Short answer
Stripe Billing costs 0.7% of billing volume on pay-as-you-go pricing (as of November 2026), on top of card processing fees. That is about $70,000 a year at $10M ARR, $175,000 at $25M and $350,000 at $50M. Annual pay-monthly plans lower that to roughly $62,000, $156,000 and $324,000 at list price, and Stripe offers custom pricing above $1M a month.
| Stripe Billing, pay-as-you-go, at $25M ARR | $175,000 a year |
|---|---|
| Cheapest published plan at $25M ARR | About $156,100 a year |
| Card fees at 2.9% + 30¢ on the same $25M | About $740,000 a year |
Stripe Billing costs 0.7% of billing volume on its pay-as-you-go plan (Stripe’s published US pricing as of November 2026), charged on top of card processing. For a SaaS company billing $10M a year that is about $70,000, at $25M about $175,000, and at $50M about $350,000. Annual plans and custom pricing bring it down, though the published plan discount shrinks as volume grows.
This article works through the numbers at each scale, explains which volume Stripe counts, and sets out when Billing is worth keeping. For every other line on the Stripe statement, see Stripe fees explained.
How much does Stripe Billing cost in 2026?
Stripe publishes two ways to pay for Billing in the US, plus custom pricing for large volumes. All figures below come from stripe.com/billing/pricing, checked on November 4, 2026.
| Option | Price | Billing volume covered | Above the plan’s volume |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pay as you go | 0.7% of billing volume | No limit, no recurring fee | 0.7% |
| Pay monthly, tier 1 | $620 a month | Up to $100,000 a month | 0.67% |
| Pay monthly, tier 2 | $1,500 a month | Up to $250,000 a month | 0.67% |
| Pay monthly, tier 3 | $2,950 a month | Up to $500,000 a month | 0.67% |
| Pay monthly, tier 4 | $5,750 a month | Up to $1,000,000 a month | 0.67% |
| Custom | Quote | $1,000,000+ a month | Negotiated |
The pay-monthly plans are an annual subscription paid monthly, on a one-year contract. Card processing is separate: Stripe’s standard US rate is 2.9% + 30¢ per successful domestic card charge, and ACH Direct Debit is 0.8% capped at $5 (stripe.com/pricing, November 2026).
What happened to Starter and Scale?
They no longer exist. Stripe retired the Billing Starter plan (0.5% of billing volume) and the Billing Scale plan (0.8% of billing and invoicing volume) on July 10, 2024, and replaced both with the single 0.7% rate. Existing Starter and Scale users kept a promotional 0.5% until June 30, 2025 (Stripe support: July 2024 changes to Stripe Billing).
Two other changes came with it. Revenue Recognition, once bundled into Scale, is now charged separately for all Billing users. And one-off invoices left Billing pricing entirely: they are priced under Stripe Invoicing instead.
What does Stripe Billing cost at $10M, $25M and $50M ARR?
At list price, Billing costs between $62,000 and $70,000 a year at $10M ARR, and between $324,000 and $350,000 at $50M. The table shows pay-as-you-go next to the cheapest published pay-monthly option at each scale.
| ARR (billing volume) | Monthly volume | Pay as you go (0.7%) | Cheapest published plan | Plan cost a year | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $10M | ~$833,000 | $70,000 | $500k tier + 0.67% overage | ~$62,200 | ~$7,800 (11.1%) |
| $25M | ~$2.08M | $175,000 | $1M tier + 0.67% overage | ~$156,100 | ~$18,900 (10.8%) |
| $50M | ~$4.17M | $350,000 | $1M tier + 0.67% overage | ~$323,600 | ~$26,400 (7.5%) |
Assumptions and arithmetic. Billing volume equals ARR, spread evenly across 12 months, all recurring (no one-off invoices). Plan cost = (monthly plan fee + 0.67% × volume above the tier) × 12.
- $10M: $2,950 + 0.67% × $333,333 = $5,183 a month, or about $62,200 a year. The $1M tier would cost $69,000 a year, so the smaller tier plus overage is cheaper.
