Glossary

Stripe Fee

A Stripe fee is an amount Stripe deducts from your balance in exchange for processing a payment or providing a service, recorded as its own balance transaction separate from the sale it relates to.

Also called: processing fee, stripe_fee, Stripe transaction fee, stripe_fx_fee, network_cost

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Definition

Stripe never sends you an invoice for its fees. It takes them out of your balance as it goes, which is why the deposit that reaches your bank is always smaller than the sales that produced it.

That netting is the reason fees matter for bookkeeping. Your customer paid the gross amount, so gross is the revenue you owe tax and reporting on. Your bank only ever sees the net. Every Stripe-to-QuickBooks workflow is, at bottom, an argument about where the difference gets recorded.

Stripe fees are not one thing. Some are tied to a specific charge and arrive with it. Others are service charges for products like Billing or Radar that show up on their own schedule with no sale attached. Some are not really Stripe’s fee at all but a network cost passed through, and some are tax that Stripe collects on its own fees and remits to a government. They all reduce your balance, and they do not all belong in the same place in your books.

Key points

+Fees are deducted from your Stripe balance directly, never billed separately.
+Each fee is its own balance transaction, which is what makes gross revenue recoverable from a net payout.
+Transactional fees attach to a specific charge. Non-transactional fees, like Radar or Billing, arrive on their own schedule.
+stripe_fx_fee is currency conversion, network_cost is a network charge passed through, and tax_fee is tax on Stripe’s fees rather than on your sale.
+Stripe no longer refunds transaction fees when you refund a customer, except in unusual cases.
+Rates vary by country, product, and payment method, so always check current pricing for your account rather than a remembered figure.

What Stripe charges, and how it is structured

Stripe’s published US standard pricing is 2.9% + 30¢ per successful card transaction, and the shape of that formula matters more than the number. The percentage scales with order value while the flat portion does not, so the effective rate on a 5.00 sale is far worse than on a 500.00 sale. Businesses with small average order values feel Stripe pricing very differently from businesses with large ones.

Surcharges stack on top of the base rate. Stripe lists an additional 1.5% for international cards, 1% for currency conversion, and 0.5% for manually entered cards. A single transaction can pick up several at once. ACH Direct Debit is priced differently again, at 0.8% capped at 5.00 USD, which is why moving large invoices to bank debit is a common cost lever.

Then there are charges that are not per-transaction at all. Stripe lists a 15.00 USD dispute received fee, Instant Payouts at 1.5% of volume with a 50¢ minimum, Radar at 0.05 USD per screened transaction or 10.00 USD per month, Billing at 0.7% of Billing volume pay-as-you-go, and Tax Complete at 90.00 USD per month on an annual contract. These are the fees that surprise people, because nothing on a sales report explains them.

Every figure above is US standard pricing as Stripe published it at the time of writing. Rates differ by country, by product, and by payment method, and negotiated pricing exists. Treat the structure as durable and the specific numbers as something to re-check against your own Stripe account.

The fee types you will actually see in a balance report

Open a Stripe balance report and the fees are not all labelled the same way, because they are genuinely different objects.

A transactional fee is the fee field on a charge, payment, or refund balance transaction. It belongs to that sale and arrives with it.

A stripe_fee balance transaction is a standalone charge for Stripe’s services. This is where Billing subscription charges, Radar screening, and other product fees land. There is no sale to attach them to.

A stripe_fx_fee is specifically Stripe’s currency conversion charge, applied when Stripe converts funds for payout. It behaves like any other fee, it just has its own name so you can identify what the deduction was for.

A network_cost is a fee a payment network charged Stripe, which Stripe passed on to you. It is uncommon, and it is genuinely a cost of the payment method rather than a Stripe markup.

A tax_fee is the one that misleads people most. It is tax, usually VAT or GST, that Stripe charges on its own fees in certain countries and remits itself. It is not sales tax you collected and it does not belong in your tax liability. It is part of what your payment processing cost you.

Why fees are an accounting problem and not just a cost

If you record only the net payout, your revenue is understated by exactly the fee total and your expenses are understated by the same amount. The profit line happens to come out right, which is precisely why the error survives for months before anyone catches it.

It matters for more than tidiness. Sales tax and VAT are owed on what the customer paid, not on what survived the processor. Revenue thresholds, both for tax registration and for lender or investor reporting, are measured gross. And a business that cannot see its processing cost as a line item cannot tell whether that cost is drifting.

