Official-source UK comparison
UK payment link fees and what they do to your profit
A domestic consumer card can cost less to process than a commercial or international card, even through the same provider. This guide compares current public fees and lets you estimate the cash left after a payment.
Checked
AuthorDomantas Krunglevicius
ReviewerDomantas Krunglevicius
The short answer
Revolut has the lowest listed rate here for a domestic consumer Visa or Mastercard, but it is not universally cheapest. It matches Stripe on domestic commercial cards, costs more for EEA cards, and card mix can move the result sharply. Compare the exact rail and card category before choosing.
Interactive estimate
Payment fee and contribution calculator
Rates checked 15 September 2026
Estimated result
What the payment leaves behind
- Customer amount charged
- £300.00The amount the provider processes
- Revenue excluding VAT
- £300.00VAT ignored for a non-registered business
- Fee per payment
- £4.70Calculated on the customer amount charged
- Net provider settlement
- £295.30Customer charge less the estimated processing fee
- Contribution before fee
- £90.0030.00% of ex VAT revenue
- Contribution after fee
- £85.3028.43% of ex VAT revenue
- Margin reduction
- 1.57 ppPercentage-point change after the per-payment fee
- Monthly selected fees
- £94.00Volume percentage fee, fixed transaction fees and selected plan cost
- Monthly average effective rate
- 1.57%Monthly selected fees as a share of monthly payment volume
- Difference from baseline
- £30.00 more than baselineRevolut: Domestic consumer Visa or Mastercard, including the entered baseline plan cost.
Per-payment fees use the amount charged to the customer. For a VAT exclusive entry, the calculator adds the editable VAT rate before calculating the fee and settlement. Contribution and margin use revenue excluding VAT where applicable. Each money result uses nearest-penny half-up rounding.
The monthly estimate applies the selected scenario to all entered monthly payment volume. It is not a mixed-card weighted model. The percentage charge uses monthly volume, while the fixed charge uses monthly transaction count; each side also includes its entered plan cost.
This is not accounting profit. It excludes overheads, corporation or income tax, refunds, disputes, payout charges, FX costs and any recoverable VAT on provider charges. Your provider statement and contract are the final source of truth.
Compare the same kind of payment
Headline rates are useful only when the card type and rail match. These are public UK rates, not a quote for your business. Negotiated contracts override them.
| Provider | Scenario | Public fee | Important detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revolut | Domestic consumer Visa or Mastercard | 1% + 20p | Online payment acceptance, including hosted checkout created through Merchant API. |
| Revolut | Domestic consumer American Express | 1.7% + 20p | A separate domestic consumer card category. |
| Revolut | Domestic commercial or any international card | 2.8% + 20p | The headline 1% rate does not apply. |
| Revolut | Personal Revolut Pay | 1% + 20p | A wallet payment method, separate from ordinary card entry. |
| Revolut | Pay by Bank | 1% + 20p, capped at EUR 5 | The official page displays the cap in EUR. We do not convert it to GBP. |
| Stripe | Standard UK card | 1.5% + 20p | Payment Links are included with standard Payments pricing. |
| Stripe | Premium UK card | 2.8% + 20p | Commercial, corporate and business Visa or Mastercard. |
| Stripe | EEA card | 2.5% + 20p | Separate from other international cards. |
| Stripe | Other international card | 3.15% + 20p | Currency conversion can add 2% where required. |
| Square | UK card through Online Checkout | 1.4% + 25p | The different fixed fee changes the result at lower payment values. |
| Square | Non-UK card through Online Checkout | Needs terms clarification | Square lists 2.5% + 25p and also mentions a separate 1.5% international fee. We do not calculate a definitive total here. |
| Monzo with Stripe | Online card payment link | Current Stripe fee | Stripe processes the card payment. Monzo says it adds no extra fee. |
| Monzo | Easy bank transfer in GBP | Fee-free | A bank transfer, not a card payment, with a different customer and operational flow. |
Square non-UK caution
Square lists 2.5% + 25p for non-UK Online Checkout cards and separately mentions a 1.5% international fee. We have not added those figures together. Confirm the applicable total with Square before relying on a non-UK estimate.
Revolut API classification
Creating a Merchant API order returns a hosted checkout_url. That is programmatic online acceptance, and the API itself has no separately published surcharge. The payment method, card category and merchant contract still determine the fee.
Premium means the card class, not how it looks
Stripe defines standard domestic cards as consumer cards issued by Visa, Mastercard and other named networks, plus all American Express, Discover, Diners Club, Maestro and UnionPay cards. Premium domestic means commercial, corporate or business Visa and Mastercard.
