As read on Stripe’s pricing page on November 13, 2026, Stripe’s Invoicing fee adds 0.4% to each invoice that gets paid, on top of its 2.9% plus 30 cents card price. On a $150 invoice that extra is 60 cents, and the full cost is $5.25, or 3.5% of the invoice. This guide shows the arithmetic at four invoice sizes, what the fee adds up to over a year, the other fees that sit next to it, and what to compare before you decide whether to stay.
The short answer
- The fee is a percentage of the invoice, not a flat charge. As read on Stripe’s pricing page on November 13, 2026, Stripe Invoicing adds 0.4% per paid invoice on top of 2.9% plus 30 cents per successful domestic card transaction. Check Stripe’s own page for today’s price.
- Our arithmetic: on a $150 invoice, the extra is 60 cents at 0.4%. A business that collects $15,000 a month through $150 invoices pays about $720 a year for the Invoicing fee alone.
- Other fees sit beside it. Per Stripe’s pricing page as read on November 13, 2026, there is also 0.5% extra for manually entered cards and $15.00 for each dispute you receive.
- Our study is a model. The Flat-Rate Tax (2026 Edition) was written by a processor that sells interchange-plus (also called pass-through) pricing, so treat it as a reason to get a quote, not proof of your savings.
- Check Stripe’s own pricing page. Prices change, and your own account may have different terms.
Add-on fees
Three fees that sit beside the headline rate
| Fee | Rate | What triggers it |
|---|---|---|
| Invoicing fee | 0.4% per paid invoice | Invoice is paid |
| Manually entered cards | +0.5% | Card number typed in by you |
| Dispute received | $15.00 each | Customer asks issuer to reverse payment |
What the Invoicing fee is, in plain words
Stripe is a flat-rate processor. A flat-rate processor charges one headline price for a card payment no matter which card the customer uses. For domestic card payments, Stripe’s pricing page lists a headline price of 2.9% plus 30 cents per successful transaction. That is 2.9 cents of every dollar, plus a 30 cent charge on each payment.
Invoicing is a Stripe product for sending a bill by email or link and collecting payment. Stripe’s pricing page lists Invoicing at 0.4% per paid invoice, and it lists no other invoicing plan. Two details are worth noting. First, it applies to invoices that are paid, so an invoice nobody pays does not generate it. Second, it is added to the card price, not instead of it. The card fee is still charged.
Every Stripe price in this guide is taken from Stripe’s own pricing page as we read it on November 13, 2026. Stripe changes plans from time to time, and some accounts have custom pricing, so open Stripe’s pricing page and your own account’s fee settings for today’s price before you rely on any number here.
What it costs on four invoice sizes (our arithmetic)
This is made-up math to show the method, not a promise about your account. We took the prices on Stripe’s pricing page as read on November 13, 2026, 2.9% plus 30 cents plus the 0.4% Invoicing fee, and worked out one paid invoice at four sizes. We checked each result with a calculator script.
- $50 invoice: the card price is $1.75. The Invoicing fee adds 20 cents. The total is $1.95, which is 3.9% of the invoice.
- $150 invoice: the card price is $4.65. The Invoicing fee adds 60 cents. The total is $5.25, which is 3.5%.
- $500 invoice: the card price is $14.80. The Invoicing fee adds $2.00. The total is $16.80, which is 3.36%.
- $2,500 invoice: the card price is $72.80. The Invoicing fee adds $10.00. The total is $82.80, which is 3.31%.
All-in fee
What one paid invoice really costs
- $50 invoice$1.953.9% of invoiceCard price $1.75 + Invoicing fee 20 cents
- $150 invoice$5.253.5% of invoiceCard price $4.65 + Invoicing fee 60 cents
- $500 invoice$16.803.36% of invoiceCard price $14.80 + Invoicing fee $2.00
- $2,500 invoice$82.803.31% of invoiceCard price $72.80 + Invoicing fee $10.00
Two things stand out. The extra fee grows with the invoice, because it is a percentage. A $2,500 invoice carries $10 of Invoicing fee, far more than a $50 invoice. And the 30 cent part of the card price matters most on small invoices, which is why the all-in percentage is highest at $50.
A note on a nearby number. Our study uses 3.3% plus 30 cents as its flat-rate benchmark for invoices. That is the same as Stripe’s 2.9% plus 0.4% plus 30 cents above. As read on Square’s fees page on November 13, 2026, Square lists the same 3.3% plus 30 cents for online sales and invoices.
What it adds up to over a year
A single invoice fee looks small. Over a year, it does not. Here is the arithmetic for a service business, again made-up math to show the method.
- 100 invoices a month at $150 is $15,000 collected. The Invoicing fee alone is $60 a month, which is $720 a year.
