Payment Gateway Fees: Complete Cost Breakdown (2026)

How we compare pricing on this page

Before any table, here is exactly what this comparison covers and how it was built:

• Scope: published self-serve pricing for online card acceptance by payment gateways serving cross-border merchants. Enterprise or negotiated pricing is excluded — every provider on this page (including HaiPay) adjusts rates by volume, industry and risk profile.
• Fees included: per-transaction rate (percentage + fixed), international card surcharge, currency conversion, dispute fee, setup and monthly fees.
• Ordering: providers are listed alphabetically after HaiPay. This is not a ranking — pick the structure that fits your payment mix, not the smallest headline number.
• Data date: competitor figures were taken from each provider's public pricing page on July 29, 2026 (Authorize.net on August 6, 2026). Pricing changes; always confirm on the linked source.
• Sources: every number links to the exact public page it came from. Nothing is quoted from third-party roundups.

Published pricing compared: HaiPay, Adyen, Airwallex, Authorize.net, PayPal, Stripe

Four things stand out from the published numbers:

1. Headline rates cluster tightly (2.5%–3.49%), so the real cost difference comes from the surcharges: international cards, FX, disputes and refunds.
2. Two providers don't publish a dispute fee at all. If a fee isn't published, don't assume it's zero — ask for it in writing before you sign.
3. The only monthly fee in the table belongs to the pure-gateway archetype. Authorize.net's $25/month reflects a gateway priced as software; bundled providers moved that cost into the percentage. Neither is free — they are the same cost wearing different clothes.
4. Interchange++ providers look cheap and vague at the same time. Adyen's $0.13 + interchange + 0.60% can beat blended pricing at volume, but you can't predict your invoice without knowing your card mix.

Gateway fees vs processing fees — they are not the same thing

Two different services hide behind "payment gateway fees", and providers bundle them differently:

• Gateway fees pay for the technology layer — passing the transaction request, running 3DS authentication, tokenizing cards. Pure-gateway providers price this separately: Authorize.net's gateway-only plan charges 10¢ per transaction plus a 10¢ daily batch fee on a $25 monthly fee, with your merchant account priced elsewhere (source, accessed 2026-08-06).
• Processing fees pay for moving the money — acquiring, card network interchange, settlement. This is the percentage that dominates your invoice.

Gateway-only plans price the technology layer separately; blended providers fold both layers into one rate.

Bundled providers (HaiPay, Stripe, PayPal, Airwallex) quote one blended number covering both. When you compare a bundled rate against a gateway-only rate, you are not comparing like with like — add the merchant account cost first.

Every fee a payment gateway can charge you

• Transaction fee — the percentage + fixed fee on every successful charge. This is the headline number, and the least likely place for surprises.
• International card fee — an added percentage when the cardholder's bank is in another country. For cross-border merchants this applies to most volume, which is why a low domestic headline rate can mislead.
• Currency conversion / FX fee — charged when the payment currency differs from your settlement currency. HaiPay's outbound FX fee runs from 1% to 2.5% depending on the market, confirmed in your quote.
• Refund fee — HaiPay charges US$0.30 per merchant-initiated refund. Some providers return the original processing fee on refund; most do not. Ask specifically.
• Dispute / chargeback fee — charged per dispute regardless of outcome in most cases ($15 at Stripe, $20 at PayPal). Fees for HaiPay disputes are confirmed in your quote.
• Settlement transfer fee — HaiPay charges US$15 per USD settlement transfer. Equivalents elsewhere are often labelled "payout fee".
• Setup, monthly and minimums — HaiPay charges no setup fee and no monthly fee; IC++ pricing carries a minimum monthly processing volume of US$1,000, which is a volume requirement rather than a charge. Adyen applies a minimum invoice by industry.
• Local payment method fees — alternative methods are usually priced per method and market. HaiPay's local payment methods start from 0.8%, priced by market and confirmed in your quote.
• 3DS authentication fees — some gateways bill each 3D Secure authentication separately. Bundled pricing usually absorbs this; itemized gateway plans may not. Ask.
• Network tokenization and account updater fees — keeping stored cards current can be a per-event charge (Authorize.net bills its Account Updater at $0.25 per update). For subscription businesses this line item scales with your customer base.

