Contents8
- 01What a fee is made of
- 02PayPal: one rate per way of paying
- 03Shopify Payments, and the transaction fees of others
- 04The calculation on a real basket
- 05What the pricing page does not show
- 06How to choose without asking the wrong question
- 07Track fees like any other store number
- 08Frequently asked questions
On a payment provider’s statement, each line looks tiny: a few cents, a percentage with one decimal. Added up over a year of orders, they make a sum few teams actually know. And the rate shown in large type on the pricing page is almost never the rate paid.
This article is for teams selling online who want to know what they really pay to get paid. It reads the public price lists of three common players, Stripe, PayPal and Shopify Payments, as displayed on 19 October 2026 for a business based in France, without naming a winner: the right choice depends on your customers and your platform.
In short
A fee combines a percentage and a fixed part: on a small basket, the fixed part weighs the most.
The rate depends on the card (standard, premium, foreign) and the currency: conversion comes on top.
On Shopify, collecting through a provider other than Shopify Payments adds transaction fees, from 2% to 0.2% depending on the plan.
On a refund, the sale’s fee is not returned; a dispute costs fixed fees on top.
What a fee is made of
The price of a card payment reads in two parts: a percentage of the amount, and a fixed sum per transaction. Then come the variations. Here is Stripe’s price list for an account in France:
for a standard European Economic Area card
for a premium European Economic Area card
for an international card, plus 2% if currency conversion is required
per dispute received, returned only if you counter it manually and win
The same page states that Stripe charges no setup or monthly fee on standard pricing, and that the processing fees of the original transaction are not returned when you refund the customer.
PayPal: one rate per way of paying
PayPal France’s merchant fee schedule distinguishes several cases, with a fixed part of €0.35 for a payment in euros:
- 2.90% + €0.35 for commercial transactions that fall into no specific case, including the classic payment from a PayPal account.
- 1.20% + €0.35 for card payments processed with the advanced card offer, or paid by card without a PayPal account.
- +1.29% when the buyer pays from the United Kingdom, +1.99% from other markets outside the European Economic Area.
- 3.0% above the base exchange rate to convert a balance into another currency.
For a refund, the same page is explicit: no fee applies to the refund itself, but the fees originally paid to receive the payment are not returned.
Shopify Payments, and the transaction fees of others
On Shopify, the question works differently. The platform has its own payment service, Shopify Payments, whose rates vary by country and plan; its pricing page showed them in US dollars from our connection, from 2.9% + 30 cents on Basic to 2.25% + 30 cents on Plus. The rate that applies to your store is shown in your Shopify admin.
The key point lies elsewhere: if you collect through another provider, Shopify adds its own transaction fees, on top of the provider’s.
Shopify transaction fees when you collect through a third-party provider
Shopify’s help states that these fees apply to all transactions processed through third-party gateways, even when Shopify Payments is active, with one exception: if Shopify Payments is the primary provider, PayPal transactions are exempt. On a Basic plan, plugging in another card provider at 1.5% therefore means paying 3.5% plus the fixed part. This calculation is part of our Shopify or Medusa comparison, where payment weighs in the three-year cost.
The calculation on a real basket
The fixed part is the trap of small baskets. On Stripe’s price list for a standard European card, here is what the fees represent as a percentage of the amount paid:
Fees on a standard European card, by basket size
The same €40 basket, paid from a PayPal account at 2.90% + €0.35, costs €1.51 in fees, or 3.8%; by card at 1.20% + €0.35, it costs €0.83. A premium or foreign card, a currency conversion, and the gap widens further. One more reason to work on average order value, one of the five numbers to track every week: the fixed part shrinks as the basket grows.
What the pricing page does not show
Four items escape a comparison of rates:
Where payment fees grow without a sound
- Your actual cards
The share of premium and foreign cards among your customers, which only your statement knows.
- Refunds
The sale’s fee stays paid when the money goes back.
