Card Processing With No Monthly Fee

You can take card payments without a monthly bill, but you still pay per sale. This guide shows what Square, Stripe and PayPal publish, read on 2026-10-16, and when a plan with a monthly fee would cost less. Rates change, so confirm on each provider’s site. This is general information, not financial advice.

Who publishes no monthly fee

• Square. Its pricing page lists three plans: Free at $0 a month per location, Plus at $49 and Premium at $149. The page says: “With Square Free, there are no monthly subscription costs — you only pay processing fees when you take a payment,” and “No hidden fees or locked-in contracts. Cancel or switch anytime.”
• Stripe. Its pricing page describes “simple, pay-as-you-go pricing. No setup fees, monthly fees, or hidden fees,” and its FAQ says Stripe does not charge setup fees, monthly fees, or any other hidden fees like closure fees, with all fees for businesses on standard pricing listed on its website.
• PayPal. Its page for opening a Business account says there is no fee to open one and no monthly maintenance fees, and that you typically pay a fee only when you receive a payment for goods or services.

Providers that sell POS systems often charge a monthly software fee instead: Clover says its merchants pay a monthly software fee plus processing, and Toast lists a restaurant Starter Kit “starting at $0” a month with a Point of Sale plan from $69 a month. See how to choose a POS system.

What you pay per sale instead

For a $50 online sale: Square Free costs $1.95 (3.3% of $50 is $1.65, plus $0.30), Stripe costs $1.75, and PayPal’s standard card rate costs 2.99% of $50 = $1.495 plus the fixed fee (the US dollar fee we read was $0.49), about $1.99. For a $50 in-person sale, Square Free costs $1.45 and Stripe Terminal costs $1.40. These are arithmetic from published rates, not quotes, and rates for other payment types, cards and countries differ.

When a paid plan wins

A monthly fee can pay for itself only if it lowers your per-sale cost enough. Square’s Plus plan lists in-person processing at 2.5% + 15¢ instead of 2.6% + 15¢ on Free, a saving of 0.1 percentage point. Against its $49 monthly fee, that breaks even at $49 ÷ 0.001 = $49,000 a month in in-person sales, ignoring other plan features. Online, Plus lists 2.9% + 30¢ instead of 3.3% + 30¢, a 0.4-point saving that breaks even near $12,250 a month in online sales. Our Square fees page calculates these for your own volume.

Costs that are not the monthly fee

• Hardware. Square lists its Reader for contactless and chip at $59 and says its first Reader for magstripe is free, with additional readers $10. Stripe lists readers separately (the Reader M2 is $59.00).
• Disputes. Stripe lists $15 per dispute received. Our chargeback fees guide shows what each provider publishes.
• Faster payouts and add-ons. These are priced separately; see each provider’s page.

What “no monthly fee” does not mean

It does not mean no contract terms, no reserves or holds, or no approval step. We did not review those for any provider here. Use the processing fee calculator to compare published rates at your own volume.

What we did not verify

We did not verify Clover’s or Helcim’s current plan prices for this page, fees for chargebacks beyond those quoted, reserve and hold rules, or whether you qualify for each provider. PayPal’s fixed fee varies by currency; we used the US dollar figure.