Blended vs Interchange++ pricing: which model costs less

Blended rolls eligible costs into one quoted rate — predictable invoices, simple reconciliation. Interchange++ itemizes three components: the card network's interchange, the scheme fee, and the provider's processing margin — full transparency, variable invoices.

An illustrative US$100 card payment under HaiPay IC++:

Illustrative rates from HaiPay's published IC++ example; actual interchange varies by card type and region.

Rules of thumb from the way interchange actually behaves:

• High average order value + mostly domestic consumer debit → IC++ usually wins, because true interchange runs below the blended assumption.
• Mixed international cards, commercial cards, small tickets → blended usually wins, because the fixed fee and high-interchange cards are already averaged in.
• You can't evaluate IC++ without your card mix. Ask any provider quoting IC++ to model your actual last three months of volume.

The hidden costs that don't appear on pricing pages

• FX spread vs FX fee — a "0% conversion fee" applied to an unfavourable exchange rate costs more than a visible 1% fee on the interbank rate. Ask which reference rate is used, and ask for it in writing. Your HaiPay quote states the FX reference bank that applies to your market — Maybank for Malaysia and DBS for Singapore, for example.
• Local taxes inside the rate — in several Asian markets, a local service tax applies to processing services. HaiPay's quoted local-method rates are inclusive of the applicable local service tax, so the rate in your quote is the rate you pay — providers that quote pre-tax rates look cheaper than they are. Ask any provider whether its quoted rate is inclusive or exclusive of local tax.
• Refunds that keep the original fee — on a 2.9% + $0.30 plan where fees aren't returned, a refunded $100 sale still costs you $3.20.
• Dispute fees on won disputes — most providers charge the fee even when you win. Multiply your monthly dispute count before dismissing a $15–$20 line item.
• PCI compliance fees — some providers bill monthly or annually for PCI-DSS program compliance, or charge a non-compliance penalty. Bundled providers typically absorb it; itemized plans may not.
• Termination fees — early-exit penalties still exist in contract-based plans. Authorize.net advertises no termination fees; assume nothing, read the clause.
• Minimum invoices and dormancy clauses — common with enterprise-oriented providers; confirm thresholds in writing.

When the money actually arrives

Fees are half the cost question; settlement timing is the other half. HaiPay settles international card payments in T+5 (calendar days) — note calendar days, not the business-days convention most of the industry quotes, so weekends count toward the clock instead of pausing it. Local payment methods settle faster in several markets — as fast as T+1 (calendar days) in Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, India, Brazil, Mexico (SPEI) and Bangladesh. Your actual settlement timeline is confirmed in your quote and depends on your contracting entity, processing volume and transaction quality.

Settlement transfers in USD carry the US$15 per-transfer fee noted above, with support for 140+ settlement currencies.

What $1,000 in sales actually costs, provider by provider

The headline rates only become comparable when you run the same volume through each. Illustrative month: $1,000 in domestic card sales as 50 transactions of $20 — the small-ticket, high-frequency profile typical of digital goods, games and subscriptions. Published domestic rates only; surcharges, FX and disputes excluded.

Fifty $20 transactions at published domestic rates. Fixed fees and monthly fees dominate at small ticket sizes.

Two lessons fall straight out of the arithmetic:

• On $20 tickets, the fixed fee is the battleground. A $0.30 fixed fee is 1.5% of a $20 sale — nearly as large as the gap between any two percentage rates. Small-ticket businesses should negotiate the fixed fee first.
• Monthly fees are brutal at low volume. The same $25/month that disappears at $50,000 of volume adds 2.5 points at $1,000. Match the fee structure to your scale, not to the brand.

How to calculate what a gateway really costs you

Work through these five steps with your own numbers before comparing providers:

1. Split your volume into domestic cards / international cards / local payment methods. Apply each provider's rate to each bucket — never the headline rate to the total.
2. Apply FX to the share of volume settled in a different currency, using the provider's stated reference rate plus fee.
3. Add operational events: (monthly refunds × refund fee) + (monthly disputes × dispute fee) + (settlement transfers × transfer fee).
4. Divide total monthly cost by monthly volume — this effective rate is the only number worth comparing across providers.
5. Stress-test the quote: ask what happens to the rate if your volume halves, your dispute rate doubles, or you add a new market. The answers reveal more than the pricing page does.

For a deeper breakdown of how acquiring costs behave across borders, see our guide to cross-border acquiring fees and the merchant acquiring guide.