How much are credit card fees?

On our US standard online seed rates, Stripe is 2.90% + $0.30, PayPal is 3.49% + $0.49, and Square is 2.90% + $0.30. The dollar amount depends on the charge: the percentage scales with it while the fixed fee does not, so small payments carry a higher effective rate. Use a calculator with your own amount for an exact figure.

Are payment gateway fees included in the processing rate?

For most US small businesses using Stripe, PayPal, or Square, gateway and processing functions are bundled into one per-transaction price, so there is no separate gateway invoice. Where a provider does bill gateway services separately, that charge sits outside the bundled US online rate published on this site.

Why do you not publish an interchange breakdown?

Interchange varies by card type, network, region, and how a payment is taken. A single breakdown would imply precision we cannot verify from an official processor pricing page. We publish the bundled merchant rate instead, with its source and last-verified date.

Is there an average processing rate I can use for budgeting?

There is no reliable single average. Effective cost moves with your sales channel, card mix, average ticket size, and any negotiated pricing. We deliberately do not invent one; enter the percentage and fixed fee from your own merchant agreement into the any-rate calculator instead.

Payment Gateway Fees vs Processing Fees: What US Merchants Actually Pay

Reviewed by The NetFee Tools Editorial Team · Last updated 2026-11-07

A payment gateway, an interchange fee and a processing fee are three different things. Here is what sits inside the price a US seller pays, why there is no trustworthy single average, and how to work out your own number.

Payment gateway vs payment processor

A payment gateway authorises a card payment and moves transaction data between your checkout, the card networks and the acquiring bank. A payment processor handles settlement and the pricing of that transaction. For most US small businesses, Stripe, PayPal and Square bundle both roles, so you see one bundled rate rather than a separate gateway invoice. That is why a search for payment gateway fees often leads to a bundled processing price instead of a standalone gateway charge.

What are interchange fees?

Interchange is the wholesale fee paid to the bank that issued the card. It is one component inside the total processing fee, alongside card-network assessments and the processor's own margin. Interchange varies by card type, network, region and how the payment is taken, so quoting one number without that context would be misleading. We deliberately do not publish an interchange breakdown: the figures on this site are the bundled price a merchant is charged, captured from the processor's own pricing page.

How much do credit card companies charge merchants?

On our verified US standard online seed rates, a merchant is charged 2.90% + $0.30 with Stripe, 3.49% + $0.49 with PayPal, and 2.90% + $0.30 with Square per successful transaction. Each is a percentage of the charge plus a fixed amount. Those are bundled merchant rates — not interchange tables — and they are the narrow, verifiable slice of the market we track. See the fee data and sources for the evidence grade and last-verified date behind each figure.

Are there average credit card processing fees for merchants?

There is no single defensible average. Effective cost moves with the sales channel (online vs in person), card mix, average ticket size, chargeback volume and any negotiated pricing. A published “average” would be a guess dressed up as data, so we do not offer one. Instead, take the percentage and fixed fee from your own merchant agreement or statement and put them into the any-rate fee calculator. That produces a figure based on what you actually pay rather than on an industry estimate.

Payment gateway fees are rarely a single line item

Where a provider does bill gateway services separately, the cost can appear as a small per-transaction authorisation fee, a monthly gateway subscription, or both — and it may sit alongside hardware, platform, payout or currency-conversion charges. Our dataset covers only the bundled US standard online per-transaction rate for three processors. Gateway-only, hardware, subscription and add-on pricing are outside it, so confirm those on each provider's official pricing page before comparing total cost.

What we publish instead: three verified US online rates

Stripe — 2.90% + $0.30 · verified 2026-11-07
PayPal — 3.49% + $0.49 · verified 2026-11-07
Square — 2.90% + $0.30 · verified 2026-11-07

Every figure links to its source and carries an evidence grade in the fee data table. These are seed values, not a live feed; the fee change log records published updates.

Estimate your real cost

Use the comparison calculator with your typical basket size, then read how much to charge to cover the fee if you are setting prices. Because the fixed fee is proportionally larger on small payments, the effective rate you experience will rarely equal the headline percentage.