Stripe

International card surcharge

+1.5% on top of the 2.9% base rate for cards issued outside your country. A US business charging a UK customer pays 4.4% + 30¢, not 2.9%

Currency conversion fee

+1% when the charge currency differs from the payout currency. Combined with international cards, cross-border transactions cost 5.4% + 30¢

Chargeback fee

$15 per dispute, win or lose. High-risk businesses averaging 1% disputes on $50K/mo lose $500/mo in dispute fees alone

Refund processing

Stripe does NOT return the original processing fee when you issue a refund. A $100 charge costs $3.20 in fees; refunding it returns $100 to the customer but you keep paying the $3.20

Stripe Radar (fraud protection)

not free. Basic is included but Radar for Fraud Teams costs $0.07/screened transaction + $0.02/3D Secure attempt. On 10K transactions/mo: $700/mo extra

Stripe Billing (subscriptions/invoicing)

adds 0.5% on recurring payments and 0.4% on invoices ON TOP of the 2.9% payment fee. A $100/mo subscription costs $3.40 in total Stripe fees, not $3.20

Instant payouts

1% of the payout amount (min $0.50) instead of waiting 2 business days for standard payouts. A $10K instant payout costs $100

Manually entered card transactions (MOTO)

3.4% + 30¢ instead of 2.9%, a 17% price increase. Phone orders and manual entries are penalized

Stripe Tax

0.5% per transaction for automatic tax calculation. Sounds small but adds up: on $500K/yr in taxable transactions, that is $2,500/yr just for tax computation