Every number on this site is produced by the same function, applied in the order a real payment hits the fee stack. Nothing is averaged, estimated or scraped from a review site.
The order of operations
Fees are not all charged on the gross amount, which is why naive comparisons come out wrong. The card percentage and the cross-border surcharge are both taken from the gross. The currency markup is then applied to what is left. The payout fee comes last, off the converted balance. Applying the markup to the gross instead overstates the cost by a few tenths of a percent at typical rates — small, but wrong.
Where the rates come from
Each provider's public pricing page, listed on its fee card and linked directly. No affiliate dashboards, no partner rate sheets. Last verified 2026-10-25.
Which countries it covers
Your clients can pay from any country on the map. Where you live can be the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia or any eurozone country, because those are the regions where every provider publishes its full pricing; inside the EEA each provider charges one rate for the whole region, and that is how it is modelled. A client in a country whose currency is not modelled is assumed to pay in US dollars (euros if in Europe), the usual currency of an international invoice. A client in an EEA country outside the eurozone counts as a European card and pays in euros.
What this model does not do
- Negotiated or volume pricing. Above roughly $80k/month most processors will discount, and interchange-plus pricing changes the shape of the answer entirely.
- Chargeback, dispute and refund costs, which are per-event rather than per-payment.
- Monthly platform subscriptions, where a provider has one.
- Tax. A merchant of record charges more and handles your VAT and sales-tax filing; a processor does not. That is a real difference in value, not just in price, and the tables here only compare price.
Corrections
If a rate here is out of date, tell me and include the link. Fixes ship the same week and the verification date moves.