Understanding Stripe Fees

When you accept payments online, you might notice a small deduction on your transactions. This guide explains exactly what that is and why it happens.

What are payment processing fees?

Any time a customer pays using a credit card, debit card, Apple Pay, or Google Pay, a small fee is charged to process that payment securely. This isn't a fee unique to us - it is a standard global practice that applies to every business in the world that accepts card payments.

Think of it as the digital equivalent of paying for postage to send a letter securely.

How does it work?

In the past, accepting credit cards required a business to build a highly complex, custom infrastructure. You had to negotiate direct merchant contracts with traditional banks, undergo rigorous security audits, and manually integrate with multiple credit card networks.

A Merchant Gateway eliminates all of that backend complexity by handling the heavy lifting and security encryption automatically.

Your payment links connect directly to Stripe, one of the largest payment networks in the world (you have almost certainly used Stripe yourself when buying something online without even realising it!). Stripe completely bypasses the traditional banking hurdles, managing the secure, encrypted transfer of funds from your customer’s bank right to yours in seconds.

The Breakdown: A Simple Example

Stripe charges a small percentage plus a few cents for every successful transaction. It’s a predictable cost that scales with your sales.

For example, if you charge a customer $10.00, the processing breakdown looks like this:

For just a few cents, you are able to instantly accept payments from anyone, anywhere in the world, using virtually any device or card, with industry-leading fraud protection built right in. It keeps your cash flow fast and your customer data completely safe.

The fees can vary region to region and the types of cards used. You can see your regions pricing here https://stripe.com/pricing

Am I not losing money by paying merchant fees?

It may seem like you're losing a tiny percentage just to accept payments, but the cost of delayed payments, giving credit, chasing for money - and worst case, a client disappearing on you or going bankrupt - is far more of a costly risk.

Keeping track of payments and chasing is what breaks most businesses.

The majority of businesses fail not because of bad business but bad debts. With payments made quickly you have limited your exposure.

Note: The Payment Link subscription is nothing to do with the Stripe fees charge.