Compute net after payment processor fees.
Net proceeds
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Processor fee
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Effective fee %
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Your breakdown
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Two parts to every swipe
Card processors charge in two pieces, and understanding why matters for pricing. There is a percentage of the sale, which roughly tracks the interchange the card networks levy and the risk of the transaction, and there is a flat per-transaction fee that covers the fixed cost of authorizing and settling each charge no matter how small. Stripe's published rate is 2.9% plus 30 cents, PayPal sits around 3.49% plus 49 cents for many transactions, and Square charges about 2.6% plus 10 cents for in-person card swipes. This calculator takes any percentage and fixed fee you enter and tells you what actually lands in your bank account.
The flat fee is the part small merchants underestimate. On a $1,000 invoice, 30 cents is a rounding error. On a $4 coffee, that same 30 cents is most of your margin. Because the fixed component does not shrink with the sale, the effective percentage you pay climbs steeply as the ticket gets smaller, which reshapes how you should think about pricing low-value items.
A $100 charge through Stripe
Run the defaults: a $100 charge at a 2.9% rate plus a 30 cent fixed fee, the standard Stripe card pricing. The processor takes the percentage of the sale, adds the flat fee, and the rest is yours.
The headline rate is 2.9%, but the effective rate is 3.20%, because the flat 30 cents adds another fifth of a percent on a $100 sale. Shrink the ticket and that spread explodes. The same 30 cent fee on a $10 charge pushes the effective rate to 5.9%, and on a $5 charge it crosses 8.9%. The percentage you actually pay is not the one on the pricing page; it is the one this tool computes for your specific transaction size.
Passing the fee on, and other ways to claw it back
If you want to net a clean amount, you can gross up the charge so the fee comes out of the customer's total rather than yours. The formula is to divide your target plus the fixed fee by one minus the rate. To net $100 through Stripe, you would charge $103.30, since 100 plus 0.30, divided by 0.971, comes to $103.30, and the resulting fee of $3.30 leaves you with exactly $100. The calculator's forward math lets you check any grossed-up figure by entering it as the charge amount.
This is built for freelancers, online sellers, and small-business owners deciding how to price and which processor to use. A few field-tested moves: batch small charges into a single larger invoice so one flat fee covers more revenue, steer large recurring payments to ACH or bank transfer where the percentage is far lower or capped, and check whether surcharging card payments is legal in your state and permitted under the card network rules before you add a fee at checkout. The common mistake is comparing processors on the percentage alone. For a business of mostly small tickets, the one with the lower flat fee can win even at a higher percentage, which is exactly the kind of trade-off this tool lets you test side by side.
Which processor is cheapest for my business?
It depends entirely on your average ticket size. For large transactions the percentage rate dominates, so the lowest-percentage processor wins. For a flood of small transactions the flat per-charge fee dominates, so the processor with the smallest fixed fee can be cheaper even if its percentage is higher. Run your typical sale amount through this calculator under each processor's published numbers and compare the net. There is no universally cheapest option, only the cheapest for your mix.
Are processing fees tax deductible?
Yes. Payment processing fees are an ordinary and necessary business expense, fully deductible against your business income. Sole proprietors typically report them as a business expense on Schedule C, and they reduce your taxable profit dollar for dollar. Keep the monthly processor statements, since the fees are usually netted out of your deposits rather than billed separately, which makes them easy to overlook at tax time if you only look at the cash that hit your account.