The card network data available at capture classifies the card. Its colour, the value of the purchase, cashback and rewards do not tell you which fee category will apply.
£300 Revolut example
- Domestic consumer Visa or Mastercard
- £3.20
- Domestic consumer American Express
- £5.30
- Commercial or non-UK card
- £8.60
Same provider, same customer payment, different card category. This is why a universal cheapest claim would be misleading.
The fee comes out of the part you keep
These illustrations use a non-VAT-registered business, direct job costs equal to 70% of the customer payment and no plan fee, FX, refunds, disputes or payout charges.
| Payment | Stripe standard UK | Square UK online | Revolut consumer Visa or Mastercard | Monzo easy bank transfer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| £100 | £28.30 / 28.30% | £28.35 / 28.35% | £28.80 / 28.80% | £30.00 / 30.00% |
| £300 | £85.30 / 28.43% | £85.55 / 28.52% | £86.80 / 28.93% | £90.00 / 30.00% |
| £1,000 | £284.80 / 28.48% | £285.75 / 28.58% | £289.80 / 28.98% | £300.00 / 30.00% |
Each cell shows contribution after the payment fee, followed by its margin on revenue. Monzo's zero-fee result is for an easy bank transfer, not a card payment. Customer experience, supported banks, disputes, refunds and reconciliation are not equivalent.
Provider choice should not mean losing sight of the job
Corem8 currently supports Stripe and Square payment links, split payments and refunds. The payment remains between each tenant and its connected provider. Corem8 does not pool tenant funds.
Revolut connection, per-link provider choice and QR codes generated by Corem8 are planned. They are not live features today. The intended direction is simple: let a business use the right provider while keeping payment status and job contribution visible in one operating record.
See how Corem8 tracks what each job kept, explore locksmith dispatch and job margin software, or read how Corem8 handles payment and integration data.
How we checked the comparison
We read the official UK pricing and product documentation, separated cards from bank rails, and reproduced the worked calculations. Per-payment fees are applied to the amount charged to the customer and use nearest-penny half-up rounding. For VAT-registered examples, the calculator uses the entered VAT rate: inclusive amounts are divided to find ex VAT revenue, while VAT is added to exclusive amounts before calculating the customer charge and provider fee.
We will formally review this guide every six months. We will also correct it as soon as a known provider change is discovered. A later review will add real anonymised Revolut transaction evidence when it exists. The current examples are illustrative because no complete anonymised job dataset was supplied.
Official sources
- Revolut Business payment acceptance pricing
- Revolut Merchant API documentation
- Stripe UK pricing and card definitions
- Square UK fee schedule
- Monzo Get Paid fees and Stripe relationship
Monzo's help page shows older Stripe figures for some categories. This guide uses Stripe's own current page for Stripe rates and Monzo only for the processing relationship and easy bank transfer fee.
Straight answers on payment link fees
Which payment link provider is cheapest in the UK?
There is no universal winner. The answer depends on payment value, card category, origin, monthly plan cost, FX, refunds, disputes and your own contract. Use the calculator with the card mix you actually receive.
Is Revolut cheaper than Stripe for UK payment links?
For the current public percentage rates, Revolut is 0.5 percentage points lower for a domestic consumer Visa or Mastercard. The two are equal at 2.8% + 20p for domestic commercial or premium cards. Revolut is 0.3 points higher for an EEA card and 0.35 points lower for another international card before any Stripe FX charge.
Is a premium card the same as an expensive or rewards card?
No. Stripe uses premium UK card to mean commercial, corporate or business Visa and Mastercard. The network data supplied when the card is captured determines the category. Card colour, purchase value, cashback and rewards do not reliably identify it.
Does creating a Revolut payment link through the API cost extra?
Revolut Merchant API order creation returns a hosted checkout_url for online acceptance. The public material does not show a separate API surcharge. The applicable online fee still depends on the payment method, card category, origin, plan and merchant contract.
Are Monzo card links a separate alternative to Stripe?
No. Monzo says Stripe processes its online card payments and charges Stripe fees, with no extra Monzo fee. Monzo easy bank transfers are a separate fee-free GBP rail, not an equivalent card product.
Does the calculator show net profit?
No. It shows estimated contribution before and after the processing fee. It does not include every overhead, tax, refund, dispute, payout charge or other expense needed to calculate accounting profit.
See the job and its money in one place.
Try the product that connects payment status to the work, direct costs and contribution behind it.