The second problem is timing. Transactional fees arrive with their sale, but service fees do not. A monthly Billing charge or a batch of Radar screening fees lands on whatever day Stripe charges it, unattached to any customer. If you reconcile by matching fees to sales, those are the ones that will not match, and they are not errors.

How Acodei records Stripe fees in QuickBooks

Acodei creates a QuickBooks product called "Stripe Fees – Acodei" during onboarding and maps it to an account you pick. Every fee is assigned to that product, which is what avoids maintaining a separate product for each fee type. Where the fee then appears is configurable under Account Mapping, in Fee Management.

There are three placements, and which are available depends on your holding account. Fees can appear as a line item on the Sales Receipt, which is the default. They can appear as a line item on the Bank Deposit, which is only available on Undeposited Funds. Or they can be recorded as an Expense, which is available by default on a non-Undeposited-Funds asset account, and on Undeposited Funds only when Invoice Sync is enabled.

The sync mode changes the shape. In real-time sync, Acodei adds a fee line to each Sales Receipt, by default a negative line using the Stripe Fees product for the exact fee amount. In daily-summary mode, the day’s fees are summed into a single aggregated fee line on that day’s Deposit, netting gross sales down to the payout amount.

One rule never bends: Stripe fees are never added to invoices. Putting them there would make the invoice total disagree with the payment total, so fees are handled through Sales Receipts, Deposits, or Expenses instead. On a non-Undeposited-Funds account with Invoice Sync, recording fees as an Expense is the only option.

Fees are also routable by category. Following Stripe’s own balance-transaction taxonomy, Acodei splits fees into transactional, meaning the fee field on a charge, payment, or refund, and non-transactional, meaning standalone balance transactions such as stripe_fee, network_cost, application_fee, and fee-category adjustments. Each category can be routed independently, either onto the daily summary line items or into a separate Purchase, so transactional fees can net on the summary while Stripe service fees post as expenses. The default preserves the original combined-Purchase behavior.

A few specifics worth knowing. stripe_fx_fee and network_cost are both folded into the Stripe Fees total. tax_fee is recorded against the same fee account and should be marked non-taxable or Out of Scope in QuickBooks, so that tax Stripe collected on its own fees is not counted as sales tax you owe. Multi-currency fees are recorded in the payout currency. Fee credits post as positive lines that offset fee expense. A fee on a payout’s own balance transaction is recorded against the mapped fee product at payout time, and instant-payout fees are captured on the Daily Balance Summary.

Two operational notes. Non-transactional fees post on a Daily Balance Summary even if your charges sync in real time, so if a Radar or Billing fee seems missing, check the Data Feed for a daily summary entry on the date Stripe charged it. And changing your fee method does not rewrite history: existing transactions keep the old treatment until you resync them.

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Frequently asked questions

What is a Stripe fee?

It is an amount Stripe deducts from your balance for processing a payment or providing a service. Stripe does not bill you separately for fees, it nets them out as it goes, and each fee is recorded as its own balance transaction.

How much does Stripe charge?

Stripe’s published US standard rate is 2.9% + 30¢ per successful card transaction, with additional surcharges listed for international cards, currency conversion, and manually entered cards. Rates vary by country, product, and payment method, and products like Billing, Radar, and Tax are priced separately, so check current pricing for your own account.

What is the difference between stripe_fee and a transactional fee?

A transactional fee is the fee attached to a specific charge, payment, or refund and arrives with that sale. A stripe_fee balance transaction is a standalone service charge, such as a Billing or Radar fee, with no underlying sale to attach it to.

What is a tax_fee in Stripe?

It is tax, typically VAT or GST, that Stripe charges on its own fees in certain countries and remits itself. It is not sales tax you collected from a customer. It belongs in your processing cost, and in QuickBooks it should be marked non-taxable or Out of Scope so it is not counted as tax you owe.

Does Stripe refund its fee when I refund a customer?

Generally no. Stripe no longer refunds transaction fees, except in unusual cases or during promotional periods. A refunded sale therefore costs you the original processing fee even though the revenue is reversed.

Why do Stripe fees not appear on my invoices in QuickBooks?

Because they never should. Adding a Stripe fee to an invoice would make the invoice total disagree with the payment total. Acodei records fees on Sales Receipts, Bank Deposits, or as Expenses instead, depending on your holding account and whether Invoice Sync is enabled.

Where did my Radar or Billing fee go?

Non-transactional fees post on a Daily Balance Summary even when your charges sync in real time, because they are not tied to any single sale. Look in the Acodei Data Feed for a daily summary entry on the date Stripe charged the fee.

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