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Enter the amount you want to land in your account. Get the amount to invoice.
There is a trap here. Adding the fee percentage to the amount you want does not work, because the fee is charged on the larger, marked-up amount as well — so you still come up short.
Covers card processing only. It does not gross up for sales tax, VAT or platform commissions, which are calculated separately.
Simply adding 2.9% and charging $103.20 would leave you $0.09 short — the fee applies to the marked-up amount too, so it has to be divided out, not added on.
What to charge for other targets
Suppose you want to receive $100 and your rate is 2.9% + 30¢. The obvious move is to add 2.9% and the 30¢, and charge $103.20. But the processor takes its cut of $103.20, not of $100 — so the fee is $3.29, and you receive $99.91.
You are short by roughly 2.9% of the markup itself. The error is small on small amounts and grows in step with the invoice.
charge = (amount you want + fixed fee) / (1 - percentage rate)
= (100 + 0.30) / (1 - 0.029)
= 100.30 / 0.971
= 103.30Dividing by 1 − rate accounts for the fee being taken from the grossed-up total, which is exactly what adding the rate fails to do.
| You want to receive | Charge | Fee |
|---|---|---|
| $25 | $25.95 | $0.95 |
| $50 | $51.80 | $1.80 |
| $100 | $103.30 | $3.30 |
| $500 | $515.76 | $15.76 |
| $1,000 | $1,030.69 | $30.69 |
GOOD QUESTIONS
Because the fee is charged on the total you actually bill, including the markup you just added. Adding 2.9% to $100 gives $103.20, but the processor takes 2.9% of $103.20 — so you receive $99.91, not $100. Dividing by (1 − rate) is the only way to land exactly on target.
It depends on where you are and what you are selling. Surcharging is restricted or banned in several US states and many countries, and card network rules add their own conditions. Building the cost into your headline price is almost always acceptable; adding a visible surcharge at checkout often is not. Check your local rules.
No. Most processors do not return the fixed fee on a refund, and some keep the percentage as well, so a full refund typically leaves you out of pocket by the original fee. Grossing up does not recover that.
Add the international surcharge to the percentage before calculating. At 2.9% plus a 1.5% cross-border fee, use 4.4% as the rate — otherwise the payout will fall short on exactly the transactions where the gap is biggest.