Checkout.com
- Checkout.com publishes no pricing. No rates, no tiers, no monthly minimum, no volume threshold. The pricing page is a contact form
- It offers a flat-rate model and an Interchange++ model. It prices on "your business profile and risk category, nothing else." Its words, not ours
- The page does say no setup fees, no account maintenance fees, no surprise fees. That's the entire published fee disclosure
- Checkout.com does not publish a minimum volume requirement. A $5M-a-year figure gets quoted for it anyway, and it's invented
- Strengths: global acquiring, a modern API comparable to Stripe's, payment optimisation. Weaknesses: no card-present offering. And you can't evaluate it without a sales cycle
Checkout.com is a London-headquartered processor serving scale-ups and enterprises. It sits between Stripe's breadth and Adyen's enterprise depth. Enterprise-grade infrastructure, with a developer experience closer to Stripe's.
Most processors that look quote-only turn out to publish something. Checkout.com genuinely doesn't. No percentage, no currency amount, no fee schedule, anywhere on its site or in third-party review coverage. Stop looking and go straight to what to ask for.
What Checkout.com does publish. Two pricing models, "fully flat-rate" and "Interchange++". The basis: "We price based on your business profile and risk category, nothing else." A description of Interchange++ as "Transparent card association, processor, and interchange fees." And this: "We provide free payment processing for registered charities in the countries in which we currently operate."
Numbers get attached to Checkout.com anyway. Baseline rates of 0.95% + $0.20 for European cards and 2.90% + $0.20 for non-European. Estimated effective rates of 1.2 to 1.8% domestic EU and 2.0 to 2.8% domestic US. A per-transaction markup range of $0.10 to $0.25. A percentage markup range of 0.10 to 0.30%. A monthly minimum of $0 to $500. A $5 million a year volume expectation. None of that appears anywhere on Checkout.com's site. Use what to ask for instead.
Company identity is checkable even when pricing isn't. The UK operating entity is CHECKOUT LTD, company number 08037323. Incorporated 19 April 2012, registered at Wenlock Works, Shepherdess Walk, London. Source: Companies House, a regulatory register.
When to Use Checkout.com
You should consider Checkout.com if:
- You sell internationally and want local acquiring in multiple markets.
- You have developers who value a modern, well-documented API.
- You need strong payment optimisation: network tokens, intelligent retry, account updater.
- You're big enough that a bespoke commercial conversation is worth the time.
- You're in fintech, digital goods, travel, or marketplace verticals.
Skip Checkout.com if:
- You need a published price. Stripe, Square, Helcim, and Stax all publish theirs.
- You need card-present or POS. Checkout.com is an online processor.
- You want plug-and-play. Production onboarding runs through sales.
- You're a single-country SMB. The global features aren't worth the sales cycle.
What Checkout.com Actually Publishes
Two Pricing Models
| Model | How it works |
|---|---|
| Flat rate | A single blended rate covering interchange, scheme fees, and Checkout.com's margin |
| Interchange++ | Interchange + Scheme Fees + Checkout.com's markup, itemised |
Checkout.com sets pricing "based on your business profile and risk category, nothing else."
Source: checkout.com/pricing, verified 2 August 2026.
Which to choose: Interchange++, if you can get it. Under a blended rate, a price increase has no visible source. Interchange, scheme fees, your processor's margin, all one number. You can't audit it. You can't renegotiate it intelligently either. Under Interchange++ the markup is a separate line. It's the only line that's actually yours to negotiate.
Fees
| Item | Status | Tier |
|---|---|---|
| Setup fee | None | VENDOR |
| Account maintenance fee | None | VENDOR |
| "Surprise fees" | None, per the page's own wording | VENDOR |
| Charity processing | Free in the countries where Checkout.com operates | VENDOR |
| Processing rates | Nothing published, anywhere on the site | NOT PUBLISHED |
| Card-present rates | None. Checkout.com is an online processor with no POS product | NOT PUBLISHED |
| Chargeback fee | Not published. Ask | NOT PUBLISHED |
| Refund fee | Not published. Ask | NOT PUBLISHED |
| Cross-border fee and FX spread | Not published. Ask | NOT PUBLISHED |
| Monthly minimum | Not published. Assume one exists and ask | NOT PUBLISHED |
| Instant payout | Not published. Ask | NOT PUBLISHED |
| Volume floor | Not published. Ask | NOT PUBLISHED |
Source: checkout.com/pricing, verified 2 August 2026.
