How Stripe fees actually work

A plain-English walkthrough of what you'll pay Stripe in 2026, covering every scenario — with a running example of how a $100 sale turns into $96.80.

The headline rate

Stripe's famous rate is 2.9% + $0.30. That's what they charge for every successful domestic US card transaction, regardless of the card brand (Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Discover — all the same). The rate has been stable for over a decade; it's the industry reference point that Square and Shopify Payments both mirror.

The formula is simple:

fee = (amount × 0.029) + 0.30

On a $100 sale, that's $2.90 + $0.30 = $3.20. You receive $96.80 deposited to your bank account. Stripe deducts the fee from each transaction before paying out — there's no separate monthly bill.

Why the fixed $0.30 matters so much

The percentage scales with the transaction, but the fixed fee doesn't. That makes the effective rate much higher on small transactions:

On a $5 sale Stripe keeps 9%. On a $5,000 sale they keep 2.91%. If your average order value is under $20, pay attention: the fixed fee dominates and makes card processing genuinely expensive relative to alternatives like ACH.

International cards and currency conversion

When a non-US card pays you, Stripe adds a 1.5% international surcharge. Total: 4.4% + $0.30. When the payment involves currency conversion (the customer pays in EUR, you receive USD, for example), Stripe adds another 1%. That's 5.4% + $0.30 all-in.

These two add-ons stack on top of the base rate:

• US card → 2.9% + $0.30
• International card (same currency) → 4.4% + $0.30
• International card with currency conversion → 5.4% + $0.30

For cross-border SaaS and DTC merchants, this matters. On a €100 subscription paid by a European customer with currency conversion, Stripe keeps €5.70 — versus €3.20 for a US customer paying in USD. That's a real drag on international revenue.

ACH Direct Debit — the cheap alternative

For US bank account debits (ACH), Stripe charges just 0.8% capped at $5 per transaction. On a $5,000 B2B invoice, that's $5 via ACH versus $145.30 via card. If you can get your customer to pay by bank account — for B2B especially — ACH is a massive win.

Trade-off: ACH takes 3–5 business days to settle. The customer needs to provide bank account details instead of a card. For B2B invoicing and large one-off payments, worth it. For consumer checkout, card is usually still the right call.

Stripe Link (their stored-bank product) has the same economics: 0.8% capped at $5. Once a customer saves their bank via Link, subsequent payments are one-click and cheap.

Disputes cost $15 each

When a customer files a chargeback through their card issuer, Stripe charges you $15 per dispute, on top of refunding the transaction. If you win the dispute (by submitting evidence), the $15 is not returned.

For most businesses, disputes are a small part of total cost. For digital goods, subscriptions, and high-fraud-risk categories (luxury, event tickets), dispute costs add up fast. Stripe's Square at $0/dispute is the outlier here; PayPal's $20/dispute is the worst.

Refunds: what gets returned?

On modern Stripe accounts, when you refund a transaction Stripe generally refunds the full fee (both the percentage and the $0.30). That's different from PayPal, which keeps the fixed fee on refunds. It's aligned with Square.

Older Stripe accounts (pre-2022) may have different behavior. If you're on a long-standing account and refunds are common, check your Stripe dashboard settings or confirm with support.

Stripe Terminal — in-person rates

For in-person card processing via Stripe Terminal (their hardware SDK), rates drop to 2.7% + $0.05. Note this is a different pricing from the online rate, so an in-person sale on Stripe Terminal costs less per transaction than online. If you take card-present payments, Terminal is typically cheaper than the online rate (though it costs more to set up hardware — Stripe Reader M2 is ~$59, BBPOS WisePOS E is ~$349).

For a small business just wanting a tap-to-pay reader, Stripe Terminal is harder to set up than Square. Square's ecosystem is more turn-key. But if you already have Stripe on the software side, Terminal integrates cleanly.

Stripe Connect — the platform fees

If you're building a marketplace or SaaS platform on Stripe Connect, there are additional pricing layers:

• Standard Connect: Same as regular Stripe fees, but Stripe handles payouts to your platform's sub-merchants.
• Express Connect: 0.25% + $2 per active account per month (plus regular transaction fees).
• Custom Connect: 0.4% + $2 per active account per month.

On top of these, your platform can charge its own platform fee — a percentage you collect on each transaction that passes through your marketplace. That's revenue for your business, not a Stripe cost.

Radar (fraud detection)

Standard Radar is free and automatic — Stripe screens every charge for fraud and blocks the most obvious ones. Radar for Fraud Teams ($0.05 per screened charge) unlocks custom rules, allow/block lists, 3D Secure workflows, and manual review queues. For most merchants under $1M/year in volume, standard Radar is fine.

Instant Payouts

Standard Stripe payouts arrive in your bank account in 2 business days, free. Instant Payouts (same-day to a linked debit card) cost 1% per payout, minimum $0.50. For cash-flow-tight businesses it can be worth it; for most, the free standard payout is fine.

Can you negotiate?

Stripe's published rates apply to essentially everyone under ~$80,000/month in processing. Above that, enterprise pricing is negotiable — you talk to a sales rep and can often get rates down to 2.6% + $0.25 or lower, depending on your vertical and volume. High-risk verticals (CBD, gambling, certain SaaS) may face higher rates; stable verticals (B2B software, e-commerce) get the best deals.

The calculator

If you want to see what you'd actually pay on any specific transaction, try our Stripe fee calculator. Enter an amount and pick the scenario — it handles US cards, international, currency conversion, ACH, and Link, using current 2026 rates.

For comparisons against Square, PayPal, and Shopify, try the head-to-head comparison.