Stripe vs GoCardless: Cost and Fees Calculator
Enter your volumes to compare estimated monthly costs and fees for Stripe and GoCardless 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 Stripe vs GoCardless calculator works, and how the two compare
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. GoCardless is a bank-payment specialist that collects via ACH debit instead of cards, built for recurring billing. GoCardless charges 1% + $0.25 per ACH transaction capped at $2.50 on its standard US plan with no monthly fee, which is dramatically cheaper than cards for larger recurring payments.
How they are similar: Where they overlap: both Stripe and GoCardless cover selling online, which is what this calculator compares. 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. Stripe operates as flat-rate card processing with published per-transaction fees, while GoCardless operates as bank-payment (ACH) processing rather than card processing. 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. GoCardless does not process cards at all: it is bank-to-bank debit, ideal for subscriptions and invoices where a $2.50 cap beats an uncapped 2.9% card fee.
Assumptions used in this calculator
- Stripe is modeled on: 2.9% + $0.30 per online card payment, no monthly fee.
- GoCardless is modeled on: ACH bank debit only: 1% + $0.25 capped at $2.50 per transaction, 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.