Stripe Fees: What You Pay, and Why It Adds Up
Stripe publishes one headline rate, 2.9% plus 30 cents. The fees that ride on top of it, and the interchange it never shows you, are where the real cost of Stripe sits.
Stripe charges the same 2.9% plus 30 cents whether the card in front of it is a low-cost debit card or a premium rewards card. What Stripe pays the card networks changes with every card. What you pay does not. The difference is Stripe’s margin, and a flat rate is built so you never see it.
Figures in brief
- 2.9% + 30¢ Stripe’s standard US rate for a successful online payment on a domestic card.
- +0.5% added when a card number is typed in by hand.
- +1.5% added for international cards, and +1% more when currency conversion is needed.
- 2.7% + 5¢ for in-person payments on Stripe Terminal.
- 0.8%, capped at $5 for ACH Direct Debit.
- $15 for each dispute you receive.
- 0.4% of each paid invoice for Stripe Invoicing, and 0.7% of volume for Stripe Billing, on top of processing.
- 1.5% of the amount for Instant Payouts, with a 50-cent minimum.
What Stripe charges, line by line
Stripe deserves credit for one thing: it publishes its standard prices. Most processors do not. Here is the US list as it stood when we checked it in September 2026.
| Fee | Rate | When it applies |
|---|---|---|
| Online card payment | 2.9% + 30¢ | Every successful payment on a domestic card |
| Manually entered card | +0.5% | Card numbers typed in, for example over the phone |
| International card | +1.5% | Cards issued outside the US |
| Currency conversion | +1% | When the payment has to be converted |
| In-person (Terminal) | 2.7% + 5¢ | Domestic cards at a Stripe card reader |
| ACH Direct Debit | 0.8%, $5 cap | Bank debits from US accounts |
| Dispute | $15.00 | Each chargeback you receive |
| Stripe Invoicing | 0.4% per paid invoice | On top of the payment processing fee |
| Stripe Billing | 0.7% of billing volume | Subscriptions, on the pay-as-you-go plan |
| Instant Payouts | 1.5%, 50¢ minimum | When you want your money the same day |
| Radar fraud screening | From 5¢ per screened payment | Pay-as-you-go screening |
Source: Stripe’s published US pricing page, checked September 2026. Stripe also offers custom packages, including interchange-plus pricing, to businesses with large payment volume.
What the Stripe fee is on $100, $1,000 and $10,000
The percentage never shrinks as the sale gets bigger. On a $10,000 invoice, the same 2.9% that looked small on a coffee order becomes real money.
| How the customer pays | $100 sale | $1,000 sale | $10,000 sale |
|---|---|---|---|
| Online, domestic card | $3.20 | $29.30 | $290.30 |
| Card keyed in by hand | $3.70 | $34.30 | $340.30 |
| International card with currency conversion | $5.70 | $54.30 | $540.30 |
| Card payment on a Stripe invoice | $3.60 | $33.30 | $330.30 |
| In person on Stripe Terminal | $2.75 | $27.05 | $270.05 |
| ACH Direct Debit | $0.80 | $5.00 | $5.00 |
Calculated from Stripe’s published US rates. Excludes disputes, Radar, Billing and Instant Payouts.
Notice the last row. On a $10,000 invoice, ACH costs $5 while a card costs $290 or more. If your customers pay large invoices, making ACH easy to choose saves more than any rate negotiation. See ACH processing fees.
Why Stripe fees feel so high
Because a flat rate is set high enough to cover the expensive cards, and then charged on every card. Think of a grocery store where everything costs five dollars. It is easy to understand, and you are paying the highest possible price on nearly everything in the cart.
charged on a low-cost debit card and a premium rewards card alike, even though the interchange Stripe pays on them is very different
Every card payment carries interchange, the rate set by Visa, Mastercard and the other networks and paid to the bank that issued the card. It makes up 80 to 90 percent of the cost of accepting a card, and it varies widely: debit cards cost far less than premium credit cards, and cards swiped in person cost less than cards typed into a website. On interchange-plus pricing, you pay the actual interchange on each card plus a disclosed markup. On Stripe’s flat rate, you pay the same price regardless, and the spread between the two is Stripe’s to keep.
what an online payment costs on Stripe when the card is international and needs currency conversion
Then come the add-ons. Keyed cards, international cards, currency conversion, invoicing, billing, instant payouts and disputes each add their own percentage or flat fee, and they stack. A merchant looking at “2.9% plus 30 cents” is looking at the floor, not the bill.
charged for every dispute, on top of the payment you may already have lost
The business card discount never reaches you
This matters most to B2B companies. When a business customer pays with a corporate or purchasing card and the payment carries invoice line-item detail, known as Level 3 data, Visa’s interchange on that card falls by nearly a full percentage point. On Stripe’s standard flat rate, your price does not move. The saving exists, but it lands with Stripe, not with you.
