Stripe (Payments infrastructure)
Created by: Patrick and John Collison

Stripe's pricing is a single round percentage with no negotiation, which is itself the positioning. The simplicity converts faster than any pitch.

TL;DR: Stripe's headline pricing is 2.9% + 30¢ per successful charge, with no setup fees, monthly fees, or refunds-on-refunds. The published price is the price for almost every customer below enterprise scale. The lesson: when your buyer is comparing multiple complex pricing pages, the simplest legible price wins by default.

What they sell: Payment processing infrastructure with subscriptions, billing, fraud prevention, payouts, and a deep API ecosystem.
Who it's for: Developers, indie SaaS, growing companies, and enterprises accepting payments online.
Pricing model: Flat per-transaction percentage plus fixed fee for standard product
Payment frequency: Per-transaction, no monthly base for standard product
Free trial behavior: No trial. Account is free to create; you pay only when you process payments.
Number of tiers: 3

Anchor pattern: Absent anchor
Stripe has no anchor mechanics on standard pricing because there are no tiers to anchor between. The single published percentage is the entire pricing decision for most buyers. Add-on products (Connect, Radar, Tax) are priced separately on their own pages, so they do not crowd the main pricing decision. The absence of anchor mechanics is itself the positioning.

Upgrade trigger: Volume threshold for custom pricing
The trigger fires when processing volume reaches the level where the published rate becomes meaningfully more expensive than interchange-plus could be. Most customers never hit this; Stripe captures the upgrade conversation at the scale where margin economics shift.

What's working:
Single published rate is the simplest possible pricing decision, which converts faster than any tiered alternative.|Round percentage (2.9%) is memorable and signals confidence — '2.87%' would invite comparison-shopping mental math.|No monthly base fee removes commitment friction for indie buyers evaluating against PayPal or Square.|Add-on products on their own pages prevent the main pricing from feeling cluttered, while still allowing Stripe to monetize the full product suite.|Custom enterprise pricing is gatekept behind sales conversation, which captures large deals without exposing volume discounts to competitors.|International pricing transparently published per country, building trust through specificity even when prices vary.

What to adapt:
When your buyer is comparing multiple complex pricing pages, lead with the simplest legible price. Simplicity converts.|Round, memorable headline percentages signal confidence; odd numbers invite comparison-shopping.|Price add-on products on their own pages rather than as tiers on the main pricing surface. Pricing-page real estate is precious.

What to avoid:
Do not adopt flat per-transaction pricing without understanding interchange costs. The math only works at certain volume bands.|Do not omit a custom tier when your business has enterprise customers. Published pricing must end where negotiation begins, with a clear handoff.|Do not assume single-line pricing works for every category. Some buyers expect tier structures and read flat pricing as lack of feature differentiation.

Brunson lens:
Stack: No stack — single rate is the entire offer. Bundling happens at the product-portfolio level (separate pricing pages for separate products).
Value ladder: Single rung for standard pricing, custom rung for enterprise; add-on products form a parallel ladder of their own.
Decoy/anchor: Absent anchor — the simplicity IS the anchor. The page deliberately avoids inviting comparison shopping.
Payment mechanics: Per-transaction percentage plus fixed fee; revenue scales perfectly with customer revenue.

Pricing last verified: 2026-05-17