Stripe is the default for a reason: an account in ten minutes, excellent developer tools, a checkout that works, and one rate for everything. The rate is the trade. This page lists Stripe’s current fees, the costs that show up as a business grows, and the volume at which a standalone gateway on a merchant account starts saving real money.
Stripe’s published US fees, September 2026
| Item | Fee |
|---|---|
| Online card payments (domestic) | 2.9% + 30¢ |
| International cards | + 1.5% |
| Currency conversion | + 1% |
| In-person (Stripe Terminal, Tap to Pay) | 2.7% + 5¢ |
| ACH direct debit | 0.8%, capped at $5 |
| Link and digital wallets | 2.9% + 30¢ (same as cards) |
| Disputes | $15 each |
| Instant payouts | 1.5% of volume, 50¢ minimum |
| Setup, monthly | $0 |
Source: stripe.com/pricing. Stripe’s add-on products (Billing, Invoicing, Radar for Fraud Teams, Tax, Identity, Connect) carry their own fees, typically a percentage of volume or a per-object charge, on top of processing.
What is not on the rate sheet
Flat rate on every card. A PIN debit card with interchange around 0.05% + 22¢ costs you 2.9% + 30¢. A premium rewards card with interchange around 2.3% + 10¢ also costs 2.9% + 30¢. The spread between the two is Stripe’s margin, and it is largest exactly on the cheap cards. Interchange-plus passes that difference to you.
Aggregator underwriting. Stripe puts every account under its own master merchant account and underwrites by watching. Reserves, payout delays and closures happen after the fact, sometimes to businesses that did nothing unusual beyond growing quickly or selling in a category Stripe’s models dislike. A merchant account underwritten to your business at the start has fewer surprises.
Add-ons that turn into percentages. Stripe Billing for subscriptions and Invoicing each take a cut of volume on top of processing. A subscription business on Stripe Billing can pay 3.6% to 3.9% all-in before disputes.
International and conversion. A US business with 20% international customers pays 4.4% + 30¢ on those sales plus 1% if the charge is in another currency. That is a real cost for ecommerce.
Instant payout habit. 1.5% to get money a day early adds up to half a point on total volume for businesses that use it constantly.
Stripe vs a gateway on a merchant account
Same three businesses used on the gateway pricing page. Standalone: $20 a month gateway, 10¢ per item, interchange plus 0.30% + 10¢, blended card-not-present interchange 1.95% + 10¢.
| $8,000 / 100 txns | $50,000 / 600 txns | $200,000 / 2,000 txns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stripe | $262 | $1,630 | $6,400 |
| Gateway + interchange-plus | $226 | $1,325 | $5,120 |
| Monthly difference | $36 | $305 | $1,280 |
| Annual difference | $432 | $3,660 | $15,360 |
At $8,000 a month, keep Stripe. At $50,000, the merchant account pays for a lot of developer time. At $200,000, it is a salary.
The gap grows with debit share (retail, services) and with commercial card share if you add Level 3 data. It shrinks for businesses with tiny tickets, where Stripe’s 30¢ per item is comparable to a merchant account’s per-item fees.
Stripe vs Square, Braintree and Helcim
| Online | In person | ACH | Monthly | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stripe | 2.9% + 30¢ | 2.7% + 5¢ | 0.8%, $5 cap | $0 |
| Square | 2.9% + 30¢ | 2.6% + 15¢ | 1% ($1 min) | $0 |
| Braintree | 2.59% + 49¢ | n/a | 0.75%, $5 cap | $0 |
| Helcim | Interchange + 0.50% + 25¢ | Interchange + 0.40% + 8¢ | 0.5% + 25¢, $6 cap | $0 |
Braintree is cheaper than Stripe above about a $60 ticket on the percentage and more expensive below it on the per-item fee. Helcim is interchange-plus with no monthly fee and is the direct option for merchants who want that model without a reseller; its markup is higher than a negotiated merchant account’s but its simplicity is real. Details on the Braintree and Helcim pages.
When to stay on Stripe
- Under about $10,000 a month card-not-present.
- Heavy reliance on Stripe-specific products: Connect for marketplaces, Billing with complex plans, Radar rules you have tuned, Stripe Tax.
- A developer team that has built deeply on the Stripe API and would spend weeks re-integrating.
- International sales where Stripe’s local acquiring in multiple countries matters.
When to leave
- Volume over $15,000 a month with a normal domestic card mix.
- Reserves or holds that have already hurt cash flow.
- B2B volume that would benefit from Level 3.
- A desire to run in-person dual pricing alongside online, which Stripe does not support.
- Wanting one person to call.
Migration: Stripe exports stored payment methods to another PCI-compliant gateway on request, encrypted. Your cart’s gateway plugin changes, your integration is remapped to new tokens, subscriptions are recreated in the new gateway’s recurring engine. Two to four weeks. The sequence in switching from Authorize.net is the same with the export requested from Stripe.