Stripe Fee Calculator

How Stripe's 2.9% + 30¢ works

Stripe's standard US card rate is 2.9% + $0.30 per successful charge. That is not one number, it is two, and they behave differently.

The 2.9% is a percentage of the transaction amount. The $0.30 is a flat fee charged on every charge regardless of size. The calculator applies both to the amount you enter, then multiplies by the number of transactions to give you the total fee across a batch.

That split is the whole story of Stripe economics. On a $100 charge the 30¢ is 0.3% of the order; on a $5 charge it is 6%. A shop selling 10,000 coffees at $5 pays the same $0.30 fixed fee 10,000 times, $3,000 in flat fees alone, while a shop selling 500 handbags at $100 pays it only 500 times. The percentage is unavoidable; the fixed fee is where small-ticket businesses get hurt, and it is why bundling, minimum order values and slightly higher prices all make a real difference to your effective rate.

The three surcharges: international, keyed and currency conversion

Domestic cards get the headline rate. Everything else adds a percentage, and the calculator lets you stack them so you can see the worst case.

• International card, +1.5%. A card issued outside the US pushes the rate to 4.4% + $0.30. If you sell to buyers abroad, a meaningful slice of your volume pays this.
• Manually keyed, +0.5%. Typing a card number into the dashboard (a phone order, a wholesale invoice) is riskier for Stripe, so it costs more: 3.4% + $0.30.
• Currency conversion, +1%. If the charge requires converting between currencies, add another point.

Stack all three and the rate becomes 5.9% + $0.30, more than double the headline percentage. The lesson is to route customers through your normal online checkout whenever you can. A keyed-in international order costs you roughly twice what a domestic online card does, which can turn a healthy margin into a break-even one on a single transaction.

Worked example: a $100 domestic card

Start with the calculator's default: a $100 transaction, domestic card, entered online, no currency conversion, one transaction.

• Gross volume: $100.00
• Effective rate: 2.90% + $0.30
• Fee: $100 × 2.9% + $0.30 = $3.20
• Net payout: $96.80

So on a $100 sale you keep $96.80. Raise the quantity to 100 transactions and the total fee is $320 against $10,000 of volume, the same 3.2% effective rate. This is the number to put next to your gross margin when you price: if your product costs $80 and sells for $100, the $3.20 Stripe fee cuts a $20 gross profit down to $16.80, an 18% reduction.

One more thing worth noting: the quantity field multiplies the fee but not the rate, so whether you process one $100 charge or a hundred, the effective percentage stays at 3.2%, the fixed 30¢ is already baked into each charge. If your checkout splits shipping or tax into separate transactions, each one pays its own 30¢, which is another reason to consolidate into a single charge wherever your cart allows it.

Worked example: international, keyed, with conversion

Now take the same $100 charge and make it the expensive kind: an international card, keyed in manually over the phone, requiring currency conversion.

• Effective rate: 2.9% + 1.5% + 0.5% + 1.0% = 5.90% + $0.30
• Fee: $100 × 5.9% + $0.30 = $6.20
• Net payout: $93.80

The same $100 sale now nets $3.00 less than the domestic online version, a 94% increase in fees on that single order. Across 100 such orders that is $300 gone, which for a thin-margin reseller can be the entire profit. If your business genuinely depends on international or phone orders, model that rate in the calculator from day one rather than assuming the 2.9% headline applies.

The practical rule: if most of your volume is domestic and online, plan around 2.9% + $0.30 and ignore the surcharges. If you run a phone-order or cross-border business, budget for the higher rate from day one. Discovering the real rate only after a busy month of keyed-in invoices is a painful way to find out your margins were thinner than you thought.

How to net an exact amount (grossing up)

Sellers usually ask the reverse question: “I want to receive $100, what do I charge?” You cannot just add 2.9% and 30¢, because the percentage applies to the larger amount. The correct formula is charge = (target + $0.30) ÷ (1 − rate).

The calculator shows this in the “To net this amount, charge” row. For a $100 target at 2.9% + $0.30 it returns $103.30: charge $103.30, Stripe takes 2.9% ($3.00) plus $0.30, and you keep exactly $100.00. Add a 1.5% international surcharge and the same $100 target needs a $106.28 charge, a full $3 more, which is why the gross-up figure moves faster than people expect as the rate rises.

Use this when you quote a fixed “you get $100” price to a client or set a donation amount, and let the calculator do the division rather than eyeballing it.

Keep the gross-up number separate from your list price. Grossing up protects your net when a client insists on paying a round figure, but if you gross up every sale you may price yourself out of the market. Use it for quotes, invoices and donations, not as your everyday retail price.

How Stripe compares to other processors

The table below puts Stripe's US card rate next to the processors most small sellers also consider. All figures are headline domestic rates and every provider has exceptions and add-ons.

The differences look small per transaction but compound. Square's lower fixed fee suits low-ticket sales; Stripe's developer tooling and subscriptions suit software and higher-ticket goods. If you already run a Shopify store, Shopify Payments removes a separate gateway fee, which is why the effective rate there often beats bolting Stripe onto the same cart. Confirm current rates on Stripe's pricing page before you build any of these numbers into a price.

Why the 30¢ fixed fee punishes small charges

Percentage fees scale with price; fixed fees do not. That asymmetry is the single most useful thing to internalise about Stripe.

A $1 charge pays $0.33, a 33% effective rate. A $10 charge pays $0.59, or 5.9%. A $100 charge pays $3.20, or 3.2%. The percentage falls as the amount rises because the 30¢ is spread over more dollars. This is why subscription businesses with $5 plans struggle while $50 plans feel fine, and why “tip jar” and micro-payment models rarely work on a flat per-transaction processor.

Practical fixes: set a minimum order value, bundle small items into one charge, or sell credits in bulk rather than one unit at a time. Every $0.30 you avoid by consolidating two charges into one is a real dollar of margin. Run a few amounts through the calculator, $1, $5, $20, $100, and watch the effective rate column to see exactly where your pricing crosses from painful to fine.

Refunds, disputes and when Stripe is the wrong choice

Two operational details change the true cost. First, when you refund a charge Stripe does not return the original processing fee, so a refunded $100 sale still costs you the $3.20 you paid to take it. High refund rates quietly raise your effective rate. Second, chargebacks carry a separate dispute fee on top of losing the sale, so prevention (clear descriptors, fast shipping, responsive support) is cheaper than fighting them.

Stripe is a poor fit if you only ever take a handful of small payments, or if your buyers overwhelmingly want to pay with a method Stripe prices higher (international cards, keyed orders). It is a strong fit for online checkout, subscriptions and developer-friendly integrations where the 2.9% + $0.30 is the rate that applies. See the full list on stripe.com/payments and the currency rules on Stripe's currency docs. For a full breakdown of how disputes and refunds are billed, the Stripe support centre is the authoritative source.