- $25M: $5,750 + 0.67% × $1,083,333 = $13,008 a month, or about $156,100 a year.
- $50M: $5,750 + 0.67% × $3,166,667 = $26,967 a month, or about $323,600 a year.
Two things stand out.
The plan discount shrinks as you grow. Overage is billed at 0.67%, only 0.03 points below pay-as-you-go. The fixed tier saving gets diluted by volume, from about 11% at $10M to about 7.5% at $50M.
Above $1M a month, list price is a ceiling, not a quote. Stripe labels $1,000,000+ in monthly billing volume as custom pricing. The $25M and $50M rows show what the published plans would cost. A negotiated rate could be lower, and the only way to know is to ask.
Which volume does Stripe count toward the Billing fee?
Stripe counts every recurring transaction that uses Billing functionality, whether the payment is processed on Stripe or somewhere else. Stripe’s support page puts it this way: Billing volume “includes all transactions processed on or off Stripe that leverage Stripe Billing functionality”, such as subscriptions, subscription schedules and usage-based billing.
That has three practical consequences.
- Moving card processing doesn’t remove the Billing fee. Stripe’s documentation on third-party payment processors says billing volume from other processors “is considered part of your total billing volume”, and the standard Billing fee applies.
- One-off invoices are priced separately. They fall under Stripe Invoicing: 0.4% per paid invoice on Starter, or 0.5% on Plus, which adds quotes.
- Invoices marked “paid out of band” are a gray area to confirm in writing. The same Stripe document says invoices marked as paid out-of-band “aren’t charged as usual”, but it doesn’t spell out how that interacts with recurring billing volume. If customers pay large annual invoices by wire or check, ask Stripe how those invoices are counted on your contract before you model them.
Is Stripe Billing worth 0.7%?
Often yes, if the company actually uses what it includes. Stripe’s July 2024 notice lists usage-based billing, Smart Retries, quotes, recovery and retention automations, and multiphase subscription schedules as part of the plan. Rebuilding that in-house means engineering time, ongoing maintenance and the risk of billing errors.
A simple decision rule: compare the annual Billing fee with the fully loaded cost of the alternative. The alternative is either another billing platform’s contract plus migration work, or an internal team that builds and maintains proration, dunning, invoicing and revenue reporting.
Billing tends to be the right choice when:
- pricing changes often (new plans, usage tiers, seat-based upgrades);
- the finance team relies on Stripe’s revenue recovery tools and reporting;
- there is no engineering capacity to spare for a billing migration this year.
It deserves a hard look when:
- the annual fee has passed six figures and the contract is up for renewal;
- most revenue comes from a few hundred large annual contracts that rarely change;
- a separate billing platform, CPQ or ERP already does much of the same work.
How does Stripe Billing compare with Chargebee, Recurly and Maxio?
At $10M ARR and above, every major alternative quotes a custom price, so there is no fair list-price comparison at this scale. What each vendor publishes, checked on November 4, 2026:
| Vendor | Published entry pricing | Pricing at $10M+ ARR |
|---|---|---|
| Stripe Billing | 0.7% pay-as-you-go, or plans from $620 a month | Custom above $1M a month |
| Recurly | Starter: $249 a month + 0.9% of billing volume above the first $40K a month | All-Access: quote-based, $1M billing volume minimum |
| Maxio | Grow: $599 a month, up to $100K in monthly billings | Scale: quote-based above $100K a month |
| Chargebee | Entry Billing plan published on the pricing page | Enterprise: quote-based |
Sources: recurly.com/pricing, maxio.com/pricing, chargebee.com/pricing.
Three points matter more than the headline rate.
- Integration cost. Stripe Billing is built into Stripe Payments. A separate billing platform needs to connect to a payment gateway and to your accounting stack, which adds a contract and a migration.
- Processor flexibility. Standalone billing platforms are built to connect to payment gateways other than their own, which can make a later processor change simpler. Stripe Billing can work with other processors too, with limits covered below.
