Methodology
Where the numbers come from, how they are computed, and what this site does not know.
Scope
The free calculator covers one case: a creator or freelancer based in the United States receiving a domestic payment in US dollars. Payers outside the US and currency conversion are a separate data set used by the Pro page.
Where each figure was read
Every figure was read on the provider's own page on 2026-10-06 by an automated page reader. The rule is strict: a number that could not be read on the provider's own page that day is not included. Nothing was taken from memory, search results or other sites. The whole pipeline is automated, and this site was built with AI assistance.
| Provider | What the default rate covers | Percentage | Fixed fee | Complete? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PayPal | Invoicing, paid with PayPal Checkout, Pay with Venmo or PayPal Guest Checkout | 3.49% | $0.49 | Yes |
| Stripe | Online card payment, domestic card, standard pricing | 2.9% | $0.30 | Yes |
| Wise Business | Receiving a domestic USD payment (non-Swift, non-wire, e.g. ACH) to Wise Business account details | 0% | $0.00 | Yes |
| Payoneer | Receiving from a client via a receiving account in your local currency (USD for a US account) | 0% | $0.00 | Yes |
| Gumroad | Sale through your profile or a direct link | 10% | $0.50 | Partial: no payment processing figure could be read |
| Patreon | Platform fee on what you earn on Patreon | 10% | $0.00 | Partial: processing, conversion and payout fees are stated without numbers |
| Lemon Squeezy | Sale through Lemon Squeezy (merchant of record), US buyer paying by card | 5% | $0.50 | Yes |
Source: Fees | Merchant and Business | PayPal US (www.paypal.com), fees last verified 2026-10-06
Source: Pricing & Fees (stripe.com), fees last verified 2026-10-06
Source: Fees for Getting Paid & Adding Money - Wise Business Account (wise.com), fees last verified 2026-10-06
Source: Pricing | Payoneer (www.payoneer.com), fees last verified 2026-10-06
Source: Pricing (gumroad.com), fees last verified 2026-10-06
Source: Patreon Pricing Plans — Patreon (www.patreon.com), fees last verified 2026-10-06
Source: Pricing • Lemon Squeezy (www.lemonsqueezy.com), fees last verified 2026-10-06
Source: Fees • Lemon Squeezy (docs.lemonsqueezy.com), fees last verified 2026-10-06
The formula
- Fee = amount × percentage, rounded to the nearest cent (a half cent rounds up), plus the fixed fee.
- Where the provider publishes a minimum fee, the fee is raised to it. Where it publishes a cap, the fee is lowered to it. The fee is never more than the amount.
- You keep = amount − fee.
- Effective % = fee ÷ amount, rounded to two decimals.
- What to charge to keep a target: the smallest amount, to the cent, that leaves at least the target after the fee. Charging one cent less would leave you short.
All arithmetic is done in whole cents, so results do not depend on floating-point rounding. A provider may round a fee differently, which can move a result by one cent.
How the arithmetic is checked
An automated test script, kept with the site's source files, recomputes every fee from the published percentage and fixed fee with a separate implementation, checks that "what to charge" and "what you keep" agree within one cent, and compares every row of the worked-example tables on this site with the calculator's own output. The script checks the arithmetic, not whether a provider has changed its fees since the verified date.
Partial figures
- Patreon: the pricing page states the 10% platform fee "plus payment processing, currency conversion, and payout fees, and applicable taxes". The rates are in Patreon's Help Center, which refused automated reading (HTTP 403). Only the 10% is used, so results understate what Patreon deducts.
- Gumroad: the pricing page states 10% + 0.50 US dollars per direct sale and 30% per Discover sale. No payment processing figure and no payout fee could be read on a Gumroad page, so the real deduction may be higher.
- Stripe: no fee for a standard, non-instant payout was read on the pricing page. It is not recorded as zero.
- Wise Business: the fee to send US dollars out to a US bank is published only as a starting percentage that varies by currency, so no payout fee is recorded.
- Payoneer: rates for card and PayPal payers are published as "up to", so they are ceilings. Payments from marketplaces are listed as varying by marketplace, with no number.
Providers left out
Upwork, Fiverr and Ko-fi are not in the data. On 2026-10-06 the automated reader tried five official pages of each, including fee help articles, pricing pages and legal terms. Upwork and Fiverr answered HTTP 403 on all five; Ko-fi answered HTTP 403 on four and HTTP 404 on one. No figure for them was taken from anywhere else. The Upwork vs Fiverr page and the Gumroad vs Patreon vs Ko-fi page offer a calculator for the rate shown on your own account instead.
What the comparison does not include
- Taxes of any kind, including sales tax and income tax.
- Chargebacks, disputes, refunds and monthly subscription products.
- Custom or negotiated pricing.
- Fees your client's bank may charge to send a transfer.
Updates
Each table shows the date its figures were last verified. A figure is only as current as that date.