Stripe Payment Gateway Australia: Fees & Integration Guide

If you want customers to pay directly through your website, you’ll need a way to securely authorise and process online payments. Stripe is a popular tool for this task, providing everything from pre-built checkout pages to more advanced website integrations. It also supports 100+ payment methods, making it suitable for SMEs that sell both locally and internationally¹.

In this guide, we’ll explain in detail how the Stripe gateway works in Australia, what it costs and how you can integrate it with your website.

What is Stripe payment gateway?

Stripe’s payment gateway securely transfers a customer’s payment information from your checkout to the payment systems that approve or decline the transaction. It also combines this with payment processing functionality, so you can accept payments without having to arrange a separate merchant account with another provider².

A typical Stripe payment is a relatively simple, repeatable process that works like this³:

1. Your customer checks out - They choose a product or service and enter their payment details on your website.
2. Stripe securely receives the payment info - The information is then transmitted to Stripe, rather than being stored directly on your website.
3. The payment is authorised - Stripe steps up to check if the transaction can be approved and then sends it through the relevant payment networks.
4. The customer gets confirmation - The website confirms the order or service when the payment has successfully gone through.
5. Stripe pays out your funds - The money is added to your Stripe balance, minus any service fees, before being paid out to the bank account you’ve linked with Stripe.

The whole process happens very quickly, usually just a few seconds from the customer’s perspective.

Stripe payment gateway features in Australia

Stripe offers multiple ways to take online payments, so you won’t be limited to just one when using the gateway, which is useful if you want to scale or tweak your setup as your business evolves or grows. Most of its payment gateway features are listed within its ‘Payments’ product category, which is a core service¹.

These include:¹

Pre-built checkout - A simple checkout page with ready-made functionality, including payment collection and the customer-facing checkout flow. You can embed it into your website or use it as a Stripe-hosted page. And there are customisation options (fonts, colours) to keep things on-brand, plus support for recurring payments and tax.

Embedded form - This puts Stripe’s payment form directly into your own website’s checkout, so customers can enter their details and complete the payment without being sent to a separate hosted page. Stripe still handles everything securely.

Payment Links - If you don’t have the resources for a website (or checkout), there’s the option to create payment links quickly without code and share them through channels such as SMS, email, and social media.

Customisable elements - For businesses that need more control over the look and functionality of their website, Stripe Elements lets you put together flexible, “rich UI building blocks”⁴. This is targeted mainly at developers.

Multiple payment methods - Stripe supports 100+ payment methods, with options for local audiences in Australia (like PayTo and BECS), as well as overseas, so you can offer a mix of cards, digital wallets, BNPL, and other methods as you see fit⁵.

Fraud prevention - Stripe includes built-in fraud protection, backed by machine learning algorithms through its ‘Radar’ product, to flag high-risk payments.

Terminal - There’s support for in-person payments, too. Stripe Terminal lets AU businesses with physical stores integrate payments with their POS system.

Payouts - Stripe also provides ‘flexible’ payout options to get the funds into your bank account.⁶

Stripe fees and pricing in Australia

Stripe uses a pay-as-you-go pricing model for businesses on its Standard plan⁶. For larger enterprises with more complex requirements, there is a Custom plan that offers volume discounts and country-specific rates, but you’ll need to contact sales for an exact quote.

For most Australian businesses using Stripe to accept online payments on Standard, the main costs you’ll encounter are⁶:

*Stripe says it will update card pricing from 1 October 2026, lowering the cost of domestic card processing to 1.65% + $0.30 AUD and international card processing to 2.80% + 0.30 AUD, due to new caps on interchange fees introduced by the Reserve Bank of Australia⁷.

How to integrate the Stripe payment gateway

The process for integrating Stripe will depend on your website and level of customisation, but here’s a general guide for both no-code and bespoke integrations.

1. Create your Stripe account

Start by signing up for a Stripe business account. The registration process is quite straightforward, but you’ll need to provide key business details, such as an Australian Business Number (ABN), and connect the bank account where you want to receive your payouts.

2. Check your website platform

Next, think about the gateway features listed earlier: what’s best for your website architecture and how you want customers to pay? The process will be different for a website built on an ecommerce platform such as Shopify compared with a custom-built site.

If you’re using an existing ecommerce platform, check that Stripe has an integration or plugin that supports it. This can save you from having to create the connection yourself. If your website is custom-built, you’ll likely need a developer to set everything up using Stripe’s developer tools.

