Payment Processing Fee Calculators

What decides the fee on a payment

Every rate here is a percentage plus a flat amount charged once per payment. Three things decide what that comes to.

The size of the payment

On Stripe in US dollars — 2.9% + $0.30 — the fee is 5.9% of a $10 payment, 3.2% of $100 and 2.9% of $10,000. Above about $60 the flat part adds less than half a percentage point. Below it, splitting a bill gets expensive: five $20 payments cost $4.40 in fees, one $100 payment $3.20.

Where the card and the currency come from

Cross-border surcharges add their own percentage on top, and they stack. On a sale of 100 in each currency, with every surcharge the market charges applied:

• Stripe in USD: $3.20 becomes $5.70.
• PayPal in USD: $3.98 becomes $9.48.
• Stripe in GBP: £1.70 becomes £3.70.

The market you are paid in

Rate cards are set per country. Stripe's standard rate in pounds is 1.5% + £0.20, against 2.9% + $0.30 in US dollars, and its UK pricing alone has 3 card rates, from 1.5% to 3.15% depending on where the card was issued.

Reading a fee calculator

• Headline rate and effective rate. The headline is the published percentage; the effective rate includes the flat fee, and it is the one to compare between processors.
• Charge to net this is the amount to invoice so that a set figure arrives after fees — $103.30 to receive $100 on Stripe in US dollars.
• Surcharges are switches. They apply only to cross-border or converted payments, so they stay off until you turn them on.
• Each market shows the date its rates were read from the processor's own pricing page.

Common mistakes

• Adding the percentage to the price. Charging $102.90 to receive $100 on Stripe in US dollars leaves $99.62, because the fee is taken from the added part too and the flat fee is still due. The right charge is $103.30.
• Quoting the headline rate as the cost. The effective rate approaches it on large payments and stays above it.
• Splitting an invoice into small payments. The flat fee is charged on each one.
• Forgetting the surcharges on a foreign payment. With both applied, a 100 USD payment through PayPal costs 2.4 times its domestic fee.

Where to go next

• Open a calculator above for any amount, product and surcharge.
• Each market also has pages for 18 common amounts, from 10 to 10,000 in its own currency.
• 1099 self-employed tax — what is left of freelance income after tax.
• Methodology — the fee formula and the source for every rate.