [22]
Tipalti handles the other side of the money flow: paying many suppliers or contractors and collecting their tax forms. It does not replace Stripe for taking payments. Our April edition said Tipalti did not publish prices. It now lists these starting prices.
Which one fits your case:
| Your situation | Best starting point |
|---|---|
| US subscription business under $50,000 a month | Stripe Payments and Billing |
| Software sold worldwide, no tax team | Paddle, or Stripe Managed Payments if you want to stay on Stripe |
| Marketplace or platform | Stripe Connect |
| Large B2B invoices from US customers | Stripe with ACH, or Nickel |
| Mostly in-person sales | Square or Stripe Terminal |
| Many currencies and foreign payouts | Stripe plus Airwallex |
| Paying hundreds of contractors | Tipalti |
| More than $1 million a month in cards | Stripe custom pricing, with an Adyen quote |
These are the questions people ask most often about Stripe fees, based on the search data for this page.
How much does Stripe charge per transaction? 2.9% + 30¢ for a US card payment online. $1.75 on a $50 sale. International cards and currency conversion add up to 2.5% more.
Does Stripe have a monthly fee? Not for standard payments. Some add-on products have monthly plans, such as Tax Complete, the annual Billing plans, Revenue Recognition and paid Radar plans.
Does Stripe give fees back on refunds? Usually not. The fee from the original payment is kept, unless the refund happens soon enough to go through as a reversal.
Is Stripe cheaper than PayPal? For card payments online, yes: 2.9% + 30¢ against PayPal's 2.99% + 49¢. The gap is widest on small payments because of PayPal's higher fixed fee.
Can you negotiate with Stripe? Yes. Stripe offers custom packages for large volume, but does not say where that starts.
Sources. Every Stripe rate comes from Stripe's official pricing pages and documentation, checked on September 27, 2026. Rates for the other providers come from each company's own pricing page, checked the same day. Links to each source appear in the Sources list below.
Calculations. All worked examples are our own. We state the inputs next to each table. They use US list prices and ignore sales tax collected from customers, bank fees outside Stripe, and any custom pricing.
What we did not check. We did not test negotiated contracts, which are private. Interchange for Adyen depends on your card mix, so we did not estimate a single Adyen rate. Radar's paid plans list starting prices only. Two points on Stripe's pages are unclear, and we flag them where they matter: whether the $2 Invoicing cap still applies, and whether Billing's 0.7% is charged on Managed Payments subscriptions. For Connect, we counted the payout fee and the funds-routing fee separately because Stripe lists them on separate lines.
Corrections in this edition. We fixed three calculation errors from April: the $1,000,000 tier with Tax, the $30 subscriber example and the marketplace example, where the Connect fees were also applied the wrong way. We removed an unsourced claim about the volume at which Stripe negotiates. We also removed our April search-query analysis, which was based on Google data from a short period and no longer matches what readers ask.
Affiliate relationships. We have no affiliate or paid relationship with Stripe or any company named here. We do not accept paid placement.
Next check. We will recheck the rates by December 2026, or sooner if Stripe changes its pricing.
TreasuryMetric is part of the Veracity Media Network, six independent directories of business software covering AI, cybersecurity, finance, HR, logistics and energy. We research each product from its vendor's public documentation: who it is for, features, pricing, how it works and compliance.
If you represent a company named here and something is out of date, you can send a correction through TreasuryMetric.com. We check every correction against public sources before we change a listing.