The famous 2.9% + 30¢ is just the entry. Tax, Billing, Connect, Radar, and FX each stack their own fee on top. Here’s the honest cost for a solo SaaS, with the math worked against Lemon Squeezy at $1K MRR. Numbers from stripe.com/pricing.
Stripe is the default payment processor for software founders for one reason: nothing else has the same developer experience. The bill, however, is not just “2.9% plus thirty cents.” That headline is the price of moving money. The price of running a global SaaS includes Stripe Tax, Stripe Billing, Stripe Connect (if you’re a marketplace), Stripe Radar (if you have fraud), and an FX line whenever you accept a non-USD card. This guide unwraps each layer.
Methodology. All rates below are pulled from stripe.com/pricing, the Stripe Tax documentation, the Connect pricing page, and the Billing pricing page, last reconciled May 2026. Stripe’s rates differ by country — numbers here are US-business rates unless otherwise noted. Always check Stripe’s pricing page for your home country before modeling your own numbers.
The headline rate every founder knows. What founders forget is that it’s materially different by where the card is issued:
| Card type / region | Stripe US base rate |
|---|---|
| US domestic card (online) | 2.9% + $0.30 |
| International card (non-US) | +1.5% surcharge |
| Currency conversion | +1% on top |
| UK domestic (UK business) | 1.5% + £0.20 EU / 2.5% UK consumer |
| EU domestic (EU business, EEA cards) | 1.5% + €0.25 |
| ACH direct debit (US) | 0.8% capped at $5 |
| SEPA direct debit | 0.8% capped at €5 |
Two things to notice. First, EU and UK rates are roughly half the US rate — if you’re an EU-incorporated business selling to EU customers, your processing cost is dramatically lower. Second, ACH at 0.8% capped at $5 is a near-free option for high-ticket B2B; on a $500/month plan, you’re paying $4 instead of $14.80 in Stripe fees. Most US founders never wire up ACH and leave money on the table.
Now the add-ons that confuse founders.
Stripe Tax automatically calculates and collects sales tax / VAT / GST in jurisdictions where you’re registered. The price: 0.5% per transaction where it’s active (capped per transaction in some regions). It does not register you for tax in those jurisdictions — you still have to file with each tax authority yourself. Stripe Tax is calculation-and-collection only.
Subscriptions, invoicing, dunning, customer portal, recurring billing logic. 0.5% on the Starter tier (most founders), or 0.8% if you upgrade to the Scale tier for advanced features (revenue recognition, multi-entity). For a SaaS, this is effectively mandatory — you’re not building dunning logic from scratch.
Used by marketplaces and platforms that pay other people. $2/month per active connected account on Express, plus 0.25% + $0.25 per transfer to the connected account. Standard accounts (where the seller has their own Stripe relationship) cost a percentage of the transaction instead of a flat monthly fee.
Stripe’s fraud-detection ML. Default Radar is included free in your base processing fee. Radar for Fraud Teams — the version with custom rules and review queues — adds $0.05 per screened transaction. Most solo founders are fine on the free tier; you upgrade only when chargebacks become a real problem.
Fires when the card’s issuing currency differs from your settlement currency. A US business charging a EUR card at $20 USD, in EUR, converts at +1%. The fee is invisible until you read the per-transaction breakdown, which is why most founders don’t notice it until they audit their first international month.
$15 per dispute, refunded if you successfully contest. SaaS chargeback rates are usually low (under 0.1%), but a single bad month with three disputes is a $45 line on your statement plus the lost transaction value.
The honest reframe: a US-based subscription SaaS using Stripe Billing and Stripe Tax is paying roughly 2.9% + $0.30 + 0.5% (Tax) + 0.5% (Billing) = ~3.9% + $0.30 per US transaction. International cards push that toward 5.4%. That’s the real working number for budget modeling, not 2.9%.
This is where the merchant-of-record question gets concrete. Lemon Squeezy charges 5% + $0.50 per transaction and acts as the merchant of record — it handles all global VAT/sales-tax registration, collection, and remittance for you. Stripe is the processor; you handle the tax compliance.
Modeling a typical global SaaS at $1K MRR with 50 customers ($20/month each), 60% US cards, 40% international:
| Line | Stripe path | Lemon Squeezy path |
|---|---|---|
| 30 US transactions, 2.9% + $0.30 | $26.40 | — |
| 20 international transactions, 4.4% + $0.30 | $23.60 | — |
| Stripe Tax 0.5% on $1,000 | $5.00 | — |
| Stripe Billing 0.5% on $1,000 | $5.00 | — |
| Currency conversion ~1% on int’l | $4.00 | — |
| Lemon Squeezy 5% + $0.50 × 50 | — | $75.00 |
| Total processing cost / month | $64.00 | $75.00 |
On pure transaction math, Stripe wins by $11/month at this scale. But that comparison ignores three things:
The honest verdict: Lemon Squeezy is genuinely cheaper for a solo founder selling globally below ~$10K MRR, once you price your own time at anything above $20/hour. Stripe pulls ahead at higher revenue when you can afford an accountant or finance contractor to handle compliance. We expanded this analysis in Lemon Squeezy vs Stripe and the broader best payment processor for SaaS roundup. The conceptual underpinning is in what is a merchant of record.
Stripe wins cleanly in three scenarios:
For a US-incorporated B2B SaaS doing annual contracts via ACH, Stripe is roughly five times cheaper than Lemon Squeezy. For a solo consumer SaaS selling globally at $20/month, Lemon Squeezy is cheaper once you price founder time. The right answer depends entirely on your shape.
Most solo founders glance at their Stripe dashboard, see “Payouts: $X this month,” and don’t dig deeper. The line items you should actually be tracking, every month:
Where this fits in the broader cost picture: Stripe processing fees are typically the largest single line on a solo SaaS P&L below $10K MRR — bigger than your hosting, your database, your tooling combined. We walked the full P&L in SaaS cost at $1K MRR, and Stripe alone accounts for roughly 4–5% of revenue at that scale.
Budget 4–5% of revenue for Stripe fees, not 3%. The headline 2.9% + $0.30 is the floor; in practice, Stripe Tax and Stripe Billing each add half a point, international cards add 1.5%, and currency conversion adds another 1% on those. For a US-only B2B SaaS using ACH, you’ll come in well under 3%. For a global consumer SaaS on cards, you’ll come in over 5%.
Stripe’s pricing is transparent in the sense that every fee is documented. It’s opaque in the sense that no one tells you the additive total. Now you know — and you can decide cleanly whether the developer experience is worth the premium versus a merchant-of-record alternative for your specific shape.
The stack, prompts, pricing, and mistakes to avoid — for solo founders building with AI.