Shoutout to the freelancer who told me to check my Stripe fees manually

I was scrolling through my Stripe payouts last week and noticed something weird. Every transaction had a 30 cent fee plus 2.9%, but on a $5 payment I was getting charged almost $1. That math didn't add up. Turns out there's a hidden international fee of 1.5% that kicks in when a client uses a foreign card. I ended up losing about $80 over six months without realizing it. Has anyone else found surprise fees buried in their Stripe dashboard?

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1 Comment

brooke_murray51m ago

I actually saw a YouTube video about this exact thing last month. The creator was saying Stripe quietly adds that 1.5% cross-border fee when the card issuer is in a different country, even if the client is local. It's buried in the "international card" section of their pricing page, not the main dashboard. You'd think they'd flag it better when you set up your account, especially for people doing small transactions. Did you end up adjusting your prices to cover the difference?