Small Business's Guide

Breaking Down Stripe's Cost

The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

How Much Do Stripe’s Fees Really Cost Your Small Business?

  • By: Lean Payments

Are you a small business owner struggling to get paid in a pandemic world?

In the good old pre-COVID days, small businesses were accustomed to invoicing their clients and getting paid by cheque. But all of that has changed due to the recent healthcare crisis. Many customers and suppliers are now moving to electronic wire transfers as their preferred contactless forms of payment. In response, popular small business invoicing systems such as WAVE Accounting and Freshbooks have implemented new payment models integrating payment methods such as Stripe.

 

The claim is that these payment methods get you paid faster and they are convenient to use:

► Businesses don't need to disclose any banking information to their customers.

► A standard check out process that accepts payments in any currency.

► Customers can pay their bills using debit or credit, thus improving their cash flow.

/img/118.png
Stripe’s Fees Are Slowly Eroding Your Bottom Line

For the small business owner seeking to get paid, Stripe's transaction fees come at a cost.

 

Every time a client pays their bill using Stripe, the small business holding the invoice is charged a 2.9% standard processing fee per transaction. That may not seem like a lot, but it really adds up over time. On average, the margin of profit for Canadian exporters is about 30%. A 2.9% processing fee for every transaction begins to add up quickly to thousands of dollars. That can erode a small business’s often-thin profit margin by approximately 10%.

 

Ironically, the more successful the business becomes and the more it invoices, the more that cost grows linearly over time. When dealing with international payments there are usually two fees:

► $2.9 Processing Fees:

Although a 2.9% fee on a $100 transaction may only be $2.90, when that transaction is rounded up to $50,000 or $100,000 the cost of getting paid quickly becomes very painful indeed. 

►  3% FX Conversion Rates:

If the customer is paying their bill using a foreign currency, Stripe also charges a 3% foreign currency exchange rate on top of its transaction fee. For a growing company doing business internationally these costs get very painful very fast.

 

There are alternatives for Stripe available to small businesses seeking to get paid electronically that are more affordable and equally easy to use.

Increase Your Profit Margins With A Stripe Alternative

Lean Payments is one Canadian-based alternative paperless payment solution that offers the same payment conveniences as Stripe, but at a fraction of the cost.

 

Unlike Stripe, Lean Payments:

► Allows small businesses to set up a virtual bank account that allows customers to pay international businesses in their domestic currency

► Uses a domestic bank transfer as if they were paying another local company in their jurisdiction

► Charges a simple flat fee per transaction rather than a percentage fee

 

Unlike Stripe's fees, Lean Payments offers Foreign Exchange Rates that are 50% lower than Stripe’s Rates, saving small businesses money on that level as well.

Our Pricing
/img/120.png

The pandemic has forever changed the way that small businesses pay and get paid. It is unlikely that we will ever return to the old ways of paper cheques and invoices. Electronic payments are the way of the future, but convenience should not come at such a hefty cost. At the end of the day, your small business should be the profitable one...not Stripe or Paypal.

Get Paid Faster With Lean Payments!