PayPal vs Stripe Fees: Which Costs Creators and Sellers Less

For US sellers, Stripe's 2.9% + $0.30 and PayPal's Goods and Services rate of 2.99% cross at $333. Below that, PayPal is cheaper because it carries no fixed fee on that line; above it, Stripe is cheaper because its percentage is lower. But almost nobody is comparing those two rates in practice. If you take payment through a PayPal Checkout button or send PayPal invoices, you are paying 3.49% + $0.49, and Stripe is cheaper at every amount, by $0.78 on $100 and $6.09 on $1,000. The bigger gap is currency: PayPal's conversion spread is 4%, Stripe's is 1%.

Fee comparisons usually get written as a single number against a single number, which is how sellers end up surprised. Both processors publish several rates, and which one applies to you depends on how the buyer paid rather than on which logo is on the checkout page. Here is the honest version, with the arithmetic worked out.

PayPal and Stripe fees side by side

US domestic rates, as published by each company in September 2026.

Where the crossover actually falls

The only genuinely close comparison is Stripe's 2.9% + $0.30 against PayPal's 2.99% Goods and Services rate. Stripe's percentage is 0.09 points lower but it charges thirty cents that PayPal does not, so PayPal wins on small payments and Stripe wins on large ones. Set them equal and the crossover is $333.33.

Notice how small those differences are, and how much larger the third column is. Choosing between PayPal and Stripe on the headline rate is worth about $0.60 on a $1,000 payment. Choosing between a PayPal invoice and a plain Goods and Services transfer is worth $5.49 on the same payment. The decision that actually moves money is how you take payment, not whose processor you take it through. Our PayPal fee calculator shows what each of those paths costs on a specific amount.

The fees that are not in the headline

Three costs sit outside the advertised rate, and they are where the two diverge properly.

Currency conversion. PayPal applies a 4% spread to most conversions. Stripe charges 1%. If you bill international clients in their currency, that three point gap dwarfs everything in the tables above. On $30,000 of converted revenue in a year it is $900. Billing in USD avoids it on both platforms, so the practical advice is the same either way: quote in dollars unless the client genuinely requires otherwise.

Cashing out. Both charge to move money quickly and neither charges to move it slowly. Stripe's instant payout is 1.5% with a $0.50 minimum. PayPal's Instant Transfer is 1.75% on a personal account with a $25.00 maximum fee, or 1.50% on a business account with no maximum at all. That last detail catches people: because only the personal rate is capped, a business account cashing out $5,000 instantly pays $75 where a personal account would pay $25. If you cash out large balances on demand, that is a real annual number, and waiting the standard 1 to 3 business days costs nothing.

Disputes. Stripe publishes a flat $15 dispute fee and refunds it if you win. PayPal's dispute charge varies by account and by whether you are in its seller protection programs, which makes it harder to budget for. Neither is a reason to pick a processor on its own, but if you sell in a category that attracts chargebacks, the predictable number is worth something.

Which one should a creator or seller pick?

Pick Stripe if you sell through your own site or a platform that already integrates it, your typical transaction is over about $300, or you take meaningful revenue in other currencies. The ACH rate of 0.8% capped at $5 is also worth knowing about: on a $2,000 invoice, bank debit costs $5 where a card costs $58. For recurring subscriptions and larger B2B invoices, that difference compounds fast.

Pick PayPal if your buyers expect it, which is not a small consideration when a familiar checkout button measurably reduces abandoned carts. It also wins on genuinely small sales through micropayments at 4.99% + $0.09, which beats the standard 2.99% + $0.49 rate on anything under $20. On a $3 sale that is $0.24 against $0.58. If you sell stickers, presets, single tracks or small digital downloads, apply for it.

Most people end up with both, and that is a reasonable outcome rather than a failure to decide. Your storefront takes Stripe, a handful of clients insist on PayPal, and a marketplace pays you through whatever it uses. The cost of running both is zero, since neither charges a monthly fee on a standard account.

The part that costs more than the fee difference

Running two processors means two payout schedules, two fee structures, and two sets of statements that do not agree with your bank feed. Stripe pays out on a rolling basis, PayPal sits as a balance until you move it, and both deposit net while reporting gross. That last point is the expensive one. Both issue a Form 1099-K on your gross, which for 2026 requires exceeding both $20,000 and 200 transactions after the threshold reverted under the law signed on July 4, 2025. Income is taxable whether or not a form arrives, and if you built your books from bank deposits you understated your receipts by exactly the fee total and lost a deduction you were entitled to.

Reconstructing that in April is the part that actually costs money, in accountant hours if not in fees. The fix is to record gross, fee and net at the moment each payout lands rather than at year end. Sellers who work from downloaded statements usually start by getting them into a spreadsheet, and if your deposits only exist as monthly PDFs it is worth being able to turn a PDF bank statement into a clean spreadsheet before you try to match anything against a processor report.

The version that does not require an evening is an income tracker that reads both processors and lines them up on one board. Earnly pulls PayPal, Stripe and ten other sources into a single view with gross, fees and take-home per payout, so the fee comparison you just read stops being an estimate and becomes your actual numbers. Our platform fees calculator runs the same breakdown across every source at once, and the payout calendar shows when each one pays.

The short answer

On headline rates the two are close enough that it rarely decides anything: Stripe is cheaper above $333 against PayPal's Goods and Services rate, and cheaper at every amount against PayPal Checkout. Where they genuinely differ is currency conversion, at 1% against 4%, and bank debit, where Stripe's 0.8% capped at $5 has no PayPal equivalent. Where PayPal genuinely wins is buyer familiarity and micropayments under $20. Pick on those, not on the third decimal place, and then track what each one actually took.

Rates above reflect each company's published US schedules as of September 2026 and are estimates for comparison, not quotes. Both change their fees from time to time and rates differ outside the US, so confirm the current figures against your own account before you decide. Earnly is not a tax or accounting advisor and this is not tax advice.