Skip to content
Payzium.

Payzium vs Stripe

Stripe's flat rate is the headline. The modifiers are the bill. We pass interchange through at cost and show you every line, unstacked.

Last updated: July 12, 2026

where Stripe is genuinely the right call

Stripe is the strongest developer platform in payments. If you are building a product that needs card payments as one of ten API integrations, Stripe's documentation, SDKs, and dashboard are best in class, and no monthly fee on the standard plan is real. If your merchant lives in code, Stripe earns its rate. Flat-rate simplicity is a story. The modifier stack is the actual price. The page below unstacks it, then does the honest math at $40K a month.

the published rate, line by line

Every Stripe line, every Payzium line, on a representative $50 sale.

Payment typeStripe publishedPayzium all-in$50 sale: extra you keep
Online domestic card (Visa, Mastercard, Amex)2.9% + 30¢[1]about 2.30%$0.60
Manually keyed or card on file+0.5% modifier[2]same class, all-in about 2.30%$0.25
In-person credit (Stripe Terminal)2.7% + 5¢[5]about 1.84%$0.43
In-person Interac debit (Stripe Terminal)15¢ flat[6]5¢ flat$0.10
ModifierInternational card / currency conversion+0.8% intl, +2% FX[3]pass-through at coststructural

Payzium figures use the Tier 1 standard schedule (0.30% plus 5 cents card present, 0.40% plus 5 cents card not present), passed through the live interchange engine that prices the homepage slider and /calculator. Tier 1 is the worst case for Payzium; higher tiers widen the gap. See the math for your own volume on /calculator.

Stripe custom pricing is available for larger merchants[8]; below that threshold, the published flat rate plus the modifier stack is the rate you pay.

the modifier stack, plainly

2.9% + 30¢ is the headline. The bill can stack to 5.7% + 30¢.

Stripe's Canadian pricing page publishes four separate modifiers that stack on top of the headline online rate. On any given transaction, one or several apply.

  • Manually entered card: +0.5%.

    Any transaction typed into the dashboard, terminal virtual keypad, or a Card element without device auth adds half a percent.[2]

  • International card: +0.8%.

    Any card issued outside Canada, tourist or e-commerce customer alike, adds eight tenths of a percent. Payzium passes the same international interchange add-on through at cost; on the international line neither processor has a structural edge.[3]

  • Currency conversion: +2%.

    If the settlement currency differs from the transaction currency, Stripe adds two percent for the conversion. Payzium settles in the currency you take payment in; conversion is not a Payzium line.[4]

  • Dispute fee: CA$15 received, CA$15 to counter.

    Every chargeback costs CA$15 the moment it hits the account. Countering it costs another CA$15; you get that half back only if you win.[7]

A domestic online card manually keyed with currency conversion runs 5.4% + 30¢. On a $50 sale that is $3.00 in fees, not $1.75.

a worked example, the assumptions stated up front

$462.72 vs $720.00 a month. Same volume, same transactions, different cost structure.

The profile: $40,000 in monthly card volume, 100% card-present through Stripe Terminal, 60% credit and 40% Interac debit, $50 average ticket, 800 transactions. If your profile differs, your number differs.

Stripe Terminal in-person

  • Credit (60% of volume): 2.7% × $24,000 + 5¢ × 480 tx = $672.00/mo
  • Interac debit (40% of volume): 15¢ × 320 tx = $48.00/mo
  • Monthly fee: $0.00/mo
  • Total: $720.00/mo

Payzium wholesale-plus

  • Card-network pass-through: credit only, with assessment = $345.72/mo
  • Interac (flat 5¢/tx): 320 tx × 5¢ = $16.00/mo
  • Payzium margin (credit only): 0.30% × $24,000 = $72.00/mo
  • Per-transaction fees: 480 credit tx × 5¢ = $24.00/mo
  • Monthly account fee: $5.00/mo
  • Total: $462.72/mo

Monthly savings with Payzium on this profile: $257.28. The Payzium total above matches the homepage volume slider and /calculator to the cent at this profile.

