Short answer
The choice is a pricing-model decision first, a feature decision second.
Stripe usually wins on simplicity of the published rate, online/developer flexibility, and low or seasonal volume: standard US Payments has no monthly fee. Stax usually becomes interesting only after you can amortize at least $99/month and your interchange on the actual mix is low enough that Stax’s known fees undercut Stripe’s 2.9% + 30¢ (online) or 2.7% + 5¢ (Terminal).
The variable that changes the answer most is all-in cost at your volume and ticket size—not “which has more features.” Stax does not eliminate interchange. It says it adds 0% percentage markup on direct-cost interchange, then still bills a volume-tiered subscription and 8¢ (card-present) or 15¢ (card-not-present) per card. Stripe bundles interchange into its flat percentage.
A business processing $10,000 through 400 small invoices has different economics than one processing $10,000 through 20 large deposits. Stripe’s 30¢ online (or 5¢ in person) is a larger share of small tickets; Stax’s monthly fee is a larger share of thin months. There is no honest single break-even dollar amount without your interchange mix.
Pricing verified August 2026 from Stripe’s official pricing pages and Stax’s pricing page. Interchange is not a single percentage—it varies by card brand, card type, and how the payment is entered. Stax quotes can still differ from published tiers. BeltStack has not processed payments through either product or negotiated a Stax quote. Confirm your agreement.
Comparison summary
Published pay-as-you-go rate
Stripe
Stripe Standard has no monthly Payments fee; online is 2.9% + 30¢.
Subscription + interchange + cents
Stax
Stax starts at $99/month with 0% stated interchange markup plus 8¢/15¢.
Low or seasonal volume
Stripe
A fixed Stax subscription still posts when truck rolls drop; Stripe’s cost scales down with volume.
How Stripe and Stax charge—and why 2.9% + 30¢ is not the same kind of number
Stripe Standard Payments (US, August 2026): no setup or monthly fee on the published pay-as-you-go plan. Online domestic cards are 2.9% + 30¢ per successful charge; manually entered cards add 0.5% (3.4% + 30¢); international cards add 1.5%; currency conversion adds 1% when required. In-person Terminal is 2.7% + 5¢ for domestic cards (Tap to Pay adds $0.10 per authorization). ACH Direct Debit is 0.8% with a $5 cap. Disputes: $15 when a dispute is received; $15 if you counter manually (refunded if you win). Instant Payouts are 1.5% (50¢ minimum). Stripe Invoicing, if you use that product, adds 0.4% (Starter) or 0.5% (Plus) per paid invoice on top of Payments. Stripe Billing is either 0.7% of Billing volume (no recurring Billing fee) or a billed Billing plan starting at $620/month on a one-year contract.
Stax Pay (August 2026): a monthly subscription set by annual card volume—$99/month up to $150,000/year, $139/month from $150,000–$250,000, $199+/month above $250,000 (custom quote above that). Stax states 0% markup on direct-cost interchange. That is not “free processing.” You still pay interchange (which changes by card) plus Stax’s published cents: $0.08 card-present, $0.15 card-not-present. ACH is 1% capped at $10. Features listed as included with the subscription include invoicing, payment links, hosted pages, recurring billing, virtual terminal-style tools, APIs, next-business-day funding, and no batch fees. Optional: terminal protection $19/month; hardware quoted separately. Stax’s pricing page also describes a surcharge product (credit surcharge paid by the cardholder where eligible; merchant-paid debit surcharge listed at 1.25% + $0.25). Network assessments can still apply.
You cannot subtract 2.9% from “interchange + $99” and call a winner. Stripe’s percentage already includes interchange, Stripe’s markup, and the 30¢ (or 5¢). Stax’s monthly fee is independent of ticket size; interchange is not. Until you know interchange on your mix, you can only compute Stripe’s published cost and the Stax costs that are public (subscription + cents), then ask whether remaining interchange would still beat Stripe.
Quick decision guide
Which product fits your situation.
Choose Stripe if:
- Volume is low, lumpy, or highly seasonal and you do not want a $99–$199+ bill in slow months.
- You need custom checkout, Payment Links, Billing dunning, Connect/multi-party payouts, or many international methods on one developer platform.
- Most revenue is online or invoiced and you want a rate you can estimate from Stripe’s public table without waiting for a Stax quote.
- You will use Terminal or Tap to Pay to keep field collections on the same Stripe account as the website.
Choose Stax if:
- Annual card volume is high enough to sit in a published Stax tier (or a custom quote) and stays relatively even month to month.
- Finance wants interchange visible on the statement and a fixed subscription instead of a bundled 2.9% story—and will re-run the math when volume is reviewed (Stax says it reviews processing about every six months).
- You will consolidate card-present and invoice volume onto Stax so the monthly fee is not duplicated across a second processor.
