Stripe is a payment processing platform used by businesses of all sizes to accept online payments. Its pricing model is straightforward in principle — a flat percentage plus a small fixed amount per transaction — but the details vary based on what you're accepting, where your customers are, and which Stripe products you're using.
Standard Card Processing Fees
For most businesses accepting online card payments in the US, Stripe charges:
2.9% + $0.30 per successful transaction
This applies to all major credit and debit cards (Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Discover) for domestic transactions. The fee is deducted automatically before funds are deposited into your bank account.
On a $100 sale:
$100.00 × 2.9% = $2.90
Fixed fee = $0.30
Total fee = $3.20
You receive = $96.80
On a $10 sale, the fixed $0.30 fee has a much larger proportional impact:
$10.00 × 2.9% = $0.29
Fixed fee = $0.30
Total fee = $0.59
Effective rate = 5.9%
This is why Stripe (and card processing in general) is disproportionately expensive for very low-value transactions.
Fees That Vary by Payment Type
The standard 2.9% + $0.30 applies to domestic US cards only. Other payment methods have different rates:
ACH Direct Debit: 0.8% (capped at $5.00)
International cards: +1.5% surcharge on top of standard rate
Currency conversion: +1.0% additional fee
Manually entered cards: +0.5% additional fee (card-not-present)
If your customers are frequently outside the US, the effective rate for international transactions can be 4.4% + $0.30 or higher.
Stripe Products With Different Pricing
Stripe is not just a payment processor — it's a platform of financial products, each with its own pricing:
Stripe Billing (subscriptions and recurring payments): Adds 0.5–0.8% on top of processing fees depending on your plan.
Stripe Radar (fraud detection): Included free for standard users. Advanced features (custom rules, risk insights) are an additional $0.02–$0.07 per transaction.
Stripe Connect (marketplace payments, splitting funds): Adds $2 per active account per month for Standard and Express, plus processing fees.
Stripe Terminal (in-person payments): 2.7% + $0.05 per transaction for card-present payments.
Stripe Invoicing: $0 for basic invoicing; 0.4% per paid invoice for advanced features (capped at $2).
Passing Fees to Customers
Some businesses choose to pass processing fees on to customers rather than absorbing them. This is permitted by most card networks in the US (Visa and Mastercard updated their rules in 2013) but has restrictions:
- Surcharges can only apply to credit cards, not debit cards
- Maximum surcharge is capped at the actual processing cost (no profiting from it)
- Some states restrict surcharging
If you choose to pass fees on, you need to charge customers a gross-up amount so that after Stripe's percentage and fixed fee are deducted, you receive your intended net amount.
The formula to find the gross amount to charge:
Gross charge = (Net amount + $0.30) ÷ (1 - 0.029)
To receive $100 net:
($100 + $0.30) ÷ 0.971 = $103.40
Disputes and Chargebacks
When a customer disputes a charge, Stripe charges a $15 dispute fee regardless of the outcome. If you win the dispute, the $15 is refunded. If you lose, you lose both the transaction amount and the $15.
Maintaining a chargeback rate below 0.05% is important — Stripe can suspend accounts with excessive disputes.
Negotiating Lower Rates
Stripe's standard rates are non-negotiable for most businesses. However, once you're processing more than $80,000–$100,000 per month, Stripe will consider custom pricing. Enterprise volume deals typically start around 2.2% + $0.20.
To calculate your exact Stripe fees and determine the gross amount to charge to receive a specific net amount, use the Stripe Fee Calculator. To compare with PayPal's fee structure, see the PayPal Fee Calculator.