Stripe & Square Fee Calculator
Stripe's 2.9% + $0.30 looks simple until an international card adds 1.5%, currency conversion adds another 1%, and your “2.9%” charge quietly becomes 5.4% plus the fixed fee. This calculator models Stripe and Square pricing with the surcharges as explicit, stackable line items, shows your net payout and true effective rate, and runs the reverse gross-up so you can set a price that nets your exact target. Defaults are Stripe's and Square's published US rates as last verified in June 2026 — every field is editable because both processors negotiate custom pricing and revise their schedules.
Defaults last verified June 2026 — both processors revise pricing; confirm your current rates in the dashboard. All fields editable.
Fee composition: 2.9% base = 2.90% + $0.30 → $100.00 × 2.90% + $0.30 = $3.20
Processor comparison at $100.00 (US online defaults)
| Processor | Pricing | Fee | Net |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stripe (online) | 2.9% + $0.30 | $3.20 | $96.80 |
| Square (online) | 2.9% + $0.30 | $3.20 | $96.80 |
| Square (in-person) | 2.6% + $0.10 | $2.70 | $97.30 |
| PayPal (G&S) | 3.49% + $0.49 | $3.98 | $96.02 |
Base domestic rates only — surcharges differ by processor. Full PayPal math, including reverse gross-up, in the PayPal fee calculator.
How to use the stripe & square fee calculator
- Pick the processor tab (Stripe or Square) and a pricing preset — online, in-person, or your own edited rates.
- For Stripe, tick the surcharges that apply: international card (+1.5%) and currency conversion (+1%). The fee-composition line shows exactly how the total rate is built.
- Choose direction: “Fee on amount” deducts fees from what you charge; “Gross-up to a target net” computes what to charge so the payout equals your target.
- Read the verification line — the gross-up result is re-run through the forward formula on screen so you can check it.
- Compare Stripe, Square, and PayPal side by side at your amount in the comparison table (US dollar presets).
Worked example: how 2.9% becomes 5.7%
A US business charges a customer in Germany $200, priced in euros. The fee stack: 2.9% base + 1.5% international card + 1% currency conversion = 5.4%, plus $0.30. Fee = $200 × 5.4% + $0.30 = $11.10 — an effective 5.55%. Net payout: $188.90. The same sale to a US customer would have cost $6.10. If your margins are thin, international mix is not a rounding error: on $50,000 of monthly cross-border volume the surcharge stack alone is roughly $1,250 every month.
Gross-up version: to net $200 from that German customer, charge (200 + 0.30) ÷ (1 − 0.054) = $211.73. The calculator prints the forward verification under every reverse result so the math is auditable.
Flat-rate vs interchange-plus, briefly
Stripe and Square sell predictability: one rate, no monthly fee, instant onboarding. The price of predictability is that cheap transactions (debit cards, where US regulated interchange can be near 0.05% + $0.22) are billed at the same 2.9% as expensive ones. Traditional merchant accounts with interchange-plus pricing pass the real network cost through and add a transparent markup — more paperwork and a monthly fee, but materially cheaper at volume. A reasonable rule: under about $10,000/month, stay flat-rate; over $20,000/month, get an interchange-plus quote and ask Stripe sales for custom pricing — they negotiate more readily than the pricing page suggests. Fee presets on this page are reviewed quarterly; last verified June 2026.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Stripe take from a $100 payment?
At the standard US online rate of 2.9% + $0.30, a $100 domestic card payment costs $3.20, so $96.80 lands in your balance — an effective 3.20%. If the customer pays with a UK-issued card, add 1.5% ($1.50); if Stripe also converts the currency, add 1% plus Stripe's exchange spread. The same payment can cost $5.70+, an effective rate near 5.7% — almost double the headline number.
What is the gross-up formula for Stripe fees?
Charge = (target + fixed fee) ÷ (1 − total rate). To net exactly $1,000 at 2.9% + $0.30: (1,000 + 0.30) ÷ 0.971 = $1,030.17. Verify forward: $1,030.17 × 2.9% = $29.87, plus $0.30 is $30.17, leaving $1,000.00. Adding 2.9% to your price instead ($1,029.00) leaves you about $1.14 short — the fee applies to the grossed-up amount, so you must divide, not multiply.
Is Square cheaper than Stripe?
For card-present sales, usually yes: Square's in-person rate of 2.6% + $0.10 beats typical online rates, and Square includes free POS hardware tiers. Online, both list 2.9% + $0.30 in the US, so the decision rests on other factors: Stripe offers deeper developer APIs, multi-currency support, and Billing/Connect for SaaS and platforms; Square bundles retail tooling (inventory, payroll, appointments). At meaningful volume, both negotiate custom pricing — listed rates are the starting point, not the floor.
What hidden Stripe costs should I budget for beyond the headline rate?
Four big ones. Disputes: a chargeback costs $15 in the US, kept even if you win in some flows. Refunds: since 2020 Stripe keeps the original processing fee when you refund. Instant payouts: roughly 1% of the payout (minimum $0.50) versus free standard 2-day payouts. Currency conversion: about 1% on top of the exchange rate. For a business with a 2% refund rate and occasional disputes, these can add 0.3–0.5 percentage points to the true cost of payments.
Is ACH or in-person cheaper than the 2.9% online rate?
Usually, yes. Stripe's ACH direct debit costs 0.8% capped at $5.00 — on a $1,000 invoice that is $5.00 versus $29.30 by card, an 83% saving, which is why B2B invoicing platforms push bank payment so hard. Card-present payments through Stripe Terminal run 2.7% + $0.05, cheaper than online because in-person fraud risk is lower. The trade-offs: ACH settles in days rather than instantly and can fail after the fact for insufficient funds, and Terminal requires hardware. For invoices over a few hundred dollars, offering ACH alongside cards meaningfully cuts your blended processing cost.
When does interchange-plus pricing beat flat-rate?
Flat-rate (Stripe, Square, PayPal) charges one blended rate regardless of card type. Interchange-plus passes through the actual network cost (roughly 1.2–2.1% for most US consumer cards) plus a fixed processor markup. On debit cards and basic credit cards, interchange-plus can be a full percentage point cheaper; on premium rewards cards the gap narrows. The crossover where switching or negotiating typically pays is around $10,000–20,000 of monthly volume — below that, flat-rate simplicity usually wins; above it, ask Stripe for custom pricing or get an interchange-plus quote.
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