Stripe, Square, Shopify, PayPal, Tyro, eWAY, Zeller, Afterpay and Zip — what each really costs to take a card online in Australia, why the 2026 surcharge ban changes everything, and how owning your own checkout keeps more of every sale.
🇦🇺 Australia edition. Selling from elsewhere? Read the US, UK or India version.
Payment processing is one of the few costs an Australian store pays on every single sale — and in 2026 it matters more than it used to. Until recently many merchants simply surcharged card fees back to customers; under the RBA's reforms that option is going away, so the fee you pay now comes straight out of your margin. That makes the headline rate a real cost, not a pass-through. Here is how the major options compare for an Australian business, what an A$100 sale actually costs, and why the total cost of selling still matters more than any single percentage.
These are standard published Australian online rates for domestic cards. They vary by card type, plan and volume — international and Amex cards cost more — so check current pricing before you commit. As a starting point:
| Provider | Typical AU online rate | Best known for |
|---|---|---|
| eWAY | 1.5% + A$0.25 | Dedicated AU gateway, plugins |
| Tyro | ~1.5% (quote) | AU bank-grade, health & hospitality |
| Pin Payments | 1.6% + A$0.30 | Simple AU-built online gateway |
| Stripe AU | 1.65% + A$0.30 | Developer payment infrastructure |
| Zeller | 1.7% + A$0.25 | AU challenger, POS + account |
| Shopify Payments | 1.7% → 1.35% + 30¢ | All-in-one store platform |
| Square | 2.2% flat | Omnichannel POS + online |
| PayPal | ~2.6% + 30¢ | Consumer wallet & recognition |
The biggest change for Australian merchants in 2026 is regulatory, not a rate card. Under the Reserve Bank's payments reforms, card surcharging on eftpos, Visa and Mastercard is being removed from around 1 October 2026 — so you can no longer add the processing fee back onto the customer's bill at checkout. (Check the RBA's final conclusions for the exact scope and timing, as reporting varies.) The practical effect is simple and important: the fee now comes out of your margin. A rate you could once pass on is a real cost today — which makes a 1.5% provider genuinely cheaper than a 2.2% one, rather than merely a different number to display.
Looking only at the percentage misleads, because most providers add a fixed fee too. On an A$100 domestic card sale:
The fixed fee bites hardest on small baskets — 25–30¢ is a bigger share of a A$20 order than a A$500 one — and with surcharging gone, the spread between a 1.5% and a 2.2% provider is money straight off your bottom line.
The developer benchmark, and competitive locally. Standard Australian domestic cards are 1.65% + A$0.30 (recently lowered from 1.7%), with international cards at 3.5% + A$0.30 plus 2% where currency conversion is needed. There is no monthly fee for standard processing. As everywhere, what you are really buying is the infrastructure around the payment — Checkout, Payment Links, Billing, Connect, Radar and APIs covering 100+ payment methods — which makes Stripe the default for SaaS, subscriptions, marketplaces and headless stores.
Square charges a flat 2.2% online with no fixed cents fee, no monthly cost on its free plan and next-day settlement — its strength is unifying a physical till and an online shop under one simple price, ideal for retail and hospitality that sell in person and online. Shopify Payments drops with the plan: Basic 1.7% + 30¢, Grow 1.55% + 30¢, Advanced 1.35% + 30¢, on plans costing about A$56, A$149 and A$575 a month (roughly A$42, A$114 and A$431 billed annually). The catch: use any processor other than Shopify Payments and Shopify adds its own surcharge on top — 2% / 1% / 0.6% by plan — the platform lock-in a self-owned checkout avoids.
Australia has a strong bench of local providers. eWAY is a long-standing dedicated AU/NZ gateway at a flat 1.5% + A$0.25 across Visa, Mastercard and Amex, with broad shopping-cart plugin support. Tyro is bank-grade and strong in health (Medicare/private health claiming) and hospitality, at around 1.5% on negotiated, volume-based pricing rather than a published flat rate. Zeller, the fast-growing Square challenger, pairs 1.7% + A$0.25 online with a free business transaction account and EFTPOS. Pin Payments is a simple AU-built online-only gateway at 1.6% + A$0.30, with no monthly fee or contract.
PayPal is a conversion decision more than a rate: its standard Australian commercial rate is around 2.6% + 30¢ (some sources still cite 2.9% — check the current schedule), higher than the local gateways, but its wallet is widely trusted, so many stores run it alongside a cheaper primary processor. Afterpay and Zip are Australian-born buy-now-pay-later — and they are a conversion tool, not cheap processing. Afterpay typically costs a merchant around 4–6% + A$0.30 and Zip around 3.3–5.5%, negotiated by industry and volume, and the fee cannot be surcharged. They earn their keep through bigger baskets and higher conversion, not a low rate.
The pattern: the market splits into payment infrastructure you build on (Stripe, eWAY, Pin, Adyen) and platforms that bundle the store around the payment (Shopify, Square, Zeller). BNPL sits apart again — a conversion lever, priced accordingly.
The biggest shift in ecommerce is separating the storefront from the commerce engine: instead of "Shopify site → Shopify checkout", a store runs a fast custom front end that calls a commerce API and a payment provider directly. That is the model Claude CMS builds. Your pages stay self-hosted and quick; checkout is Stripe, connected to your own Stripe account at the 1.65% Australian rate, so money lands with you and there is no platform taking a slice — and none of the third-party-gateway surcharge a hosted platform would add for bringing your own processor. With surcharging gone, keeping that rate low and the fees yours to control matters more than ever.
The keys stay yours, too. When you connect Stripe (or any service) to a Claude CMS store, the credential is sealed in Claude CMS Vault — encrypted on arrival, usable to run your checkout, never exposed. The connections hub lists the payment, shipping and email services a store can plug into, with Australian options among them.
For an Australian store in 2026, with surcharging gone, the headline rate is a cost you now wear — so a low, predictable rate is worth more than it was. But the best choice is still the one with the lowest total cost of running and converting your customers — and if you want low-rate, own-your-own-Stripe economics without wiring it together yourself, that is the point of building the store with Claude.
New to this? Start with our guide to setting up your Claude ecommerce website — from an empty site to a working store with Stripe connected to your own account.
eWAY (1.5% + 25¢) and Tyro (~1.5%, negotiated) lead, then Pin Payments (1.6% + 30¢), Stripe (1.65% + 30¢) and Zeller (1.7% + 25¢). Shopify Advanced reaches 1.35% + 30¢ on a A$575/month plan; Square is a flat 2.2%.
About A$1.75 (eWAY), A$1.90 (Pin), A$1.95 (Stripe/Zeller), A$2.00 (Shopify Basic, A$1.65 Advanced), A$2.20 (Square) and ~A$2.90 (PayPal).
Card surcharging on eftpos, Visa and Mastercard is being removed from around 1 October 2026, so merchants absorb the fee. Check the RBA's final position for exact scope. The upshot: a lower rate now matters more.
Afterpay about 4–6% + A$0.30, Zip about 3.3–5.5%, negotiated and not surchargeable — a conversion play, not cheap processing.