Payzium uses the Tier 1 standard interchange schedule (the conservative regime above the Small Merchant / Small Business program ceilings); a merchant under $14,583 a month sees a lower Payzium rate than published here because both SMB programs apply. Both sides exclude terminal hardware. If you also take card-not-present volume through Stripe, the +0.5% and +0.8% modifiers apply on that volume and lift the Stripe total further; the worked example above holds the profile at 100% in-person to keep the comparison clean. Annual extrapolation deliberately omitted from visible copy: every month will not track this exact profile, and Pay less or it's free is the guarantee for whether real savings show up.

the 2024 interchange reduction, and what Stripe said publicly

The card networks cut small-business interchange in October 2024. Stripe publicly stated it would keep the savings.

On October 19, 2024, Visa and Mastercard implemented an average 27% interchange reduction for Canadian small businesses processing under $300,000 in annual Visa volume and $175,000 in Mastercard volume. Three days earlier, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) published a release explicitly naming Stripe.

CFIB, October 16, 2024:

“Unfortunately, multinational e-commerce payments processor Stripe has publicly stated on its website its intent to keep rates the same, which means Stripe would keep the savings that were intended for its small business customers.”[9]

Payzium passes interchange through at cost. When the networks cut rates, our merchants see the cut on the next statement, automatic, no press release.

what Stripe does well, plainly

Three things Stripe gets right. We will not pretend otherwise.

Stripe built the developer-first payments API most of the internet learned to trust; this is real and worth saying. Honesty about Stripe's strengths is what makes the modifier-stack teardown above credible.

  • Best-in-class developer platform.

    Documentation, SDKs, dashboard, testing tools, all industry-benchmark. If your merchant lives in code, Stripe is the platform to build on.

  • No monthly, setup, or hidden fees on the standard plan.

    Stripe publishes zero monthly on standard; you pay per successful charge only.[8]

  • Global reach out of the box.

    40+ countries, 135+ currencies. If you sell internationally as your default, Stripe's coverage is real.

the $5 monthly account fee, surfaced honestly

Payzium charges a $5 monthly account fee. Stripe is $0. Here is when the math recovers it.

Stripe publishes no monthly, setup, or hidden fees on the standard plan[8]. Payzium publishes a $5 monthly account fee on every account. The same honesty standard we apply to the modifier-stack section applies here: we will not show per-transaction wins on the credit lines while staying quiet on a fixed monthly fee.

The credit-line spread between Stripe's 2.9% online (or 2.7% in-person) and Payzium's all-in rate recovers the $5 fee with a few hundred dollars of monthly card volume, which any active merchant clears in days. Above that, every dollar of credit volume is net savings. The fee is immaterial to the math at any merchant volume that would meaningfully consider switching processors.

If your monthly card volume is small enough that $5 a month is a real consideration, you are probably better off on Stripe.

the real cost of leaving Stripe is integration, not contract

Stripe has no cancellation fee. The friction is technical.

Stripe is pay-as-you-go. There is no contract and no early termination fee, so leaving costs nothing on paper. The real cost of switching off Stripe is technical: your checkout, subscription webhooks, and dashboard integrations were built to Stripe's API. A move requires rebuilding those integrations against another provider. If your storefront is a hosted platform, that is a few days. If you built a custom integration, that is real engineering work.

Pay less or it's free covers up to CA$1,000 of that switch-out cost. If Payzium has not lowered your processing cost in the first 90 days, every Payzium fee is refunded.

Honest math

Honest math. Decide from there.

Wholesale-plus pricing at interchange + 0.30% + 5 cents Tier 1 margin. The Honest Rate Promise and Pay less or it's free. $5 monthly account fee disclosed; no setup fee, no PCI fee, no monthly minimum, no junk fees.

Open free accountSee the full rate card →

common questions

Questions merchants ask before leaving Stripe

How can Payzium be cheaper than a flat-rate processor like Stripe?

Stripe bundles interchange into a flat rate and stacks modifiers (+0.5% keyed, +0.8% international, +2% currency conversion). Every transaction pays the same headline plus whatever modifiers apply, regardless of what your customer's card actually costs to process. Payzium passes interchange through at cost and adds a small fixed margin (0.30% plus 5 cents on card-present credit at Tier 1). On Interac debit, Payzium charges a flat 5 cents per transaction; Stripe Terminal charges 15 cents flat. The $5 monthly account fee is recovered with a few hundred dollars of monthly card volume, which any active merchant clears in days.

