These are the standard Stripe US online card rates (2.9% plus 30 cents). Rates vary by country, payment method and plan, so confirm your current rate in your Stripe dashboard. The percentage and fixed fee inputs are editable so you can match your exact pricing.
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A Stripe fee is the cut Stripe takes from each card payment you accept. For standard online card payments in the US that is 2.9% of the transaction plus a fixed 30 cents, charged on every successful charge. On a $100 sale you pay $3.20 and keep $96.80. The calculator above runs this from your own numbers, including a reverse mode that tells you what to charge so the net lands where you want it.
Stripe pricing has two parts: a percentage of the transaction and a fixed amount per charge. The widely quoted standard rate for online card payments in the United States is 2.9% plus 30 cents. So a $50 payment costs 2.9% of $50 ($1.45) plus 30 cents, for $1.75 in fees and $48.25 in your pocket.
That fixed 30 cents is why small sales feel expensive. On a $5 charge the fixed fee alone is 6%, pushing your effective rate well above 2.9%. On a $500 charge it barely registers. Effective rate, not the headline rate, is what actually hits your margin, which is why the calculator shows it.
Published rates also shift with the situation. International cards, currency conversion, in-person card readers, ACH and local payment methods all carry their own pricing, and rates differ by country and plan. Treat 2.9% plus 30 cents as a sensible US starting point, then edit the percentage and fixed inputs to match the rate shown in your own Stripe dashboard rather than assuming it is current.
If you want a specific amount to land in your account, you cannot just add the fee on top, because the fee applies to the larger total too. The clean way is to work backwards. Take your target net, add the fixed fee, then divide by one minus the percentage rate.
With the standard 2.9% plus 30 cents, charging a customer so you net exactly $100 means ($100 + $0.30) divided by (1 minus 0.029), which is about $103.30. Switch the calculator to the target mode and it does this for you, showing both the gross amount to charge and the fee buried inside it. This matters for invoices, deposits and any time a client expects a precise figure to reach you.
You will not negotiate your way out of card fees entirely, but you can shrink them. Higher-volume businesses can ask Stripe about custom or interchange-plus pricing, which often lowers the effective rate once monthly volume is meaningful. Cutting refunds helps too, since the processing fee on a refunded sale is generally not returned, so every avoidable refund is pure lost margin.
Choosing the right payment methods is the other lever. ACH and bank-debit options usually cost far less than cards on larger transactions, so steering big invoices toward them can save real money. None of that changes the deeper point: lower fees only help if you have sales to run through them. The most reliable way to lift profit is to bring in more qualified customers, which is where organic search earns its keep.
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