3. Connect Stripe to your website

Use the knowledge from the previous step to start connecting your website. If you have a WordPress site with WooCommerce, for example, it might be as easy as quickly linking to an existing Stripe plugin or extension, which will handle most of the technical work. Stripe’s pre-built checkout pages are also much easier to get up and running.

There is much more to do for custom-built sites, though – a developer will have to use ‘API keys’, install libraries for programming languages, and sort out server-side functionality to set things up. Stripe’s documentation has very detailed guidance for these complex integrations⁸.

4. Set up your checkout

Once Stripe is connected, you can configure the payment experience customers will use. This will again be shaped by the type of integration you’re using from Stripe’s payment features. It could be a Stripe-hosted checkout, for example, or an embedded payment form.

Just make sure that the checkout clearly shows what customers are buying, the total amount they’ll pay, and the payment methods available to them.

5. Test the payment process

Now it’s time to put the gateway through its paces by using Stripe’s test environment to check everything works as intended. You can simulate different payment scenarios, which helps to flag and resolve any problems early on. Test both successful and failed payments to see if your website responds appropriately after each transaction.

6. Go live

The final step is to switch your Stripe integration from test mode to live mode and start taking payments⁸.

Best practices when integrating a Stripe payment gateway

To make sure integrating a Stripe payment gateway goes smoothly, you should:

• Choose the simplest integration that meets your needs. A micro business might only need pre-built options that provide a professional experience with much less work.
• Check the full cost of each payment method. Card processing isn’t the only potential cost; there are fees for international cards, currency conversions, disputes (and more) that can add up quickly.
• Protect your account using strong authentication measures, and restrict access to the Stripe Dashboard only to people who need it.
• Fully test everything before launch on both desktop and mobile devices, and run through a real payment yourself after going live.
• Plan for international payments. If you expect customers to pay outside Australia, consider which currencies you’ll accept and how conversions and payouts will be handled.

Wise Business: A global account for receiving customer payouts

Stripe can collect and process payments from your customers, but you’ll need somewhere to receive and manage the money afterwards. Wise Business is a multi-currency account you can connect to Stripe to manage all of your international payouts. You can use it to receive money in 22+ currencies, so you don’t have to automatically convert everything into AUD straight away. This gives you much more control over your revenue, and it can save you money.

Expanding a business globally opens up exciting opportunities, but also new challenges like receiving payments across borders. Hidden foreign transaction fees and hefty currency conversions involved with international payments can eat into your profits and time.

Wise Business serves as a cost-effective solution where you can receive money from around the world at the speed and price of local payments.

Transform the way you receive payments with Wise Business:

• One-time fee of 65 AUD for local account details in 8+ currencies, including AUD, NZD, USD, and more—no recurring fees
• One account to hold, send, and convert money with no hidden fees or exchange rate markups
• Create and send professional invoices directly to your customers through Wise Business
• Create payment links to request money in specific currencies
• Seamlessly receive payments from customers, online sales, or PSPs like Stripe and Amazon.
• Wise is safe and secure - Trusted by 13 million people and counting

Sign up for the Wise Business account! 🚀

This general advice does not take into account your objectives, financial circumstances or needs and you should consider if it is appropriate for you.

---

Stripe payment gateway Australia FAQs

1. Is Stripe a payment gateway or a payment processor?
Stripe is technically a payment gateway and payment processor – it functions as both, securely collecting payment details at checkout and then processing the transaction, with the funds then made available through Stripe payouts. You can use the service to get funds from A to B into your business bank account.

2. How long do Stripe payouts take in Australia?
Stripe supports different payout schedules. It’s set to ‘daily’ by default, but there are also options for weekly, monthly, and manual time scales. The exact time between a payment being made and the funds becoming available is likely to vary. Stripe says the initial payout can take 7-14 days.

3. Do I need a developer to integrate Stripe into my website?
Stripe offers pre-built checkout options and no-code Payment Links, so there are a few integration options if you don’t have a developer ‘in-house’. However, if you want deeper customisation or your website has a more exotic architecture, you’ll likely need technical expertise to get things set up.

---

Source:

1. Stripe - Payments
2. Stripe - Payment processor vs payment gateway
3. Stripe - Payment processing explained
4. Stripe - Elements
5. Stripe - Payment methods
6. Stripe - Pricing
7. Stripe - Updates to card pricing in Australia from October 2026
8. Stripe - How to integrate a payment gateway into a website
9. Stripe - Payout schedules FAQ
10. Stripe - Payout speed