What is interchange and why does Payzium charge it at cost?

Interchange is the fee the card networks (Visa, Mastercard, Interac) set and collect on every card transaction. Every processor pays interchange to the customer's card-issuing bank. Stripe bundles interchange into its flat rate. Payzium passes it through at cost, so you pay what the network actually charges, no markup, and on top of that we charge our published margin. That structure is why our all-in rate is lower on most lines: there is no spread between wholesale interchange and the rate on the statement.

Does Payzium have a developer API like Stripe?

If your merchant lives in code and you need a full developer platform (subscriptions, webhooks, connected accounts, Radar), Stripe is a better fit. Payzium is a card-processing service focused on Canadian SMBs who accept payments in person or through a hosted online storefront. If you are a solo builder shipping a SaaS with a Stripe-shaped integration, we will honestly tell you Stripe is the right call.

What is Stripe's +0.5% keyed modifier?

Any card transaction typed manually into the Stripe dashboard, a virtual keypad, or a Card element without device authentication adds half a percent to the standard rate. In-store this catches sales where the physical card is not present (invoicing, phone orders). Payzium bills keyed transactions at the same card-not-present rate class (about 2.30% all-in, no separate modifier).

Are these rates guaranteed?

Yes, two ways. The Honest Rate Promise: if we ever charge a junk fee, we refund it twice. Pay less or it's free: if you have not saved money on processing within the first 90 days, every Payzium fee is refunded and we cover up to CA$1,000 of your switching costs, to move to any processor you want. The published rate is the rate on the statement.

What does Pay less or it's free cover if I am coming from Stripe?

Two things. It covers up to CA$1,000 of your switch-out cost, which for a Stripe merchant usually means integration work to rebuild against Payzium. And if Payzium has not lowered your processing cost within the first 90 days, every Payzium fee is refunded. The guarantee runs for the first 90 days and is not rolling.

Sources

  1. [1] Stripe Canada online domestic card standard rate, 2.9% + CA$0.30 per successful transaction. https://stripe.com/en-ca/pricing. Verified 2026-07-12.
  2. [2] Stripe Canada manually-entered card modifier, +0.5% on top of the standard rate. https://stripe.com/en-ca/pricing. Verified 2026-07-12.
  3. [3] Stripe Canada international card modifier, +0.8% on top of the standard rate. https://stripe.com/en-ca/pricing. Verified 2026-07-12.
  4. [4] Stripe Canada currency conversion modifier, +2% when the settlement currency differs from the transaction currency. https://stripe.com/en-ca/pricing. Verified 2026-07-12.
  5. [5] Stripe Terminal Canada in-person rate, 2.7% + CA$0.05 per successful charge on most cards. https://stripe.com/en-ca/pricing. Verified 2026-07-12.
  6. [6] Stripe Terminal Canada in-person Interac debit rate, CA$0.15 per transaction. https://stripe.com/en-ca/pricing. Verified 2026-07-12.
  7. [7] Stripe Canada dispute fee, CA$15 for each dispute received and CA$15 to respond to it manually; the countered CA$15 is returned only if you win the dispute. https://stripe.com/en-ca/pricing. Verified 2026-07-12.
  8. [8] Stripe Canada standard plan has no monthly fees, setup fees, or other hidden fees. https://stripe.com/en-ca/pricing. Verified 2026-07-12.
  9. [9] CFIB media release 2024-10-16, Dan Kelly (CFIB president): “Lower Visa and Mastercard fees for small business start this week, but Stripe plans to ignore Ottawa and keep the savings for itself.” The interchange reduction took effect 2024-10-19 (Visa and Mastercard Canada). The CFIB release quotes Stripe as having publicly stated on its website its intent to keep rates the same. https://www.cfib-fcei.ca/en/media/lower-visa-and-mastercard-fees-for-small-business-start-this-week-but-stripe-plans-to-ignore-ottawa-and-keep-the-savings-for-itself. Verified 2026-07-12.