- Revenue recognition. Stripe charges for Revenue Recognition separately. Recurly and Chargebee sell revenue recognition as separate products as well. Compare the full bundle, not the billing line alone.
For a company already on Stripe Payments with no plans to change processors, Stripe Billing avoids a second vendor and a migration. A standalone platform can make sense for complex B2B contracts, or as part of a multi-processor strategy.
Can you negotiate the Stripe Billing fee?
Yes. Stripe states that custom pricing “is available for companies with large Billing volume or unique business models”, and its pricing page lists $1,000,000+ in monthly billing volume under custom pricing. Stripe doesn’t publish what a custom rate looks like.
What helps in that conversation:
- your trailing 12-month billing volume and growth forecast;
- which Billing features you actually use (usage billing, quotes, Smart Retries);
- a written quote from at least one alternative billing platform;
- timing: start 60 to 90 days before your contract or plan renews.
Review Billing and card processing together. As the next section shows, the card-processing line is usually far larger. The guide to negotiating Stripe fees covers what to bring and what to ask for.
Is the Billing fee your biggest Stripe cost?
Usually not. At 2.9% + 30¢, card processing on the same revenue costs roughly four times as much as Billing at pay-as-you-go rates.
| ARR | Stripe Billing (0.7%) | Card fees at 2.9% + 30¢ | Total | Billing share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $10M | $70,000 | $296,000 | $366,000 | 19% |
| $25M | $175,000 | $740,000 | $915,000 | 19% |
| $50M | $350,000 | $1,480,000 | $1,830,000 | 19% |
Assumptions. All revenue is collected by domestic card on Stripe’s standard rate, with a $500 average charge (20,000 charges a year per $10M). Card fees = 2.9% × volume + $0.30 × number of charges. International cards (+1.5%), currency conversion (+1%), ACH, disputes and taxes are left out. Real statements differ, which is why your own effective rate is the number to start from.
The takeaway: cutting the Billing fee by 10% at $25M ARR is worth about $17,500 a year. Lowering the effective card rate by a few tenths of a point on the same $25M is worth more. Both are worth reviewing, but the card line is where the larger dollars sit for most high-volume SaaS companies.
Can you keep Stripe Billing and use another processor?
Yes, Stripe supports it, with trade-offs. Stripe documents two methods: integrating your own processor through custom payment methods and payment records, or paying invoices on a third-party processor and marking them paid out of band (Stripe docs).
The documented limits include:
- you build and maintain the integration with the other processor;
- Stripe Checkout can’t be used for off-Stripe payments, and the hosted invoice page doesn’t support them;
- Smart Retries and revenue recovery emails don’t apply to off-Stripe payments (scheduled retries and automations do);
- refunds and disputes are handled on the other processor and reported back to Stripe.
And as noted above, the 0.7% Billing fee still applies to that volume. The decision is therefore about the card-processing rate, not the Billing fee. A move to interchange-plus pricing on card volume can make sense while Billing stays in place, but only if the card savings clearly outweigh the integration work. The guide to switching from Stripe explains how subscriptions and stored cards are handled in a move.
How do you check what Billing costs your company?
Start from the Billing fees on your own Stripe account, not a list price, then put them next to your card fees.
- In the Stripe Dashboard, find your Billing fees for the last 12 months, and confirm whether you are on pay-as-you-go, a pay-monthly plan or a custom rate.
- Pull 12 months of billing volume and compare the fee you paid with the table above.
- Add your card processing fees and calculate your total effective rate with the Stripe fee calculator.
- For a line-by-line view of what a different card pricing model would change, request a free savings analysis. It uses your own statements, and it gives your exact number.
Disclosure: 71P helps companies processing $10M+ a year move card processing to interchange-plus pricing through a licensed processing partner. It doesn’t sell billing software.
This is general information, not legal, tax or accounting advice. Prices change; check the linked Stripe and vendor pages for current terms.
Part of our guide to Stripe fees explained.