Payment Processing Fee Calculator
Enter your order amount and your payment gateway's rate to see exactly how much is taken in fees and how much actually lands in your account.
Payment Fee Calculator
How to use this calculator
Enter your order amount, then the percentage and fixed fee your payment gateway charges — you'll find both on your processor's pricing page or account dashboard, since they vary by provider, country, currency, and card type. The calculator shows the fee taken on this order, your true effective rate, and (if you add your monthly order count) your total processing cost for the month.
The formula
The "effective fee rate" is worth watching separately from the quoted percentage rate, because the fixed-fee component means smaller orders always carry a higher effective rate than larger ones, even under the exact same pricing plan.
Worked example
An order for $29.99 processed at a 2.9% rate plus a $0.30 fixed fee:
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Percentage portion (2.9% of $29.99) | $0.87 |
| Fixed portion | $0.30 |
| Total fee | $1.17 |
| Net payout | $28.82 |
| Effective rate | 3.9% |
Notice the effective rate (3.9%) is meaningfully higher than the quoted 2.9% — that gap is entirely the fixed fee, and it shrinks as your average order value rises.
Frequently asked questions
Why don't you list exact PayPal or Stripe rates here? +
Processor pricing genuinely varies by country, currency, card type, whether a payment is domestic or cross-border, and the specific account or plan you're on — and it changes over time. Rather than print a number that may already be out of date for your account, this calculator lets you enter your own rate, which you can find on the pricing page of your specific payment provider or in your account dashboard, and get an accurate answer for your actual situation.
What is a "fixed fee" versus a "percentage fee"? +
Most card and payment processors charge two components per transaction: a percentage of the order value (e.g., a rate applied to the total) plus a small fixed amount regardless of order size (often somewhere around $0.20–$0.50, though this varies by processor and currency). The fixed fee matters most on small orders — a $0.30 fixed fee is 6% of a $5 order but only 0.3% of a $100 order, which is why average order value affects your true fee percentage.
Why is cross-border/international payment processing usually more expensive? +
When the customer's card or bank is in a different country than your business account, most processors add a cross-border or currency-conversion fee on top of the standard rate, since currency conversion and international transfer carry extra cost and risk for the processor. If a meaningful share of your customers pay from another country, it's worth checking whether your effective fee is higher than your domestic rate suggests.
Should I raise my prices to cover payment fees? +
Some sellers build a percentage point or two of buffer into their target margin specifically to absorb payment fees, rather than listing a separate "processing fee" line to the customer (which is against the terms of many processors and platforms). The Product Pricing Calculator lets you set a target margin that already accounts for this kind of buffer.
Do refunds also cost a fee? +
With many processors, when you refund an order, the percentage and fixed fee you originally paid are not returned to you — you refund the customer's full payment but do not get the original processing fee back. This is worth checking on your specific processor's policy, since a high return/refund rate can quietly cost more than it first appears once this is factored in.