- $50,000 a month at $150 an invoice is about 333 invoices a month. The Invoicing fee alone is $200 a month, which is $2,400 a year.
The Invoicing line is only part of the bill. The full card fee on the $50,000 example, at 2.9% plus 30 cents per invoice and the 0.4% fee, comes to about $1,750 a month, or $21,000 a year. That is our arithmetic, and it leaves out disputes, instant payouts and every other add-on.
For comparison, our study (“The Flat-Rate Tax,” 2026 Edition) gives one example for a similar business. A business collecting $50,000 a month through invoices at a $150 average ticket keeps about $6,100 a year by moving from flat rate to interchange pass-through, in the model. That is the study’s figure from its own inputs, not our finding and not a promise. We explain how interchange-plus works below so you can judge the claim for yourself.
The other Stripe fees that show up on invoice businesses
The Invoicing fee is rarely the only add-on. Stripe’s pricing page, as read on November 13, 2026, lists others that matter to businesses that bill by invoice.
Manually entered cards: +0.5%
If a customer calls with a card number and you type it in, Stripe’s pricing page lists an extra 0.5% for manually entered cards. That is separate from the Invoicing fee, and it applies to card numbers typed in rather than entered by the customer. On a $150 payment, our arithmetic puts the card price plus that 0.5% at $5.40, before any Invoicing fee. If your team takes payments by phone, count how often that happens.
Disputes: $15.00 each, and more if you respond
A dispute, also called a chargeback, happens when a customer asks their card issuer to reverse a payment. Stripe’s pricing page lists $15.00 for each dispute you receive and $15.00 for each dispute you respond to manually, refunded for won disputes. It also lists $15.00 for each dispute appealed, not refunded. If you receive three disputes in a year, respond to each manually and lose them all, that is $90 in dispute fees (our arithmetic) and the lost sales. It is not a large number, but it is a fee that never appears in the headline rate.
Add-ons the study leaves out
Your own bill may include those. If you pay for instant payouts, or use other Stripe products alongside Invoicing, add them to your comparison.
Why a flat rate costs more on some cards than others
A card payment has several parts. The biggest is interchange, a fee set by the card networks that goes to the bank that issued the customer’s card. Then come card network assessments, and then the processor’s own markup. A flat-rate processor bundles all of it into one price. You cannot see which part is which.
Interchange-plus pricing, also called pass-through, separates them. You pay the real interchange and network fees for each card, plus one markup written in your agreement. NPS explains this and the other common models in its guide to merchant account pricing models, and shows where the money goes in where Stripe fees actually go.
The reason this can matter for invoices is debit. Large-bank debit is capped (0.05% + 21 cents, plus a 1 cent fraud adjustment). The cap does not apply to small-bank debit. A flat-rate price charges the full percentage on those cards anyway. Do not assume every debit card gets the cap. NPS has a separate post on whether the debit cap applies to small-bank cards.
Business cards pull the other way. They tend to carry higher interchange. If your customers are consumers, many will pay with personal debit. If your customers are companies, more will use company credit cards. Know which one you serve before you estimate anything.
What the study found for invoices
The study is called “The Flat-Rate Tax,” and it was written by Allen Kopelman, the CEO of NPS. It is a cost model, not a survey. It prices the same mix of debit and credit payments under flat-rate and interchange pass-through pricing, using published rates. Every input is listed in the study so you can rerun it.
For businesses selling online or by invoice, the model finds pass-through costs 19% to 31% less than flat rate across average tickets from $15 to $2,500. It says flat rate can still be the better choice in some cases: a brand-new business with very low volume, or an in-person business with tickets around $15 and under.
This is a model published by a company that sells pass-through pricing. It does not know your card mix or your actual fees. The only number that settles the question is your own statement.
How to work out your own Invoicing cost in ten minutes
You do not need a spreadsheet expert. You need two or three months of data from your Stripe dashboard.
- Export your paid invoices. Count how many were paid in a month and the total dollars collected.
- Find the Invoicing fee line. If your dashboard shows fees by type, add up the Invoicing fee. If it shows only a total, take the total fees divided by the total collected. That is your effective rate.
- Check the percentage. If your effective rate on invoices is near 3.5% at a $150 average, you are paying about what Stripe’s listed prices imply. If it is much higher, look for manual-card fees, dispute fees or instant payout fees.
- Multiply by twelve. The yearly figure is the one that changes decisions.
- Get one quote and compare line by line. Ask for the markup, the monthly fee, the gateway fee, the statement fee, any invoice fee and the contract terms. A processor that will not write its fees down is telling you something.
Ten-minute check
How to find your real Invoicing cost
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Export your paid invoicesCount how many were paid in a month and the total dollars collected.
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Find the Invoicing fee lineIf your dashboard shows fees by type, add up the Invoicing fee.