What to Ask For, In Writing
Nothing is published. So the sales conversation is your only source. What you extract from it is the whole evaluation. Checkout.com's own framing hands you the lever.
0. Attack the Category Before the Rate
Checkout.com prices on "your business profile and risk category, nothing else." That sentence tells you where the money is.
Ask: "Which risk category am I in, what are the boundaries, and what evidence moves me to a better one?"
Your chargeback rate, refund rate and MCC sit near a category boundary. Moving across it is worth far more than haggling basis points inside it. And unlike a rate, you can change a category. You do it by fixing your own operation.
1. Which Pricing Model Applies to You
Ask: "Am I being quoted flat rate or Interchange++, and can I have both quotes, modelled against my last 12 months of actual volume and mix?"
Get both. Flat rate looks better on a spreadsheet. It costs more if you take a lot of regulated US debit. Under a blended rate you stop benefiting from cheap interchange. Competitive on a premium-card-heavy book means poor value on a debit-heavy one. And the reverse.
2. Scheme Fee Treatment Under Interchange++
Ask: "Under Interchange++, are scheme fees passed through at cost? Show me a sample settlement file with interchange, scheme fees and your markup as three separate lines, before I sign."
This question separates real Interchange++ from Interchange++ in name only. The second plus is scheme fees. Bundled or marked up rather than passed through at cost? Then you're on a blended rate wearing a different label.
The pre-signature demand is the important part. The entire value of ++ pricing is the itemisation. A vendor that sells transparency but won't demonstrate it before you sign has answered you.
3. The Monthly Minimum
Ask: "Is there a monthly minimum, and what is it in my settlement currency?"
Not published. For a business with variable volume, this is the floor cost. It matters more than the headline rate.
4. The Chargeback Fee
Ask: "What does a chargeback cost, and is it refunded if I win?"
Not published. Vendors that do publish charge this, all verified 2 August 2026:
| Processor | Cost of a chargeback |
|---|---|
| Helcim | $0 if you win, $15 if you lose |
| Square | $0, stated outright |
| Braintree | $15 |
| Stripe | $15 to receive, plus $15 to counter |
| PayPal | $15 on wallet disputes ($0 if you win), $20 on card chargebacks, $30 above a 1.5% ratio |
| Moneris | CA$25, plus CA$80 authorization chargeback handling |
5. Volume Commitments and What Happens If You Miss Them
Ask: "Is there a minimum volume commitment, and what happens if I fall short? A penalty, or a rate adjustment?"
6. Local Acquiring in Your Specific Markets
Ask: "In which of my markets do you acquire locally, and in which do you route cross-border?"
This is where the money is for an international merchant. It varies by market. A general coverage claim doesn't tell you about your top three.
7. What to Push Toward
The questions above get you information. This is the position to aim at:
- Interchange++ with an itemised settlement file, not a blended rate.
- A defined risk category, with a written path to reprice as your metrics improve.
- No minimum commitment in year one, while your volume is unproven.
- The chargeback fee, refund fee, cross-border fee and FX spread, all named in dollars. None of the four is public.
What Checkout.com Does Well
1. Developer Experience
A modern REST API with comprehensive documentation. SDKs for the major languages. Hosted payment pages and embeddable components. Webhooks with retry logic, a sandbox, idempotency keys.
Against Adyen: Adyen's API is functional but steeper to learn. Checkout.com is closer to Stripe in developer friendliness. If your team has built on Stripe before, that shortens the integration.
2. Global Acquiring
Checkout.com acquires directly in many markets, not just as a gateway. That matters. A customer pays a merchant through an acquirer in the same market. Interchange is domestic, which is cheaper. Route the same transaction cross-border and it costs more.
Get the specific market list, not a headline count. Your markets are the only ones that matter.
