Subscription Billing Fee Calculator
Analyze recurring billing processing costs.
Recurring billing incurs processing fees every cycle. Stripe charges 2.9%+$0.30 per successful charge. For a $50/month plan, that's ~$1.75 per subscriber per month. At 100 subscribers, that's $175/month in fees. This calculator helps you estimate total processing cost for your MRR and plan mix.
Inputs
Results
MRR: $4,900
Monthly processing fees: $175
Effective fee % of MRR: 3.57%
Insights
Formula
Fee per charge = ARPU * (rate/100) + fixed Monthly fees = subs * fee_per_charge
Input Definitions
What does each input mean?
- ARPU / plan price
- Average revenue per user per month—your subscription plan price charged each billing cycle.
- Number of subscribers
- Active paying subscribers. Each is charged once per billing cycle, incurring processing fees.
- Processing rate %
- Your processor's percentage fee on each charge. Stripe charges 2.9%.
- Fixed fee per charge
- Fixed amount per successful charge. Stripe charges $0.30. Low ARPU plans feel this more.
Related Calculators
Modeling the True Cost of Recurring Billing
Subscription revenue looks clean on paper, but the underlying fee structure is messier than a one-time sale. Recurring card charges, failed payment retries, international subscribers, and dunning flows all interact with your processing costs in ways that compound over time. This calculator helps subscription businesses see the all-in processing cost of their MRR — not just the headline rate.
Use this when you’re pricing subscription tiers and need to ensure each plan covers its processing overhead, when you’re evaluating billing platforms, or when you want to understand how payment mix (annual vs monthly, credit vs debit, domestic vs international) is affecting your effective rate. Small differences in billing structure can have outsized effects on long-term unit economics.