Payzium versus Stripe: online-first rate on a merchant that swipes cards.
Stripe wins on developer surface, subscriptions, and pure-online commerce. Payzium wins for merchants who ring most sales at a physical counter.
- In card processing since 2014
- Next-day funding
- Terminal included¹
- Posted pricing
Your volume, against Stripe.
$4,456
About $371 a month back in your business compared with Stripe, and $13,369 over three years.
How your price is built
At $40,000 a month in card sales
- Network costs (interchange and assessments), passed through at cost
- $631.64
- Payzium margin
- $72.00
- Payzium per-transaction fees
- $40.00
- Monthly account fee
- $5.00
- Your total a month
- $748.64
- Effective rate
- 1.87%
Estimate on Payzium's published US rate card and live US Visa and Mastercard interchange schedules, $50 average ticket. Competitor figures from each processor's published US rates. Final pricing depends on your actual card mix and current network rates.
Stripe: what the fees page publishes.
| Line | Rate |
|---|---|
| Online (Payments, standard) | 2.9% + $0.30 [1] |
| In-person (Terminal) | 2.7% + $0.05 [2] |
| Manually keyed | 3.4% + $0.30 [3] |
| International card add-on | +1.5% [4] |
| Fee | Amount |
|---|---|
| Monthly account fee | $0 on standard plan [5] |
| Chargeback fee | $15 dispute received fee plus $15 dispute countered fee; the countered fee is returned on a won dispute, the received fee is not [6] |
Stripe Terminal readers. Sold outright; Stripe Reader S700 and S710 are the countertop options and Stripe Reader M2 the mobile one, priced on Stripe's pricing page. [7]
Sources.
- Online payments 2.9% plus $0.30. Verified 2026-09-08. https://stripe.com/pricing
- Terminal 2.7% plus $0.05. Verified 2026-09-08. https://stripe.com/pricing
- Manually keyed: online rate plus 0.5%. Verified 2026-09-08. https://stripe.com/pricing
- International card add-on +1.5%. Verified 2026-09-08. https://stripe.com/pricing
- No setup fee, no monthly fee on standard plan. Verified 2026-09-08. https://stripe.com/pricing
- $15 dispute received fee, $15 dispute countered fee returned if won. Verified 2026-09-08. https://stripe.com/pricing
- Terminal card readers (S700, S710, M2, T600). Verified 2026-09-08. https://stripe.com/pricing
Stripe contract candor.
- Stripe publishes no cancellation fee on standard plan.
- Stripe is not a traditional merchant account; the merchant's contract is with Stripe Payments Company LLC.
- Stripe's blended rate on Terminal (2.7% plus $0.05) is competitive against Square in-person; both charge a blend, not interchange-plus.
Where Stripe wins.
- Best-in-class developer APIs for a pure-online product or SaaS billing.
- Native subscriptions, invoicing, and Stripe Billing.
- Excellent instrument coverage (ACH, wallets, BNPL, international cards).
Where Payzium wins.
- A card-present merchant paying 2.7 percent blended on Terminal is paying substantially more than a merchant on interchange-plus with a 0.30 percent Payzium margin, because most in-person interchange sits below 1.8 percent.
- Payzium's terminal is included with the account (a $5 monthly account fee applies) rather than sold outright.
- Payzium's dual pricing program lets the merchant post a cash and a card price to cover eligible card acceptance costs.
Worked example.
Payzium all-in effective rate on this fixture
1.87%
This is the same rate shown across the site. See the full monthly breakdown on the calculator.
FAQ.
Is Stripe a merchant account?
Stripe is a payment facilitator (payfac), not a traditional merchant account. That model is fast to onboard; it does not give the merchant an ISO relationship with the sponsoring member bank.
Do I lose Stripe Billing or the API if I switch?
Nothing about Payzium's card acceptance stops a merchant from using Stripe Billing or the Stripe API for subscriptions on other rails; some merchants run both.
Ready to see the numbers on your business?
Run your monthly volume through the calculator and see the exact all-in figure your Payzium account would carry.