Stripe Pricing — Every Fee Explained
The complete breakdown of all Stripe charges: base rates, add-ons, surcharges, and the hidden costs most businesses miss.
Calculate your true cost →Complete Stripe Fee Schedule (2026)
| Fee | Rate |
|---|---|
| Base Processing — Card present | 2.7% + $0.05 |
| Base Processing — Card not present | 2.9% + $0.30 |
| ACH Direct Debit | 0.8% (cap $5.00) |
| International Card Surcharge | +1.5% |
| Currency Conversion | +1.0% |
| Stripe Radar — Screening | $0.05 / transaction |
| Stripe Radar — Manual Review | $0.07 / transaction |
| Stripe Tax | $0.50 / transaction |
| Stripe Billing — Recurring | 0.5% of volume |
| Stripe Billing — Invoicing | 0.8% of volume |
| Stripe Connect | 0.25% + $2 / active account |
| Chargeback / Dispute | $15 per dispute |
| Stripe Identity | $1.50 / verification |
| Stripe Issuing (card issuing) | $0.10 / virtual card + 0.2% per transaction |
| 3D Secure (Radar for Fraud Teams) | $0.03 / authentication |
Why Your Effective Rate Is Higher Than 2.9%
Stripe's pricing page prominently features "2.9% + 30¢" — but this only covers the base card processing fee for domestic US cards. The moment you add any international customers, use Radar, enable Billing, or run a marketplace, costs climb fast. A typical SaaS company with 30% international customers using Radar and Billing pays an effective rate of 4.2–4.8%. A marketplace platform with Connect fees can easily hit 5%+.
The International Card Problem
The single biggest surprise for growing companies is international card pricing. A UK customer paying you in USD still triggers the 1.5% international surcharge because their card is UK-issued. If you also need currency conversion (you charge in GBP), add another 1%. Combined, international transactions can cost 5.4% (2.9% + 1.5% + 1.0%) before any add-ons. For companies with 40%+ international revenue, this alone makes Stripe significantly more expensive than alternatives like Adyen.
Radar: The Hidden Default Fee
Stripe Radar is enabled by default on most new accounts. Many businesses don't realize they're paying $0.05 per transaction for fraud screening. On 1,000 transactions/month, that's $50/month in fees that never appear on the pricing page. The $0.07 manual review fee adds up for businesses in high-fraud categories. If 5% of your transactions get flagged, that's an extra $3.50 per 1,000 transactions.
Billing Markup: The SaaS Tax
Stripe Billing charges 0.5% on all recurring revenue processed through it. For a SaaS company doing $200K/month in subscription revenue, that's $1,000/month — $12,000/year — in fees just for subscription management on top of base processing. This is often cheaper than building and maintaining your own billing infrastructure, but it's worth factoring into unit economics and comparing against alternatives like Recurly or Chargebee.
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