Reverse Fee Calculator — What to Charge to Receive an Exact Amount
To receive exactly $500 you have to invoice $515.25, not $514.80. The fee is charged on the larger amount you now bill, so adding the fee percentage to your target always leaves you short — by $0.43 here. The correct sum is ($500 + fixed fee) ÷ (1 − rate), which works out to a gross-up of 3.05% — always more than the fee rate itself. Rates effective 2026-08-21.
| Charge this amount | $515.25 |
|---|---|
| Stripe — Online card — US card2.90% + $0.30 | −$15.24 |
| You wanted to receive | $500.00 |
| You will actually receive | $500.01 |
| Gross-upThe percentage you have to add on top of your target, which is always larger than the fee percentage itself. | 3.05% |
| Charge this amount | $500.01 |
Adding the fee percentage to your target instead of grossing up would have you invoice $514.80 and receive $499.57 — $0.43 short.
The formula
The mistake is universal and it is always in the same direction: people add the fee percentage to the amount they want, when the fee will be charged on the larger amount they end up billing.
The right-hand form falls straight out of the requirement. If you charge c and the processor takes rate × c + fixed, then what lands is c − rate × c − fixed. Set that equal to your target and solve for c. Rounded up to the cent, because rounding down leaves you a penny short and a penny short on an invoice is a support email.
What the naive method actually costs
| You need | Invoice this | Gross-up | "Just add the %" gives | Short by |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $100 | $103.30 | 3.30% | $103.20 | $0.09 |
| $500 | $515.25 | 3.05% | $514.80 | $0.43 |
| $1,000 | $1030.18 | 3.02% | $1029.30 | $0.85 |
| $5,000 | $5149.64 | 2.99% | $5145.30 | $4.21 |
The gross-up column is the part worth internalising: recovering a 2.90% fee takes a 3.30%–2.99% markup, never 2.90%. The two converge as the invoice grows because the fixed 30¢ matters less, but the percentage gap never closes — it is 1/(1−rate) − 1, which is strictly greater than the rate for any positive rate.
Capped fees break the formula
Everything above assumes the fee keeps scaling with the amount. Some do not. Stripe's ACH Direct Debit is 0.8% capped at $5, so past $625 the fee stops growing and the closed form starts producing nonsense — it keeps grossing up a percentage that is no longer being charged.
| Receive $5,000 by ACH | Invoice | Fee | You receive |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solved against the cap | $5,005 | $5.00 | $5,000 |
| "Just add 0.8%" | $5,040 | $5.00 | $5,035 |
Note the direction has reversed. With a capped fee the naive method does not leave you short — it overcharges the client by $35.00 for a fee that was never levied. The correct answer is simply the target plus the $5 cap. This calculator detects the cap and re-solves rather than applying the formula blindly, which is the difference between a calculator and a rearranged equation.
A worked example
Receiving exactly $500 through Stripe
| Step | Working | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Target | what must land in your account | $500.00 |
| Add the fixed fee | $500.00 + $0.30 | $500.30 |
| Divide by (1 − rate) | ÷ 0.971 | $515.25 |
| Invoice this | rounded up to the cent | $515.25 |
| Processor takes | 2.9% × $515.25 + $0.30 | −$15.24 |
| You receive | checked against the fee engine | $500.01 |
The last line is the verification rather than a restatement: the invoice amount is fed back through the same forward fee calculation the Stripe fee calculator uses, and it lands on $500.01. If the two ever disagreed, one of them would be wrong — which is exactly the check most reverse-fee calculators never perform.
Who this is for
Freelancers and agencies who quote a number and need that number to arrive intact, and anyone setting up recurring billing where a small systematic shortfall multiplies quietly. It is also the right tool for the "can I pass the fee to the client" question, because it tells you the honest size of the fee rather than the one that feels right.
What this does not account for
- Currency movement between invoicing and settlement, which can dwarf the fee.
- Withholding tax deducted at source by some overseas clients.
- Bank receiving fees at your end, which are separate from the processor's cut.
- Whether surcharging is permitted under your processor agreement and local law.
- Income tax. The amount that arrives is still pre-tax — see the invoice take-home calculator.
Sources and dates
Every fee schedule comes from the processor's own published pricing, listed below with the date it was checked. The gross-up figures are solved by this page's engine from those rates and verified by feeding the result back through the forward fee calculation. If a figure disagrees with your processor's dashboard, trust the dashboard and let us know.
Questions people actually ask about this
How do I work out what to charge to receive an exact amount?
Divide, do not add. The formula is:
For $500 at 2.9% + $0.30 that is ($500 + $0.30) ÷ 0.971 = $515.25. Charging that leaves exactly $500.01 after the fee — verified by running the forward calculation back through the fee engine, which gives $500.01.
Why does adding the fee percentage leave me short?
Because the fee is charged on the amount you actually bill, which is now bigger than your target. Add 2.9% to $500 and you invoice $514.80; the processor then takes 2.9% of that larger figure, so you receive $499.57 — $0.43 short.
The error compounds with the fee rate. It is small enough to ignore once and large enough to matter across a year of invoices: at this rate you lose roughly 0.09% of every invoice you gross up the wrong way.
Is the gross-up percentage the same as the fee percentage?
No, and it is always larger. A 2.9% fee needs a 3.05% gross-up because you are recovering a fee charged on the grossed-up total. The relationship is 1/(1−rate) − 1 rather than the rate itself, so the gap widens as fees rise: a 3% fee needs 3.09%, and a 10% fee needs 11.11%.
- Receive $100 → invoice $103.30 (gross-up 3.30%, naive method short by $0.09)
- Receive $500 → invoice $515.25 (gross-up 3.05%, naive method short by $0.43)
- Receive $1,000 → invoice $1030.18 (gross-up 3.02%, naive method short by $0.85)
- Receive $5,000 → invoice $5149.64 (gross-up 2.99%, naive method short by $4.21)
What happens with a capped fee like Stripe ACH?
The closed form stops applying, and the naive method flips from undercharging to overcharging. Stripe's ACH is 0.8% capped at $5, so above $625 the fee is flat — there is no percentage left to gross up.
To receive $5,000 by ACH you invoice $5,005, which is simply the target plus the $5 cap. Add 0.8% instead and you would bill $5,040 and receive $5,035 — $35.00 more than you asked for, billed to your client for a fee nobody charged. This calculator re-solves against the cap rather than trusting the formula.
Can I legally pass the fee to my client?
It depends on the processor's own agreement and on where you and the client are. PayPal's US user agreement does not permit surcharging specifically for using PayPal; card network rules on surcharging vary by state and country and carry disclosure requirements. Building the cost into your rate is uncontroversial everywhere; adding a visible "processing fee" line is worth checking first.
Regardless of which route you take, the arithmetic is the same — the only question is whether the client sees the gross-up as a separate line or as a slightly higher price.
Should I just round up instead?
For a single invoice, rounding to the next $5 is usually fine and is simpler to explain. The reason to do it properly is recurring billing: a subscription that nets $0.43 less than intended, twelve times a year, across a few hundred customers, is a real revenue line that nobody ever notices because each individual shortfall looks like rounding.
Where these numbers come from
These rates have not yet been verified against the live source. They were seeded from published rate cards and are shown here for structure. Check the platform's own fee page before pricing anything.
Rate schedule version 2026.2, effective .
- PayPal — Merchant fees (US) retrieved 2026-08-02
- Stripe — Pricing (US) retrieved 2026-08-21
- Square — Understanding our fees retrieved 2026-08-21
- Square — Pricing plans retrieved 2026-08-21
- Wise — Pricing