Payment fees are one of the few costs every online store pays on every single order, and the headline rates don’t tell the whole story. A 20p fixed fee matters a lot more on a £10 order than a £200 one, and cards from outside the UK can cost twice as much to process.
Use the calculator below to compare what Stripe, Square, PayPal, SumUp and Shopify Payments would actually cost your business, based on your own order size and customer mix.
UK payment fee calculator
Enter your typical order and where your customers pay from. We’ll show what each provider would take, cheapest first.
| Provider | Fee per order | Effective rate | Per month | Per year |
|---|
Rates checked October 2026 for UK-registered businesses on standard, pay-as-you-go online pricing. Providers change their pricing, so always confirm on their official pricing page before signing up.
Not included: Shopify’s monthly plan cost, currency conversion fees (Stripe and PayPal charge extra if they convert currency for you), chargebacks, Amex and premium/commercial cards (Stripe charges 1.9% + 20p on premium UK cards), and negotiated volume pricing.
SumUp’s 2.5% online rate is on its free plan; its £19/month SumUp One plan lowers this. Shopify Payments’ rate for non-UK cards is our estimate (plan rate + 2%).
How we worked out these numbers
Each provider charges a percentage of the order plus, for most, a fixed fee per transaction. We apply each provider’s published UK online rate to your average order, weighted by where your customers’ cards are issued (UK, EU/EEA or the rest of the world), then multiply by your monthly order count.
Rates are the standard pay-as-you-go prices published for UK-registered businesses. If you process a high volume, most providers will negotiate lower custom pricing, so treat these figures as a starting point. For the full picture, including payout speed, chargeback fees and integrations, see our payment gateway reviews and our guide to the hidden fees merchants miss.