Short answer
A B2B SaaS company on standard Stripe pricing pays 2.9% + 30¢ per card payment, 0.7% for Stripe Billing on top, and surcharges on international cards. Business cards carry high interchange, so the flat rate rarely works in your favor at scale. The biggest levers: ACH for large invoices, a review of Billing costs, and interchange-plus pricing with Level 2 and 3 data on commercial cards.
Where the money goes: a $20M ARR example
Take a company with $20,000,000 in ARR, 60% of it paid by card, a $2,000 average invoice, 10% of card volume on international cards, and everything billed through Stripe Billing:
| Card payments at 2.9% + 30¢ on $12,000,000 | $349,800 |
|---|---|
| International cards (+1.5%) | $18,000 |
| ACH Direct Debit (0.8%, capped at $5) on $8,000,000 | $20,000 |
| Stripe Billing (0.7% of billing volume) | $140,000 |
| Total, 2.64% of ARR | $527,800 |
Stripe fees verified on against stripe.com/pricing. How we check
On card revenue alone, the card and international fees plus Billing's share come to about 3.77% of every dollar paid by card.
Large annual invoices
Annual contracts mean a few large payments rather than many small ones. The fixed 30¢ hardly matters, but the percentage does: a $60,000 annual invoice paid by card costs about $1,740 in Stripe fees, against $5 by ACH. Moving even a share of large invoices to ACH is often the single biggest saving available, and it doesn't require changing processors.
Commercial cards and Level 2/3 data
When businesses pay by card, they often use business, corporate or purchasing cards, which carry some of the highest interchange rates. On flat-rate pricing you don't see that cost, but you pay for it in the price. On interchange-plus pricing, sending Level 2 and 3 data with those payments can lower interchange on qualifying cards. See Level 2 and Level 3 card processing.
Stripe Billing costs
Billing runs subscriptions, invoices, proration and dunning. On pay-as-you-go it costs 0.7% of billing volume, including recurring charges processed outside Stripe; monthly plans start at $620 a month for up to $100,000 of billing volume. At $20,000,000 ARR that's $140,000 a year, on top of card fees.
That doesn't make Billing a bad choice: replacing it means engineering work and another vendor. But it belongs in the comparison, and it can be part of a custom pricing conversation with Stripe. See how to negotiate Stripe fees.
ACH vs card
- Make ACH the default on invoices above a threshold, for example $10,000, and on annual contracts.
- Keep cards available for customers whose policies require them, and for monthly self-serve plans.
- Check surcharge rules before passing card costs on: card network rules and some US states limit surcharging, and debit cards can't be surcharged.
- Watch failed payments. ACH returns take days to arrive, so build dunning for them too.
What to do first
- Work out your effective rate including Billing and international fees. The calculator gives a quick estimate.
- Move large invoices to ACH.
- Find out what share of your card volume is on commercial cards.
- Compare your all-in cost with interchange-plus pricing, with and without Level 2 and 3 data.
If your product also processes payments for your own customers, read payment costs for platforms and marketplaces.