Stripe vs PayPal vs Square: fees for small business websites, plus booking tools (2026)

The quick verdict

For online card payments on a small business website, Stripe is a simple, low-cost choice at 2.9% + 30c with no monthly fee. PayPal’s advanced card rate is a hair lower at 2.89% + 29c, but its standard card rate is 2.99% + 49c and its PayPal button costs 3.49% + 49c. Square’s Free plan charges 3.3% + 30c online, so Square makes most sense if you also sell in person or book appointments through Square.

None of the three charges a monthly fee for basic online card processing. All rates below are US rates from each company’s pricing page.

Fees side by side

Sources: Stripe pricing, PayPal merchant fees (page updated October 1, 2026) and Square pricing. A payment gateway is the service that takes the card details and moves the money; the percentage plus a fixed amount per sale are its transaction fees.

Worked example: 50 payments of $80 a month

Say you take 50 online card payments of $80 each month, for example deposits or classes. That is $4,000 a month and $144,000 over 3 years. Here is what each option costs, before any builder fees.

The math for Stripe: $80 x 2.9% = $2.32, plus 30c = $2.62 per payment. Times 50 is $131 a month, and times 36 months is $4,716. The other rows follow the same steps.

Square Plus brings the online rate down to 2.9% + 30c, the same $131 a month as Stripe, but it adds $49 a month. That’s $180 a month and $6,480 over 3 years, so Plus only pays off if you use its other features. Square lists Online API payments at 2.9% + 30c on all plans, so check which rate your website’s Square connection uses.

The gap between the cheapest and most expensive row is $1,224 over 3 years on the same sales. On small payments the fixed part matters more: 49c is a bigger share of a $20 sale than of an $80 one.

The fees beyond the headline rate

• International cards. Stripe adds 1.5%, plus 1% if currency conversion is needed. PayPal adds 1.50% for international commercial transactions.
• Typed-in cards. Stripe adds 0.5% for manually entered cards. Square’s keyed-in rate is 3.5% + 15c.
• Disputes. A chargeback costs $15 at Stripe and $20 at PayPal. Square charges no dispute management fee.
• Getting paid. Stripe usually schedules your first payout 7-14 days after your first live payment, then settles in 2 business days in the US; Instant Payouts cost 1.5% (50c minimum). Square’s next-business-day transfers are free for payments taken before 5 PM PT; instant and same-day transfers cost 1.95%. PayPal’s standard transfer to your bank is free when no currency conversion is involved; Instant Transfer is 1.75% (min $0.25, max $25), per its consumer fees page.

Using them with your website builder

Your builder decides which processors you can connect, and some add their own fee on top.

Shopify

Shopify supports more than 100 outside card providers. If you use one instead of Shopify Payments, Shopify adds its own fee on every payment: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow and 0.6% on Advanced, on top of the provider’s rates. With Shopify Payments as your main provider, PayPal transactions are exempt. In the worked example, a 2% Shopify fee on $4,000 a month is another $80 a month, or $2,880 over 3 years. See Shopify’s help center, and our Shopify vs WooCommerce comparison if you’re choosing a store platform.

Squarespace

Squarespace supports its own Squarespace Payments plus Stripe, Square, PayPal, Afterpay and Clearpay. Its Basic plan charges a 2% store transaction fee, which is $2,880 over 3 years in our example; Core and higher charge 0%. Squarespace lists card processing at 2.9% + 30c on Basic and Core.

Wix

Wix lists Wix Payments, PayPal, Stripe, Square and others for US sites. Wix doesn’t state Wix Payments’ US card rate or whether it adds a transaction fee on the provider page, so check your dashboard before you launch. Online payments start on the Core plan, at $29 a month billed yearly.

WordPress with WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a free plugin. WooPayments has no setup or monthly fee, and Woo says US card fees “start from just 2.9% + $0.30.” Stripe, PayPal and other gateway extensions charge the processor’s own fees.

Booking tools compared

If customers book appointments, you also need a scheduler. Four common choices:

Calendly offers an inline embed, a pop-up text link and a pop-up widget, with guides for Wix, Squarespace, Shopify, Webflow, WordPress and Google Sites. Calendly says feature access can vary by plan; if yours doesn’t support embeds, link to your scheduling page. Its Standard and Teams month-to-month prices weren’t shown on the pricing page we read.

Acuity, a Squarespace company, adds to a site as an embedded scheduler, a booking button or a booking bar. On Squarespace, use the Appointment scheduling block. Standard is $27 a month billed yearly ($34 monthly) for up to 6 calendars.

Google Calendar lets any personal Google account or Workspace Business Starter account create one booking page for free. Multiple schedules, email reminders and multi-calendar availability need a premium plan. Taking payments through a connected Stripe account needs Workspace Individual or higher, not Google One, per Google Calendar Help. You can share the booking link or embed the page on your site.

Square Appointments includes a free booking site, a Book Appointment button and embed code for sites built elsewhere. Square Online sites sync bookings automatically. Online bookings paid by card cost 2.9% + 30c on all plans.

3-year total for a small service business

Put it together for the worked example: a site, a booking tool and 50 card payments of $80 a month. Site totals use our usual baseline of 36 months of the plan, a domain ($36.96 if year one is included) and one Google Workspace inbox at $252.

WordPress: $3.99 x 36 = $143.64 (renews at $9.99) + $36.96 + $252 = $432.60. Squarespace Core: $29 x 36 = $1,044 + $36.96 + $252 = $1,332.96. Acuity Starter: $16 x 36 = $576. WooPayments fees “start from” 2.9% + 30c, so treat that row as the low end.

Over 3 years, the card fees are bigger than the website. Picking the cheapest rate that your customers are happy to use saves more than shopping for a cheaper plan.

Rules for taking card payments

This section is general information, not legal advice.

Card payments come with PCI DSS, the card industry’s security standard. The current version listed by the PCI Security Standards Council is v4.0.1. The simplest path for a small site is SAQ A, the short self-assessment for merchants that hand all card data to a PCI-compliant provider and never store, process or transmit card numbers on their own systems.

In January 2025 the Council removed the payment page script requirements (6.4.3 and 11.6.1) and requirement 12.3.1 from SAQ A, and added a requirement that the merchant confirm its site is not open to script-based attacks, per the PCI SSC blog. The point of SAQ A is that card numbers never touch your own systems, so don’t collect them in your own website form. The Council’s blog post doesn’t spell out which checkout setups qualify, so ask your processor which questionnaire applies to yours. Our US website laws guide covers privacy rules for the customer data you collect.

What you keep if you leave your builder

A Stripe, PayPal or Square account you open yourself is separate from your website builder. If you move your site, you reconnect the same account to the new one. A builder’s in-house processor, such as Shopify Payments, Squarespace Payments or Wix Payments, is set up inside that platform, so expect to set up payments again if you leave.

Booking tools work the same way: a Calendly or Acuity page can be embedded in any site. Before you choose a builder, check its exit score: self-hosted WordPress and WooCommerce 10/10, Squarespace and Shopify 5/10, Wix 3/10. Read leaving your website builder for what moves with you.

Who should pick which

• Stripe is right for most online-only businesses: one flat 2.9% + 30c rate, no monthly fee and wide builder support.
• PayPal is right when your customers expect a PayPal or Venmo button. Offer it alongside a card option, since its button costs more per sale.
• Square is right if you also take payments in person or want free appointment booking for one location in the same account.

What to do next

• Back to the full list of free website tools.
• Track bookings and purchases as key events in Google Analytics.
• Add your booking link to your Google Business Profile.