- You have modeled January/February (or your slow season) with the subscription still on, not only peak-season savings.
Consider neither if:
- You want an integrated POS/hardware store and same-day reader setup—Square is usually the simpler field stack (see Stripe vs Square).
- You want interchange-plus with a disclosed processor markup and no Stax-style subscription—Helcim is the closer economic peer (see Helcim vs Stax and Stripe vs Helcim).
- Your cart is Shopify—Shopify Payments is the native rail unless you have a specific reason to leave it.
- You already have a merchant account and only need a gateway—Authorize.net (or similar) is a different architecture than either Stripe or Stax.
Feature comparison
Economics and capabilities that actually separate this pair.
| Question | Stripe | Stax |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Bundled % + ¢ (interchange inside the published rate). | Monthly subscription + interchange (Stax: 0% extra % markup) + 8¢/15¢. |
| Monthly platform fee (standard) | None on Stripe Standard Payments. | $99 / $139 / $199+ by annual volume; custom above high volume. |
| Online / CNP cards (US published) | 2.9% + 30¢; +0.5% if keyed (3.4% + 30¢). | Interchange + $0.15 per transaction. |
| Card-present | Terminal 2.7% + 5¢; Tap to Pay +$0.10 per authorization. | Interchange + $0.08 per transaction; compatible terminals (hardware quoted). |
| Best volume profile | Any volume; relatively better when volume is low or uneven. | Higher, steadier annual volume that can amortize the subscription. |
| Average ticket | 30¢ (online) or 5¢ (Terminal) is a bigger share of small tickets. | Monthly fee is ticket-agnostic; 8¢/15¢ is smaller than Stripe’s 30¢ on tiny invoices. |
| Invoicing / payment links | Payment Links at Payments rates; Stripe Invoicing product adds 0.4–0.5% per paid invoice. | Invoicing, payment links, Text2Pay, hosted pages listed as included with the subscription. |
| Recurring billing | Stripe Billing: 0.7% of Billing volume or from $620/mo (1-year contract). | Recurring billing listed as included with Stax Pay; Stax Bill is a separate billing platform. |
| ACH | 0.8% capped at $5 (ACH Direct Debit). | 1% capped at $10. |
| Developer / APIs | Payments, Checkout, Billing, Terminal, Connect—usually the deeper platform. | API keys and hosted pages included; not Stripe-class product breadth (Connect, Radar, global methods). |
| International / FX | Published +1.5% international cards; +1% conversion when required. | US-focused acquiring; confirm cross-border support on your quote. |
| Contracts | Standard Payments: pay-as-you-go. Billing annual plan has a 1-year contract. | Stax states no contracts and no cancellation fees; subscription can rise if volume exceeds the approved tier. |
| Disputes | $15 dispute received; $15 to counter (returned if you win). | Not listed as a dollar amount on Stax’s public pricing page—verify the merchant agreement. |
| Funding | Standard payout schedule at no extra fee; Instant Payouts 1.5% (50¢ min). | Next business day listed as included; same-day may be extra—confirm. |
| Biggest tradeoff | You pay a bundled percentage even when interchange is low; add-ons stack. | You pay the subscription even in slow months; interchange still varies and is not “0%.” |
Pricing comparison
What to expect to pay.
Stripe (US Standard, August 2026): estimate card cost as rate × volume + fixed fee × transaction count. Online domestic: 2.9% + 30¢. Keyed: 3.4% + 30¢. Terminal: 2.7% + 5¢. Add Billing (0.7% of Billing volume unless you are on a billed Billing plan), Invoicing product fees if used, Instant Payouts, and $15 per dispute received. There is no monthly Payments subscription on Standard.
Stax (August 2026): estimate as subscription for your annual-volume tier + interchange + $0.08 × card-present count + $0.15 × CNP count + ACH 1% (cap $10) if used. Stax’s “0% markup on direct-cost interchange” means they are not adding another percentage on top of interchange in the Stax Pay story—it does not mean interchange is 0%. Do not use a blog’s “average interchange” as your number. Debit/credit mix, rewards cards, and keyed vs dipped change interchange a lot.
Stax subscription floors by annual volume: $99/month at up to $150k/year (~$12,500/month average), $139 between $150k–$250k, $199+ above $250k. A shop at $25,000/month is already in the $199+ band on a 12-month run-rate. Stax says it reviews processing about every six months and can move you to a higher tier if volume exceeds the approved range—without charging back-dated catch-up for prior months.
Is Stax cheaper than Stripe?
Cost per booked job, not cost per raw lead.
Not automatically, and not at a fake universal break-even. Compute Stripe from published rates. For Stax, add the subscription and cents, then ask: is remaining interchange still less than the gap?
