"Crypto is cheaper than cards" is true in a narrow sense and misleading in a broad one. The per-transaction fee really can be zero. But cards come with conveniences you would otherwise pay for, and crypto brings costs that do not show up on a processor statement. This article puts real, published numbers side by side so you can judge for your own store.
How much do card payments cost a merchant?
These are the standard published US rates as of September 2026. Many merchants negotiate lower rates at volume, and pricing outside the US differs, so check your own contract.
| Fee | Stripe (standard US pricing) | PayPal (US merchant fees) |
|---|---|---|
| Domestic card payment | 2.9% + 30¢ | 2.99% + 49¢ (standard card payments) |
| Wallet checkout | n/a | 3.49% + 49¢ (PayPal Checkout) |
| International card surcharge | +1.5% | Varies by market |
| Currency conversion | +1% when required | Varies |
| Dispute / chargeback | $15 per dispute, plus $15 if you counter it (refunded if you win) | $20 per chargeback on card payments made outside a PayPal account |
Stripe also lists stablecoin payments at 1.5% of the transaction amount, which includes conversion to fiat. That is a middle option worth knowing about: cheaper than cards, more expensive than receiving stablecoins directly, but with automatic settlement in your bank currency.
What does that look like on real orders?
Here are the merchant-side fees for three order sizes, using the standard rates above:
| Order | Stripe, domestic card | Stripe, international card | PayPal Checkout | Crypto via self-hosted gateway |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $25 | $1.03 | $1.40 | $1.36 | $0 |
| $100 | $3.20 | $4.70 | $3.98 | $0 |
| $500 | $14.80 | $22.30 | $17.94 | $0 |
The international column assumes no currency conversion; add another 1% if Stripe has to convert. The crypto column is the merchant's per-payment fee with a self-hosted tool such as Payfim. The customer still pays a network fee to send the payment, which depends on the coin and network conditions rather than on your order size.
Over a year, the gap adds up. A store taking 1,000 domestic card orders of $100 pays about $3,200 in standard Stripe fees. If a tenth of those customers switched to crypto, the store would save roughly $320 a year in card fees, minus whatever it spends converting crypto to cash.
What does accepting crypto actually cost?
Being fair means listing the crypto side too:
- Software. A one-time license. With Payfim that is $10 to $29 per platform (WooCommerce is $20, WHMCS $15), or $99 for every module, with 12 months of updates included and an optional renewal after that. See pricing.
- Hosting. The gateway runs on ordinary PHP hosting, often the plan you already have.
- Moving funds. When you send coins onward, you pay that network's fee. On TRON it is paid in TRX; on Ethereum in ETH; on Bitcoin it depends on how busy the network is.
- Converting to cash. If you need dollars or euros, an exchange will charge trading or withdrawal fees and may apply its own verification. Compare a few before you pick one.
- Price exposure. Holding Bitcoin or Ethereum between payment and conversion means your revenue moves with the market. Stablecoins like USDT and USDC largely remove this.
- Your time. Someone has to install the gateway, look after the server and reconcile wallet balances with orders. It is not much, but it is not zero.
Hosted crypto processors sit in between: they typically charge a percentage per payment but handle conversion and payouts. Our comparison pages for Coinbase Commerce, BitPay and NOWPayments compare their pricing and settlement models, with sources.
What does the customer pay in network fees?
Card fees are invisible to the shopper; crypto network fees are not. When a customer pays in crypto, their wallet shows the network fee before they confirm, and it comes out of their balance, not your revenue. How big it is depends on the network they use:
- Bitcoin: set by demand for block space. On September 28, 2026, mempool.space was recommending low single-digit fee rates in satoshis per virtual byte, which is cheap, but busy periods can raise it sharply.
- USDT on TRON: paid in TRX through TRON's Energy and Bandwidth system; TRON's documentation lists 100 sun per unit of Energy when TRX is burned, as of September 2026. Customers who stake TRX for Energy pay less.
- Ethereum tokens (USDT ERC20, USDC): paid in ETH as gas, and usually the most expensive of the three for a simple token transfer.
This matters for small orders. A customer buying a $5 item will not want to spend a meaningful share of that on gas, so for low-value products, lead with networks that are cheap to use, such as TRON, Litecoin or Solana. For large orders the network fee is a rounding error.
Which costs are fixed and which grow with sales?
The structure of each option matters as much as today's number. Card fees are almost entirely variable: every extra sale adds a percentage plus a fixed amount, and every dispute adds a flat fee. A hosted crypto processor is similar, usually with a lower percentage. A self-hosted gateway flips this: the license is a fixed, one-time cost, and your variable cost is limited to what you spend moving and converting funds, which you control by choosing when and how often to do it.
That is why the case for direct crypto gets stronger as volume grows. At a few orders a month, the license and your setup time are the main cost. At hundreds of orders, the percentage you are not paying becomes the headline.
How much do chargebacks really cost?
The dispute fee is the visible part. When a card payment is disputed, you typically lose the sale amount while the dispute runs, pay the dispute fee whether or not you win, and spend time gathering evidence. If you shipped goods or delivered a service, you may lose those too. High dispute rates can lead to reserves, higher pricing or account closure.
A confirmed blockchain payment cannot be reversed by the sender. That does not stop dishonest customers from complaining, but it moves the decision about refunds back to you. For merchants selling instantly delivered goods such as software licenses, hosting or digital downloads, this is often worth more than the percentage saved. We cover this for hosting companies in crypto payments for web hosting.
Should you pass the savings on to customers?
Many merchants do, because a small incentive shifts behavior. Payfim has a price adjustment setting: a negative value such as −3% gives crypto payers a discount applied automatically when the rate is calculated. Some merchants mirror their card fee, others round to a simple number. Whether you may surcharge card payments instead is regulated differently from place to place, so check local rules; offering a discount for another method is usually the simpler route.
When are cards still the better choice?
- Most customers use them. Crypto is a second option, not a replacement. Removing cards to save fees usually costs more in lost sales.
- Subscriptions. Cards can be charged automatically on renewal. Crypto requires the customer to pay each invoice.
- Buyer protection matters for your brand. Some shoppers only buy from new stores because they can dispute a card charge.
- You need everything in your bank account the next day. Card processors settle to your bank automatically.
How do you decide for your store?
Run your own numbers. Take last year's card fees and dispute costs, estimate what share of customers might choose crypto (ask them), and compare the saving with a one-time license plus a realistic estimate of conversion costs. For most online stores with international customers or digital products, adding crypto as a second option pays for itself quickly. For a local store with low dispute rates, the saving may be small, and the main benefit is reaching customers who cannot pay by card at all.
If you decide to try it, start with a short list of coins (see how to choose which coins to accept) and follow the installation guide.
Sources
Third-party facts were checked on the date shown above. Prices and features of other services change - always confirm on their official pages.