Braintree vs Stripe: Cost and Fees Calculator
Enter your volumes to compare estimated monthly costs and fees for Braintree and Stripe across the selling types both offer, using published US pricing.
Selling online (eCommerce)
Estimates combine processing fees and monthly subscriptions on the plans noted above. One-time hardware, setup, and add-ons are excluded. Rates are published or typical US pricing as of mid-2026 and may have changed.
How the Braintree vs Stripe calculator works, and how the two compare
Braintree is PayPal's developer-oriented payment gateway, offering card, wallet, and PayPal processing through one API. Braintree charges 2.59% + $0.49 per card transaction with no monthly fee, includes PayPal and Venmo acceptance, and offers interchange-plus pricing for qualifying volume. Stripe is a developer-focused online payments infrastructure company that also sells Terminal card readers for in-person sales. Stripe charges 2.9% + $0.30 for online card payments and 2.7% + $0.05 in person via Stripe Terminal (Reader M2 $59), with no monthly fee and volume discounts on request.
How they are similar: Where they overlap: both Braintree and Stripe cover selling online, which is what this calculator compares. They also share the same commercial model: both operate as flat-rate card processing with published per-transaction fees. Neither requires a monthly subscription on the plans compared here, so your cost scales purely with sales. In both cases the bill is driven by a percentage of each sale plus any fixed per-transaction fee, which is why your average transaction size changes the effective rate as much as the headline percentage does.
How they differ: Only Stripe offers in-person card readers, so that side of the business is not part of this comparison. Braintree is the way to get Stripe-style APIs with native PayPal and Venmo built in, and its lower percentage but higher $0.49 fixed fee favors larger order values. Stripe is built API-first: it has no storefront or POS software of its own, but offers unmatched flexibility, 135+ currencies, and dozens of payment methods for businesses that build their own checkout.
Assumptions used in this calculator
- Braintree is modeled on: 2.59% + $0.49 per transaction, PayPal and Venmo included, no monthly fee.
- Stripe is modeled on: 2.9% + $0.30 per online card payment, no monthly fee.
- Rates are published or typical US pricing as of mid-2026 and change often; quote-based providers are modeled at representative rates. Always confirm current pricing with the provider.
- One-time hardware, setup, add-on apps, keyed-in transactions, international cards, and chargeback fees are excluded from the monthly figures.