Implied interchange ceiling for Stax to cost less than that Stripe estimate = (Stripe estimated processing − Stax subscription − Stax cents) ÷ volume. If your real interchange is below that ceiling, Stax’s public fees would win that scenario. If interchange is higher, Stripe can still be cheaper. Network assessments, refunds, disputes, hardware, Instant Payouts, Billing/Invoicing add-ons, and surcharge programs are excluded unless you add them.
Hypothetical examples — not quotes (all CNP, $100 average ticket unless noted)
$10,000/month, 100 transactions, Stax $99 tier: Stripe ≈ 2.9% × $10,000 + 30¢ × 100 = $320. Stax known costs = $99 + 15¢ × 100 = $114. Interchange must stay under about $206 (≈2.06% of volume) for Stax to beat this Stripe estimate. Same $10,000 through 400 × $25 invoices: Stripe ≈ $410; Stax known = $99 + $60 = $159; ceiling ≈ 2.51%. Same $10,000 through 20 × $500 invoices: Stripe ≈ $296; Stax known = $102; ceiling ≈ 1.94%—high-ticket rewards/CNP interchange can blow through that. $50,000/month, 500 × $100, Stax at the $199 published floor (you may pay more): Stripe ≈ $1,600; Stax known = $199 + $75 = $274; ceiling ≈ 2.65%, so Stax is more likely to win if interchange is ordinary. Slow month at $2,000 volume with $99 still due: Stax subscription alone is 4.95% of volume before interchange or cents; Stripe’s 2.9% + 30¢ scales down with that month’s sales.
Pros and cons
Strengths and trade-offs.
Stripe
Pros
- Published US rates you can model without a sales call
- No monthly Payments fee on Standard—cost follows volume
- Checkout, Payment Links, Billing, Terminal, and Connect on one platform
- Dispute fee and Instant Payouts are published dollar/% amounts
Cons
- Bundled 2.9% (or 2.7%) can be more than interchange-plus at high, clean card-present volume
- Billing, Invoicing, and Instant Payouts add cost if you turn them on
- In-person is Terminal/Tap to Pay, not a Square-style hardware store
Stax
Pros
- Published subscription tiers and 8¢/15¢ make the non-interchange layer explicit
- Invoicing, links, recurring billing, and APIs listed in the subscription
- Stax states no long-term contract and no cancellation fees
- Can undercut Stripe when volume is high, tickets are not tiny-fee-dominated, and interchange is moderate
Cons
- Interchange is still paid and is not a single published %
- Subscription continues in slow months and can increase if annual volume jumps tiers
- $199+ is a floor above $250k/year—not a guaranteed rate
- Not a substitute for Stripe if software, Connect, or global methods are the product
Best for
Which tool fits your situation.
Contractor collecting in the field
Stripe Terminal (2.7% + 5¢) keeps field swipes on the same account as Payment Links. Stax card-present is interchange + 8¢ on compatible hardware. If crews already live in a Square app, neither is the path of least training—see Stripe vs Square. Choose Stripe here when the website and the truck must share customers and subscriptions. Choose Stax when field volume is large, steady, and you are willing to quote terminals separately.
Office invoices, keyed payments, and deposits
Stripe online/invoice cards are 2.9% + 30¢ (keyed 3.4% + 30¢). Stax CNP is interchange + 15¢. High-ticket deposits make Stripe’s 30¢ trivial and make interchange (rewards, commercial cards) the Stax swing factor. Lots of small invoice payments make Stripe’s 30¢ add up faster than Stax’s 15¢.
Recurring service agreements
Stripe Billing is a full subscription product (0.7% or a $620+/mo annual plan) with retries and customer portal. Stax Pay lists recurring billing as included; Stax Bill is a separate subscription-management product. If failed-renewal automation is the job, Stripe Billing is usually the deeper tool. If you only need simple card-on-file repeats on a high-volume merchant account, Stax’s included recurring tools may be enough—confirm in a demo, not from a feature name.
Multi-location or high monthly volume
Stax’s pitch is consolidating volume so one subscription covers the brand. That only works if you actually turn off the second processor. Stripe Custom (IC+ / volume discounts) exists for large volume too—do not assume Stax is the only way off 2.9%. Compare a written Stax quote to Stripe’s published Standard and, if you qualify, a Stripe custom conversation.
Seasonal trades (HVAC, landscaping, outdoor work)
A Stax subscription that looks cheap in August can dominate a thin February. Run the same math on your slowest months, not only peak truck-roll volume: $99 on $2,000 of card volume is already about 5% before interchange or cents. Stripe’s cost scales down with that month’s sales. Holds and reserves follow category and history on either brand—we do not underwrite accounts.
Who should not use either as the default
Square for simple field POS; Helcim if you want interchange-plus without a Stax subscription; Shopify Payments on Shopify; a bank merchant account plus gateway if that is already the constraint. Dual-railing Stripe Billing with Stax processing is not a normal architecture—pick one acquiring spine unless a payments engineer and your accountant design otherwise.
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