Read how that discount works, and what Visa changed in 2026, in our guide to Level 3 credit card processing.
What we tell merchants about Stripe: bundled, flat-rate platforms fuse the gateway, the processing and often the reporting into one stack with no interchange line to negotiate against. It feels simple on day one. When the business grows, the only way out is to rip out the whole stack and start over, and that switching pain is exactly what bundled platforms count on. We would rather you start on the right structure from the beginning.
Can you negotiate Stripe fees?
Stripe says it offers custom packages, including interchange-plus pricing and volume discounts, to businesses with large payment volume. If you process with Stripe today and your volume is significant, ask for it in writing.
Then measure it against the right benchmark. A properly structured interchange-plus account should cost pure interchange plus a very small markup, in the range of 5 basis points, which is five hundredths of one percent. Priced that way, interchange-plus should beat Stripe’s 2.9% plus 30 cents at essentially any volume. If an interchange-plus quote does not beat Stripe, that is a verdict on the quote, not on the model.
How to lower what you pay
- Know your card mix. Pull a month of payments and see how many were debit, business, international and keyed. That is where a flat rate overcharges most.
- Stop keying cards. Send a payment link instead of taking card numbers over the phone, and the 0.5% manual-entry charge disappears.
- Offer ACH on large invoices. Capped at $5, it is by far the cheapest way to take a large payment through Stripe.
- Watch the add-ons. Invoicing, Billing, Instant Payouts and Radar are each optional. Check which ones you are actually paying for.
- Price your volume properly. Once your volume is meaningful, compare what you pay on Stripe with an interchange-plus account priced at interchange plus a few basis points.
Want a number rather than a list? Our Stripe fee calculator compares what you pay Stripe with what the same volume costs on interchange plus 5 basis points.
Stripe elsewhere on weAudit
This page covers what Stripe charges. For how Stripe behaves, its contract terms, legal record and complaints, see our Stripe rating. For how it scores as a payment gateway, see our Stripe gateway review. Comparing Stripe with Square? See Stripe vs Square, fee by fee.
Common questions
How much does Stripe charge per transaction?
Stripe’s standard US rate is 2.9% plus 30 cents for each successful online payment on a domestic card. It adds 0.5% for manually entered cards, 1.5% for international cards and 1% when currency conversion is needed. In-person payments on Stripe Terminal cost 2.7% plus 5 cents.
How much is the Stripe fee on $1,000?
At Stripe’s standard online rate, the fee on a $1,000 payment is $29.30. If the card is keyed in by hand it rises to $34.30, and on an international card that needs currency conversion it is $54.30. By ACH Direct Debit, the same $1,000 costs $5.
Why are Stripe fees so high?
Because Stripe charges one flat rate on every card, set high enough to cover the expensive ones, and then adds separate fees for keyed, international and converted payments, invoicing, billing, instant payouts and disputes. On lower-cost cards the difference between what Stripe pays and what you pay is Stripe’s margin.
Are Stripe fees negotiable?
Stripe says it offers custom pricing, including interchange-plus, to businesses with large payment volume. Smaller businesses generally pay the standard published rates.
How much does Stripe charge for ACH?
Stripe charges 0.8% for ACH Direct Debit, capped at $5 per payment. On large invoices that makes ACH far cheaper than a card payment.
How much does Stripe charge for a dispute?
Stripe charges $15 for each dispute you receive, according to its published US pricing.
Cite this page
How these figures were built. Every Stripe rate on this page is taken from Stripe’s published US pricing page as checked in September 2026. Worked examples apply those rates to the sale amounts shown and exclude optional products unless stated. Interchange facts are drawn from Visa’s published interchange schedule. We will review this page after the card networks’ October 2026 rate changes.
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