On a $10 sale, Stripe's 30-cent fixed fee costs more than its 2.9% rate does. Credit card processing fees fall hardest on small tickets, and by default the merchant absorbs that difference on every sale.
$10,000 sales a month — card-processing cost by average ticket and channel
$10,000 sales a month — card-processing cost by average ticket and channel
Online, Stripe costs the least at every ticket size here — 2.9% + 30¢, no monthly fee.
In person, PayPal's 2.29% + $0.09 costs the least at every ticket size here.
Weigh Square Plus's $49 monthly fee against your volume. It only pays for itself once your online savings over Square Free clear that amount.
Budget separately for disputes and invoicing. Stripe's dispute fee and PayPal's optional invoicing subscription both sit outside these per-sale rates.
Scaling these numbers to your own sales
Doubling monthly card sales at the same average ticket roughly doubles every total here, because the sale count doubles right along with it. Raising the average ticket cuts the fixed fee's share of each sale. That means $10,000 sales cost less when they come from fewer, larger sales. A flat monthly plan fee, like Square Plus's $49, is the one piece that does not move.
The four pricing models, and which one these three use
Processors bill a card sale under one of four pricing models, and each one changes what a merchant actually owes.
Flat-rate pricing charges one fixed percentage plus a flat fee per transaction, regardless of the card type or transaction method. Stripe, PayPal and Square's Free plan all price this way.
Interchange-plus pricing passes through the card network's exact interchange fee, then adds a markup set by the payment processor. PayPal describes this as splitting the bill into an interchange fee and a payment processing fee.
Tiered pricing sorts each sale into a bucket such as qualified or non-qualified, each with its own rate.
Subscription or membership pricing charges a monthly membership fee in exchange for a lower per-transaction rate.
Volume is what moves a merchant off flat-rate pricing: Square invites merchants processing more than $250,000 a year in card sales to negotiate custom pricing instead of taking its published Free, Plus or Premium rate.
What Square's paid plans add
Square's Plus and Premium plans both charge 2.9% + 30¢ per online or invoiced card payment. Square's Free plan, the one compared here, charges more, at 3.3% + 30¢. Each plan carries its own flat monthly fee per location:
Free: $0 a month, at 3.3% + 30¢ online.
Plus: $49 a month, at 2.9% + 30¢ online.
Premium: $149 a month, at the same 2.9% + 30¢ online rate as Plus.
Moving from Free to Plus or Premium lowers the online per-sale rate, but adds a flat monthly cost on top of it. That trade only pays off once the extra sales volume more than covers the fee.
Ways to lower what you pay
Some processing costs sit outside the per-sale rate — PayPal's optional Invoicing Subscription Service, for one, costs 14.99 USD a month. Beyond picking a processor, three actions actually move what you pay:
Sell in fewer, larger tickets where you can. The fixed fee is charged per transaction, so raising the average sale size cuts its share of the total. Combine several small purchases into one checkout instead of billing each one separately, or set a minimum order size.
Keep your dispute rate down. Stripe's $15.00 dispute received fee lands on top of the per-sale rate for every dispute a business receives. Use card readers that accept contactless payments and EMV chips, and keep your billing descriptor clearly visible to customers.
Where the card networks and your state allow it, pass the fee to the customer instead. Display surcharge notices at your entrance or point of sale; Square's own printed receipts carry one automatically. See The Credit Card Surcharge Cap, and What It Actually Covers for the cap and which states restrict it.
FAQ
Which provider charges the least for an in-person card sale?
PayPal's in-person rate — 2.29% + $0.09 — is the lowest of the three at every ticket size compared here. Stripe Terminal charges 2.7% + 5¢, a higher percentage than PayPal's. Square's Free plan charges 2.6% + 15¢, more than PayPal on both parts.
Does Square's online rate match Stripe's?
Only on Square's Plus and Premium plans, which charge Stripe's rate of 2.9% + 30¢ online. Square's Free plan, the one compared here, charges more online at 3.3% + 30¢.
Is PayPal ever the cheaper online option?
No. PayPal's online rate — 3.49% + 0.49 USD — costs more than Stripe's, Square Plus's, and Square Free's rates at every size here.
By how many points does PayPal's online rate exceed Stripe's and Square Plus's?
At a $10 sale, PayPal's online rate costs 2.49 percentage points more than Stripe's and Square Plus's. That gap narrows to 0.61 points at a $1,000 sale, as the fixed-fee difference shrinks relative to the sale.
Before you rely on these numbers
Each row assumes every sale that month is the same size. A real month mixes ticket sizes, so an actual bill lands somewhere between these rows rather than on any one of them.
These are the providers' published rates for domestic US cards. An internationally issued card, a currency conversion, or a higher-risk merchant category can carry extra fees that none of these totals include.
Published rates change. Each figure here was checked against the provider's own page on the date shown beside it, and a provider can revise a rate after that date.
Sources
Gathered with AI assistance; every figure was checked against the linked provider page and signed off by Seonrye Kim.
Stripe's Standard plan charges 2.9% + 30 cents per successful online transaction for domestic (US) cards. — https://stripe.com/pricing (verified on: 2026-09-04)
Stripe's Terminal in-person rate is 2.7% + 5 cents per successful transaction for domestic cards. — https://stripe.com/pricing (verified on: 2026-09-04)
Stripe's 30-cent fee is charged per online transaction, whatever the sale is worth. That weighs more on small tickets than large ones. — https://stripe.com/pricing (verified on: 2026-09-04)
Square's 30-cent online fee is charged per transaction, whatever the sale is worth. It is the same on the Free plan as on Plus and Premium. — https://squareup.com/us/en/payments/our-fees (verified on: 2026-09-04)
Stripe's 5-cent Terminal fee is charged per in-person transaction, whatever the sale is worth. — https://stripe.com/pricing (verified on: 2026-09-04)
PayPal's $0.09 in-person fee is charged per transaction, whatever the sale is worth. Its online fee works the same way. — https://www.paypal.com/us/business/fees (verified on: 2026-09-04)
Square's Free plan charges 2.6% + 15 cents per in-person card payment when a customer taps, dips, or swipes. — https://squareup.com/us/en/payments/our-fees (verified on: 2026-09-04)
Square's 15-cent in-person fee is charged per transaction, whatever the sale is worth. It is the same on Free, Plus and Premium. — https://squareup.com/us/en/payments/our-fees (verified on: 2026-09-04)
Stripe charges a $15.00 dispute received fee for each dispute a business receives. — https://stripe.com/pricing (verified on: 2026-09-04)
Square asks merchants who process more than $250,000 a year to talk to its team about custom pricing instead of its published Free, Plus and Premium rates. — https://squareup.com/us/en/payments/our-fees (verified on: 2026-09-04)
