// free tool · no signup · no email gate
Stripe Fee Calculator
The 2.9% + $0.30 everyone quotes is the starting point, not the bill. International cards, currency conversion, and refund policy all move the real number. This shop runs on Stripe, so these are the fees I reconcile every month — itemized here on any price you type.
Quick answer
Stripe charges 2.9% + $0.30 per successful US domestic card payment. A $29 sale nets $27.86. International cards add 1.5% and currency conversion adds 1%, dropping the same $29 sale to $27.13. Stripe is a processor, not a storefront — checkout, delivery, and tax compliance remain your job.
Calculator
| Stripe processing2.9% + $0.30 per successful card charge | −$1.14 |
| Total fees (3.9% of price) | −$1.14 |
Same sale via Lemon Squeezy (merchant of record, 5% + $0.50): you would keep $27.05 on the same sale — $0.81 less. Self-hosting also means you run checkout, taxes, and delivery yourself.
Fees verified 2026-06-10 against the official pricing page. Spot an outdated number? Email support@toolgenx.com.
// processor, not platform
What Stripe’s 2.9% actually buys — and what it doesn’t
Stripe moves money and stops there. The 2.9% + $0.30 covers card authorization, fraud screening, PCI compliance, and payouts to your bank. It does not include a checkout page you didn't build, file delivery, receipts beyond the basic email, or any tax handling. Platforms like Gumroad charge three times more precisely because they bundle all of that — run the Gumroad fee calculator on the same price to see the bundle premium in dollars.
From experience: integrating Stripe Checkout took me two days. The other three weeks of payment work on this site went into everything around it — webhook idempotency, EU consent logging, license delivery, refund automation. When people say "Stripe is cheap", they are pricing the API call, not the system you owe around it.
// the thirty cents
The $0.30 floor and what it does to cheap products
The percentage is flat; the fixed fee is regressive. At $119 the total Stripe cost is 3.2% of the sale. At $29 it is 3.9%. At $5 it is 9%, and at $1 the $0.30 alone makes it 33%. Below $0.31 you lose money on every sale. If your catalog has a tripwire product under $5, the fixed fee is quietly your biggest cost line on it.
Two practical moves follow. First, bundle micro-products: one $9 sale costs $0.56 in fees; three $3 sales cost $0.56 × 3 = $1.16 for the same revenue. Second, if you sell internationally, price in the buyer's currency where you can — the 1% conversion fee applies when Stripe converts to your payout currency, and a 1% line item on every foreign sale adds up faster than it sounds.
// the alternative
When a merchant of record beats raw Stripe
A merchant of record like Lemon Squeezy or Paddle charges roughly 5% + $0.50 — and becomes the legal seller, which moves global VAT and sales-tax compliance off your plate entirely. Selling B2C into the EU from outside it means VAT obligations from the very first euro of revenue. If you are not ready to register for EU VAT OSS, the roughly 2-point premium over Stripe is the cheapest tax department you will ever hire.
The crossover math: on $2,000/month of $29 sales, the MoR premium over raw Stripe is about $56/month. A cross-border VAT accountant costs several times that. Past $10K/month, the premium hits real money and registering yourself starts to win. The comparison row above shows the exact gap at your price, and the platform fee comparison lines up all seven platforms at once.
// domestic vs international
Stripe net payout at $9, $29, $119
Same engine as the calculator above. The international column includes both the 1.5% cross-border surcharge and the 1% currency conversion — the worst-case published rate for a converted foreign card.
| Sale price | US domestic card | International card + currency conversion |
|---|---|---|
| $9.00 | $8.44 | $8.21 |
| $29.00 | $27.86 | $27.13 |
| $119.00 | $115.25 | $112.27 |
Negotiated and regional pricing differ; this table uses published US rates verified 2026-06-10. If most of your buyers are international, the right column is your real cost basis — plan margins on it, not on the headline 2.9%.
// common questions
Stripe fees — common questions
- How much does Stripe charge per transaction in 2026?
- Stripe charges 2.9% + $0.30 per successful US domestic card charge. A $100 sale costs $3.20 in fees, leaving $96.80. International cards add 1.5%, and currency conversion adds another 1% — so a converted international $100 sale costs $5.70 total.
- Does Stripe have monthly fees?
- No. Standard Stripe pricing is pay-per-transaction with no monthly fee, no setup fee, and no minimum. You only pay when you get paid. Optional products like Stripe Tax, Billing, or Radar for Fraud Teams carry their own per-use pricing on top.
- Is Stripe cheaper than PayPal?
- On base rates, yes. Stripe charges 2.9% + $0.30 versus PayPal’s 3.49% + $0.49 for US commercial transactions. On a $29 sale that is $1.14 versus $1.50. PayPal can still win on conversion if your buyers prefer paying with PayPal balance instead of a card.
- Does Stripe refund its fee when I refund a customer?
- No. Stripe keeps the original processing fee when you issue a refund, and charges nothing additional for the refund itself. A refunded $29 sale costs you the $1.14 fee. Factor this into your refund policy math — generous refunds are good business, but they are not free.
- Does Stripe handle sales tax and EU VAT for me?
- Not by default. Stripe is a payment processor, not a merchant of record — you remain the legal seller, responsible for registering, collecting, and remitting VAT or sales tax where required. Stripe Tax can calculate and collect tax for an added fee per transaction, but registration and filing stay your job.
- What does this calculator assume?
- Online card payments on standard published US pricing, verified 2026-06-10 against stripe.com/pricing. Custom or negotiated volume pricing, in-person Terminal rates, ACH, and regional rates outside the US differ. The itemized lines let you swap in your own numbers.
// we run on this stack
Shipping your own Stripe checkout? Skip the three weeks of plumbing mistakes.
The patterns in our toolkits come from building this exact shop — see the CodeForge workflow kit for the engineering side.
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