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Check the percentageIf your effective rate on invoices is near 3.5% at a $150 average, you are paying about what Stripe’s listed prices imply.
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Multiply by twelveThe yearly figure is the one that changes decisions.
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Get one quote and compare line by lineAsk for the markup, the monthly fee, the gateway fee, the statement fee, any invoice fee and the contract terms.
Our guide on how to read your merchant statement walks through the lines, and how much you are really paying on Stripe, Square, PayPal or QuickBooks covers the same exercise across providers.
When staying on Stripe is the right call
Do not leave a tool that works just because a fee looks high on paper. Staying can be the better choice when:
- You send only a few invoices a month. The yearly Invoicing fee may be a few dozen dollars, and switching costs time.
- You are brand new and have very low volume. The study itself says flat rate can win here.
- You use other Stripe products that you rely on, and the time saved by one system is worth more than the fee.
Switching starts to deserve a look when your yearly Invoicing fee is a real number, when many of your customers pay by debit, or when you want to offer a bank payment option. NPS covers that last one in its guide to ACH optimization. ACH is a bank-to-bank payment, and NPS offers it. For a wider view of the cost question, see cheapest payment processing in 2026, and for service businesses in particular, cheapest card processing for invoices and payment links.
Questions to ask any processor before you move
Whether you stay or switch, these questions make the cost visible.
- What is the markup over interchange, in writing, and is it fixed?
- Is there any fee just for sending an invoice or a payment link?
- What do keyed or card-on-file payments cost?
- What are the dispute fees, and are they refunded if I win?
- Are there monthly, gateway, statement or PCI fees?
- Can I see a sample statement that shows each fee on its own line?
Before you switch
Questions to ask any processor
- What is the markup over interchange, in writing, and is it fixed?
- Is there any fee just for sending an invoice or a payment link?
- What do keyed or card-on-file payments cost?
- What are the dispute fees, and are they refunded if I win?
- Are there monthly, gateway, statement or PCI fees?
- Can I see a sample statement that shows each fee on its own line?
If an answer is “it depends,” ask on what. A clear answer lets you do the arithmetic above yourself.
You can also run your own invoice numbers through our savings calculator.
Stripe is one of ten providers compared in our guide to the best payment processors, by business type.
Who wrote this, and where NPS fits
Nationwide Payment Systems (NPS) publishes this guide. We are a payments company based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in business since 2001, and we sell merchant accounts and invoicing software, so we are not neutral. We offer interchange-plus pricing, ACH, a payment gateway and Smart Invoicing, and we also offer flat-rate options. We do not publish a price list. The study we cite was written by our CEO. NPS offers a free statement review. Browse more in our payments guides.
We are not the right fit for every business. If you send only a few invoices a month, or your accounting software already handles payments well, a simpler setup may cost you less.
Bottom line
Stripe’s Invoicing fee is 0.4% per paid invoice on top of 2.9% plus 30 cents, as read on Stripe’s pricing page on November 13, 2026. On a $150 invoice that is 60 cents extra, and about $720 a year for a business with 100 such invoices a month. Whether that is worth paying depends on how many invoices you send, how your customers pay and what else you use Stripe for. Pull your own numbers, check Stripe’s current pricing page, and compare one written quote line by line. If you would like a second opinion, you can contact our team.
Frequently asked questions
How much is the Stripe Invoicing fee?
As read on Stripe’s pricing page on November 13, 2026, the Invoicing fee is 0.4% per paid invoice, on top of 2.9% plus 30 cents per successful domestic card transaction. Check Stripe’s own pricing page for today’s price on your account.
What does the fee cost on a $150 invoice?
Our arithmetic: 2.9% plus 30 cents is $4.65, and the Invoicing fee at 0.4% adds 60 cents, so the total is $5.25. That is made-up math to show the method, not a promise about your account.
Is the Invoicing fee charged if the invoice is not paid?
Stripe’s pricing page, as read on November 13, 2026, lists it as 0.4% per paid invoice, so an unpaid invoice does not generate it. Confirm the details in your own Stripe account.
Are there other fees on top of the Invoicing fee?
Yes. Stripe’s pricing page, as read on November 13, 2026, lists 0.5% extra for manually entered cards, and $15.00 for each dispute you receive plus $15.00 to respond manually, refunded for won disputes.
Is interchange plus cheaper for invoices?
Often, in our study’s model, which finds 19% to 31% lower costs for online and invoice sales across $15 to $2,500 tickets. It is a model from a processor that sells pass-through pricing, so test it against your own statement.
How much could a business save per year?
The study gives one example: $50,000 a month in invoices at a $150 ticket keeps about $6,100 a year in the model. Your result depends on your card mix and fees, so ask for a quote rather than relying on the example.
Does NPS review my current statement for free?
Yes. NPS offers a free statement review.
