"Is PayPal cheaper than Stripe?" doesn't have a single answer, because PayPal doesn't have a single rate. It publishes two different domestic rates depending on how the payment is routed — and neither one beats Stripe at any order size, so there's no crossover point to solve for.
Three rates, not two
Stripe — a flat 2.9% + $0.30 on every successful domestic online card transaction. One rate, no tiers, no plan to upgrade out of it.
PayPal Checkout — 3.49% + $0.49. This is the rate for the standard "Pay with PayPal" button, guest checkout, and Pay with Venmo — the setup most small online stores actually use.
PayPal routed as a card — 2.99% + $0.49. This lower rate only applies when a card payment is routed directly through PayPal's card processing rather than through the PayPal button flow — a distinction most "PayPal vs Stripe" comparisons collapse into one number.
Why there's no break-even point
A lot of processor comparisons assume one option wins on small orders and the other wins at volume, and go looking for the order size where they cross. That assumption doesn't hold here: Stripe's $0.30 fixed fee is lower than PayPal's $0.49 fixed fee on both PayPal rates, and Stripe's 2.9% is lower than both PayPal percentages too. Every term in Stripe's formula is smaller than the equivalent term in PayPal's — so Stripe is cheaper at every order size, not just above or below some threshold.
A worked example
A $40 domestic online sale:
| Processor | Formula | Fee | Payout |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stripe | 2.9% × $40 + $0.30 | $1.46 | $38.54 |
| PayPal (Checkout) | 3.49% × $40 + $0.49 | $1.89 | $38.11 |
| PayPal (card, routed) | 2.99% × $40 + $0.49 | $1.69 | $38.31 |
Even PayPal's cheaper card-routed rate still costs $0.23 more than Stripe on this sale — and the gap to PayPal Checkout is $0.43. Run the same three formulas at any other order size and the ranking doesn't change; only the dollar gap does, since it scales with the percentage difference (0.09–0.59 points) plus the fixed-fee difference ($0.19).
What this doesn't cover
Domestic (US) online card transactions only. Not modeled: international-card surcharges (Stripe adds 1.5%), currency conversion fees (another 1% on Stripe), manually-keyed-card surcharges (+0.5% on Stripe), chargeback and dispute fees on either processor, monthly account fees, and any negotiated or volume-discount pricing larger merchants may receive. PayPal's published rates above reflect its June 2026 rate change — if you're seeing a different number on an existing account, check whether it predates that change.