Stripe vs Adyen: Costs Can Flip at $1M in Monthly Sales

At $1M in monthly US online card sales, Stripe’s standard US online card price is 2.9% plus $0.30 per successful domestic payment, while Adyen’s published card price includes a $0.13 processing fee, variable Interchange++ costs and a 0.60% acquirer component. For 10,000 hypothetical $100 orders, that makes Stripe’s bill $32,000. Adyen’s bill is $25,300 if interchange and scheme fees average an assumed 1.8% of sales, or $32,300 if they average 2.5%.

The cheaper processor changes with the card-cost assumption even though sales volume and order size stay identical. Average ticket size changes the weight of each fixed transaction fee, while card mix changes Adyen’s pass-through costs. The published schedules establish no universal $1M price break; a negotiated quote can change either side of the comparison.

What the published card prices cover

Stripe’s domestic online rate blends the underlying card costs into one percentage and adds a fixed charge for each successful payment. On a $25 order, its $0.30 fixed charge alone equals 1.2% of the sale; on a $250 order, it equals 0.12%. A merchant with the same monthly sales but more, smaller orders therefore pays a higher effective Stripe rate.

Adyen’s $0.13 is only its processing component. Adyen’s Interchange++ explanation separates interchange paid to the issuing bank, scheme fees paid to Visa or Mastercard, and the acquirer fee set by Adyen. It says the acquirer fee starts at 0.60% and depends on monthly card volume. The underlying interchange and scheme charges vary with factors including card level, issuing country, merchant segment and whether the payment is online.

That variation is visible in Visa’s US interchange schedule effective April 18, 2026: its basic ecommerce category lists exempt consumer debit at 1.65% plus $0.15, versus 0.05% plus $0.21 for regulated consumer debit. Those are issuer interchange entries, not complete Adyen prices. Scheme fees, Adyen’s charges and the merchant’s actual mix must still be accounted for.

Worked monthly costs across volumes and order sizes

The following are illustrative costs for successful domestic online card payments. Every order in a row has the stated average value. Stripe uses its published standard rate. Adyen uses the published $0.13 processing charge and a 0.60% acquirer fee, plus either 1.8% or 2.5% of sales as an assumed combined interchange-and-scheme cost. Those percentages are sensitivity cases, not measured card mixes or Adyen quotes.

The assumed pass-through percentage stays fixed within each case to isolate the effect of order size and volume. In a real card mix, fixed interchange or network charges can change that effective percentage when ticket size changes. The figures exclude international cards, currency conversion, disputes, refunds, optional products and any contract-specific minimum invoice.

$100,000 monthly sales; $25 average order; 4,000 payments: Stripe $4,100; Adyen $2,920 at 1.8% assumed pass-through costs or $3,620 at 2.5%.
$500,000; $100 average order; 5,000 payments: Stripe $16,000; Adyen $12,650 or $16,150.
$1M; $100 average order; 10,000 payments: Stripe $32,000; Adyen $25,300 or $32,300.
$1M; $250 average order; 4,000 payments: Stripe $30,200; Adyen $24,520 or $31,520.
$2 million; $100 average order; 20,000 payments: Stripe $64,000; Adyen $50,600 or $64,600.
$2 million; $250 average order; 8,000 payments: Stripe $60,400; Adyen $49,040 or $63,040.

The arithmetic is reproducible: multiply monthly sales by 2.9% and add $0.30 per payment for Stripe. For Adyen, multiply sales by the assumed pass-through percentage plus 0.60%, then add $0.13 per payment. Dividing either bill by sales gives its effective rate. At $1M and a $100 ticket, changing only the assumed card-cost blend moves Adyen from $6,700 cheaper than Stripe to $300 more expensive.

Where the comparison reverses

Under those published components, Adyen is cheaper when blended interchange and scheme costs are below 2.3% plus $0.17 divided by the average order value. The resulting boundary is 2.98% for a $25 order, 2.47% for a $100 order and about 2.37% for a $250 order. At the illustrative 2.5% pass-through cost, Adyen wins on the $25 orders, while Stripe wins on the $100 and $250 orders.

Volume alone cannot create a crossover while the transaction size, card mix and both fee schedules remain fixed. Doubling sales by doubling the number of identical payments doubles both bills and leaves their ranking unchanged. Volume can matter when it changes a merchant’s negotiated terms or its mix of customers and cards; neither effect is captured by treating $1M as an automatic pricing tier.

The card mix matters on both sides of a merchant’s decision, even when Stripe’s standard domestic rate stays fixed. Adyen’s pass-through bill reflects the actual cards presented, so a higher share of costly card categories can erase its advantage in one row of the table. A lower-cost mix can produce the opposite result without any change in sales volume.

International payments and custom quotes

International exposure requires a separate calculation. Stripe’s standard card schedule adds 1.5 percentage points for international cards and another 1 point when currency conversion is required. As a conditional example, if 10% of the $1M, $100-ticket merchant’s sales use international cards and every one of those payments needs conversion, those additions raise the illustrated $32,000 Stripe bill by $2,500. Applying the domestic Adyen assumptions to those same payments would conceal changes in interchange, scheme and conversion costs.

Published starting prices also differ from a written offer. Stripe lists custom pricing for businesses with large payment volumes, including volume discounts and interchange-plus terms, without specifying a universal qualifying volume. Adyen describes its listed fees as indicative and discloses a possible minimum invoice depending on industry or business model. A minimum may matter especially when monthly processing charges are low, while a revised acquirer percentage or Stripe discount can move the break-even point at larger volumes.

For a merchant choosing between offers, the meaningful comparison is the total charge on its expected transactions: payment count and average value, domestic and international card categories, conversion needs, and any minimum or optional charges. The worked figures show how far that total can move using published components alone; a contract price belongs in the same calculation only once its terms are known.