Stripe fee calculator
Stripe's standard card rate is a percentage plus a fixed amount per charge. Simple — until you price small transactions, where the fixed part quietly runs the show.
Fees verified 02 August 2026 against Stripe’s official fee page.
The fixed fee is the real story for small sellers
On a $100 charge, the percentage does almost all the work and the fixed fee is noise. On a $3 charge the roles flip: the fixed component alone is ten percent of the payment before the percentage even applies. Every pricing pattern for small digital products — minimum order sizes, credit packs, bundling, annual-instead-of-monthly — exists mostly to amortize that fixed fee across a larger charge.
If you run subscriptions or one-time unlocks, this is the arithmetic that should set your floor price. A $1 unlock gives a third of itself to processing; a $5 one gives about nine percent; a $15 one about five. The product does not have to change at all for your effective fee rate to halve — only the packaging does.
The rate here is the standard US online card rate. International cards, currency conversion, disputes, and instant payouts each carry surcharges on top, and negotiated rates exist at volume. For an exact-net invoice, pair this fee structure with the reverse fee calculator on this site.
Questions
What's the cheapest way to charge small amounts?
Don't — batch them. Credit packs, minimum orders, and bundles exist because the fixed per-charge fee makes tiny payments structurally expensive. Raising a $2 price to $5 usually cuts your effective fee rate by more than any provider switch would.
Does Stripe cost more for international customers?
International cards and currency conversion add percentage surcharges on top of the base rate, and they stack. If your buyers are global, your blended rate will be noticeably above the domestic headline number.
Stripe or PayPal for a small web product?
Their headline rates are close; the real differences are checkout experience, dispute handling, and what your buyers trust. Run your typical price through both calculators on this site — for most price points the fee difference is smaller than the conversion difference.