Guide
Payment processor fees: what they take and how to price so you keep a set amount
Every card payment has a price tag that the customer never sees. The processor keeps a percentage of the amount and often a small fixed fee on top. For a seller, the question is how much of a payment arrives, and how to set a price so that the money that arrives is the money needed. This page answers both and shows why small payments are the expensive ones.
The fee formula
Fee = amount × (percentage + extra percentage) + fixed fee. The extra percentage is for cases such as foreign cards or currency conversion, which many providers charge on top. The page shows the amount charged, the fee, what you receive, and the fee as a share of the payment. If you enter a number of payments per month, it also totals the fees over that many payments of the same size.
Working backwards to a price
Sometimes you know what you must receive: a net 50 for a service, say. Choose “Find the price to charge so I receive a set amount” and enter 50. The price must cover the fixed fee and the percentage on itself, so it is (50 + 0.30) ÷ (1 − 0.029) = 51.80. The fee on 51.80 is 1.80 and what you receive is exactly 50.00. The fee is 3.48% of the larger price, a little more than the nominal 2.9% because of the fixed part.
A worked example
The default is a payment of 100 with a 2.9% fee and a fixed 0.30. The fee is 3.20, you receive 96.80, and the fee is 3.20% of the payment. Over 200 payments of that size the fees total 640. The table shows how the share changes with the size: a payment of 5 pays 0.44, which is 8.90%; 10 pays 0.59, 5.90%; 25 pays 1.02, 4.10%; and 1,000 pays 29.30, just 2.93%. The third sample is a foreign card, 250 with an extra 1.5%: the fee is 11.30, you receive 238.70, and the fee takes 4.52%.
Why small payments cost more
The fixed fee is the same on every payment, so it weighs more on small ones. A 0.30 fee is 6% of a 5 sale but 0.3% of a 100 sale. That is why shops often set a minimum card spend, why low-priced digital goods are sold in bundles, and why a subscription of 3 a month can lose more than a tenth of its revenue to fees. If most of your payments are small, a flat fee structure may suit you better than a percentage one, which you can test here by changing the boxes.
Edge cases
The percentage and the extra percentage must be below 100 together. A fixed fee of 0 is allowed. The amount must be above zero. If you leave the monthly payments box empty, the monthly total line is not shown. The page always works in one currency, so convert foreign amounts before entering them, or use the extra percentage for the conversion margin.
Limits
The page models one simple fee structure. Real pricing can have tiers by volume, different rates by card type, fees on refunds, chargebacks, payout fees, and monthly charges, none of which are included. It also ignores tax on the fee, which some countries charge. Use it as an estimate, and compare it with a month of real fee statements.
Related tools
- E-Commerce Profit Calculator puts the fee beside shipping, ads and returns for a full order.
- Multi-Currency Invoice Total Converter handles the conversion of foreign invoices.
- GST / VAT / Sales Tax adds tax to a price before you charge it.
- Profit Margin Calculator shows what is left of a sale once the fee is paid.
Checked against the current version of the Payment Gateway Fee Calculator on .