- Disputes
Fixed fees per chargeback, on top of the amount sometimes lost.
- Conversion
One more percentage on every payment in another currency.
The second ties into a broader subject: every return also costs its lost fee, one more item for the calculation in our article on the hidden cost of returns. The fourth is decided when you open a foreign market: showing prices in local currency reassures buyers, but someone pays for the conversion, as our article on the multilingual, multicurrency store explains.
From the field
Rebuilding the margin from the payment provider
On an online plush toy store we are putting back on its feet, the real margin was rebuilt from the payment provider’s programming interface: cost price, payment fees, margin per product. Gross margin comes out at 60.5%. The same work led to closing sales to the United States and Canada: €190 of revenue per year, against four combined compliance costs. A market opened without a calculation sometimes costs more than it brings in.
How to choose without asking the wrong question
The lowest rate is not always the cheapest, and the cheapest is not always the right choice. The criteria that really count:
What your customers expect
The payment methods they use (cards, wallets, PayPal, buy now pay later)
The countries and currencies they pay from
The trust the payment page inspires
What you pay and manage
The real rate on your cards, and the fixed part on your average basket
The platform’s transaction fees if the provider is a third party
The time spent on disputes, refunds and reconciliation
Offering several payment methods has a cost, but removing one that part of your customers prefers has one too: abandonment at the payment step, covered in our guide to abandoned cart reminders. Before adding another payment app, the calculation in our article on the cost of Shopify apps applies.
Track fees like any other store number
Once a month, divide total payment fees (commissions, disputes, conversions) by the revenue collected. That real percentage is the only one that compares from one provider to another. It belongs in the margin after acquisition, next to advertising: a Google Shopping campaign is judged on what remains once the payment is collected, as is a sale on a marketplace like Amazon, which takes its own commissions. The same logic of clean data applies to the feed sent to Google (see our Google Shopping and marketplaces guide) and to stock, described in our article on inventory sync.
Payment is the last step of a journey other articles detail: the product page that converts and customer reviews before, site search and store speed during, welcome, post-purchase and repeat-purchase emails after. Upstream, accurate product pages, even on a large catalogue, are prepared with our guide to enriching thousands of products with AI under control. The other decisions about a store are gathered in our ecommerce section.
If you want to know what your payments really cost, our ecommerce support starts with your statements: real rates, fixed part, refunds and disputes, set against your margin.
Frequently asked questions
What are Stripe’s fees in France?
According to its pricing page viewed on 19 October 2026, Stripe charges 1.5% + €0.25 for a standard European Economic Area card, 2.8% + €0.25 for a premium card, 2.5% + €0.25 for a UK card and 3.15% + €0.25 for an international card, plus 2% for conversion. A dispute received costs €20. These rates change: check the page before deciding.
Why does Shopify charge extra transaction fees?
Because you collect through a third-party provider rather than Shopify Payments. Shopify then adds its own transaction fees, from 2% on Basic to 0.2% on Plus according to its pricing page, on top of the provider’s. PayPal payments are exempt when Shopify Payments is the primary provider, according to Shopify’s help.
Do you get payment fees back when you refund a customer?
Generally not. Stripe and PayPal both state on their pricing pages that the fees paid on the original transaction are not returned on a refund, even though the refund itself costs nothing extra. Every return therefore also costs its fee: one more item to count in the cost of returns.
Should I offer PayPal on top of card payments?
It depends on your customers more than on the price list. PayPal often costs more per transaction than a standard European card, but some buyers prefer it or do not have their card at hand. Look at the share of PayPal payments in your orders and at abandonment at the payment step before adding or removing it.
Sources
- PayPal France, merchant fees, updated 15 July 2026 (new tab)paypal.com
- Shopify, pricing (new tab)shopify.com
- Shopify Help, third-party payment providers (new tab)help.shopify.com
Jim · founder of Brain Plus AI
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