3. Payment Optimisation
Network tokens, intelligent retry on declines, account updater for expired cards, adaptive routing, decline recovery. Improvements here show up as authorisation rate. An authorisation point is usually worth more than a markup basis point.
4. Fraud and Risk Tools
Machine-learning fraud scoring with customisable rules. Full 3DS2 support with smart exemptions. A risk rules engine and velocity monitoring.
What Checkout.com Does Poorly
1. Nothing Is Published
Not the rates, not the minimum, not the chargeback fee, not a volume expectation. You can't build a business case from public information. You can't run a comparison or sanity-check a quote either. That's a real cost of evaluation. Count it as one.
2. No Card-Present
Checkout.com is online-focused with no proprietary POS hardware. If you need omnichannel, Stripe or Adyen is a better fit.
3. Not Built for SMBs
Limited self-serve. Test accounts are available but production onboarding runs through sales. Integration requires developers. Support tiers favour larger merchants.
That's a description of how the product is sold, not a published minimum. Checkout.com states no volume requirement anywhere. Smaller and curious? Ask, rather than assuming you're excluded.
4. Pricing Varies With Your Negotiation
Everything is bespoke, so two similar merchants can pay materially different rates. Bring competing quotes. A published Helcim or Stax schedule is a legitimate anchor. Different market segment, sure. But a markup is a markup.
5. Smaller Ecosystem
Fewer pre-built platform integrations than Stripe or Adyen. A smaller partner ecosystem too. Marketplace payout tooling is less mature than Stripe Connect.
Checkout.com vs Stripe vs Adyen
| Factor | Checkout.com | Stripe | Adyen |
|---|---|---|---|
| Published pricing | None | Full flat-rate card. No volume schedule | Model only: IC++ plus $0.13, indicative 0.60% markup |
| Pricing models offered | Flat rate or IC++ | Flat rate published, IC+ by negotiation | IC++ |
| Monthly minimum | Not published | $0, stated explicitly | No monthly fee, but a minimum invoice with no published amount |
| Chargeback fee | Not published | $15 + $15 | Not published |
| API quality | Excellent | Excellent | Good, more complex |
| Self-serve signup | No | Yes | No |
| Card-present | None | Stripe Terminal | Strong |
| Setup time | Weeks | Days | Months |
| Volume floor | Not published | Not published | Not published |
All verified 2 August 2026 from each vendor's own pricing page.
Bottom line:
- Stripe is the only one you can price today. That makes it the default and the benchmark.
- Checkout.com earns consideration when you need global acquiring with Stripe-quality developer tooling. And when you'll run a sales process to find out what it costs.
- Adyen goes deeper on global reach and adds card-present. The cost is a longer integration.
A note on all three: none publishes a volume floor. The $5M a year quoted for Checkout.com and the $10M a year quoted for Adyen are both invented. Curious and smaller than you think you should be? Then ask.
Who Checkout.com Is Best For
Perfect Fit
| Business Type | Why Checkout.com Wins |
|---|---|
| Fintech and digital wallets | High volume, global, API-first |
| Travel and hospitality | Multi-currency, local acquiring cuts cross-border cost |
| Digital goods and gaming | High volume, strong fraud tooling |
| Marketplaces | Split payments and multi-party flows |
| Subscription businesses at scale | Network tokens, account updater, and retry logic protect renewals |
Poor Fit
| Business Type | Better Alternative |
|---|---|
| Anyone who needs a price today | Stripe, Helcim, or Stax |
| Brick-and-mortar retail | Square or Clover |
| Shopify store | Shopify Payments |
| Restaurant | Toast or Square |
| Deepest global reach with in-store | Adyen |
Common Gotchas
1. "Interchange++" That Isn't
The second plus is scheme fees. Bundled or marked up rather than passed through at cost? Then you're on a blended rate with a better name. Ask for a sample statement with scheme fees itemised. Before you sign.
2. The Monthly Minimum
Not published. For a variable-volume business it's the number that sets your floor. Ask for it in your settlement currency.
3. Integration Timeline
Even with a good API, a real integration takes weeks. 3DS, fraud rules and webhook handlers all need building and testing. Budget developer time for ongoing maintenance too.
4. Settlement Currency
You can settle in multiple currencies, which reduces FX risk. Each settlement currency may need its own bank account. Conversion fees apply when you settle in a different currency than the transaction. Ask what the conversion margin is. It isn't published.
5. Support Tiers
Dedicated account management for larger merchants, standard support for smaller ones. Clarify your tier in the contract. Same for the response-time SLA. Don't assume either.
Test to Run
Checkout.com evaluation, without a rate card:
Step 1: Establish your benchmark first
- Before any sales call, model your cost on a processor with published rates. Use Stripe's flat rate for online. Or Helcim's published markup schedule, if you'd consider interchange-plus
- That number is your benchmark. Without it you've nothing to judge a quote against
Step 2: Get both quotes 3. Request the flat-rate quote and the Interchange++ quote 4. Model both against your real card mix, not a generic one 5. The Interchange++ markup should be quoted as a percentage plus a per-transaction figure. Ask again until you get that
Step 3: Close the unpublished gaps 6. Monthly minimum, in your settlement currency 7. Chargeback fee, and whether it's refunded on a win 8. Volume commitment and what happens if you miss it 9. Scheme fee treatment, with a sample statement 10. Which of your specific markets get local acquiring
Step 4: Price the thing Checkout.com actually sells 11. What share of your volume is cross-border today? ____% 12. What would local acquiring do to interchange on that volume? 13. What would the optimisation tooling do to your authorisation rate? A single point of auth rate is worth a lot on a large book. Usually more than the entire markup difference
Step 5: Decide 14. Does the quote beat your published benchmark? By more than a weeks-long integration costs? And an ongoing relationship with a quote-only vendor?
Success criteria: a written quote in both models. You know the minimum and the chargeback fee. And you can state in dollars what Checkout.com saves. Against a processor whose price you could have looked up.
Where This Breaks
-
Nothing is published, so nothing can be benchmarked externally. You have to build your own comparison before you start the conversation.
-
No stated volume floor, but the product gets sold like there's one. Don't assume you're too small. Ask.
-
Flat rate versus Interchange++ can flip the answer. The same merchant gets a good deal in one model. And a poor one in the other. Get both.
-
No card-present. If you need omnichannel, this isn't the product.
-
Your rate depends on your negotiation. Bring competing quotes, including published ones.
Next Steps
Considering Checkout.com?
- Build your published-rate benchmark first, before the sales call
- Request both pricing models in writing
- Ask the questions above, especially about scheme fee treatment and the monthly minimum
- Ask which of your specific markets get local acquiring
- Compare to Stripe on API quality and to Adyen on global reach
Already on Checkout.com?
- Calculate your effective rate: total fees divided by total volume
- On a blended rate? Ask to move to Interchange++. Then you can see where increases come from
- Review authorisation rates. Are network tokens and intelligent retry actually enabled?
- Audit your fraud rules. Blocking good transactions costs more than fraud does for most merchants
- Renegotiate as volume grows. Your leverage is the only thing that changes a bespoke price
Sources
| Source | What it gave us | Kind | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| checkout.com/pricing | The two pricing models, the risk-category basis, the fee statements and the charity policy. No figures of any kind | Vendor page | Accessed 2026-08-02 |
| checkout.com/sitemap.xml | Confirmation that no fee schedule or regional pricing page exists. All 1,552 URLs scanned | Vendor sitemap | Accessed 2026-08-02 |
| Companies House | UK operating entity: CHECKOUT LTD, company number 08037323 | Regulatory register | Accessed 2026-08-02 |
| TrustRadius Checkout.com pricing page | Checked and found to contain no Checkout.com figures | Review aggregator | Accessed 2026-08-02 |
See Also
- Stripe - Publishes its rates, which makes it the benchmark
- Adyen - The other quote-only global option, with card-present
- Helcim - Publishes a full interchange-plus markup schedule
- Processor Comparison - Full comparison table
- Auth Optimization - Where optimisation gains come from
- 3D Secure - Authentication setup
- Going Global - International processing and local acquiring