Payment Gateway Fees for Online Stores in Poland — PayU, Przelewy24, Stripe and More

A payment gateway is the service your store uses to accept BLIK, cards, bank transfers and wallets — and it takes a fee on every one of those payments. In Poland, the standard rates of eight of the nine operators we reviewed fall between 0.95% and 1.6%. What actually decides how much you hand over is usually something else: the fixed fee per transaction at a low basket value, payout, refund and dispute fees, payout timing, and the extra percentage some SaaS platforms add if you don't use their own payments product.

This article compares the standard published rates of nine operators — PayU, Przelewy24, Tpay, Stripe, PayPal, Autopay, Paynow (mBank), ING Pay (formerly imoje) and Revolut Business — as read on 30 September 2026, each one linked to its source. Rates change, and several of these providers negotiate, so check the current page before you sign anything.

What a payment gateway is, and what the fee is made of

A payment gateway (payment service provider) sits between your customer, their bank or card issuer, and your bank account. The customer picks a card or a bank redirect at checkout, the gateway authorises the payment, confirms it to your store, and — on its own settlement schedule — pays the money into your account.

The rate on a gateway's price list is really three layers stacked together, which you rarely see broken out:

• Interchange — on card payments, this goes to the bank that issued the card. For consumer cards in the EU it's capped by law (more on that below).
• Scheme fees — paid to the card network (Visa, Mastercard) or the operator of a bank-redirect scheme.
• The gateway's own margin — for running the service, fraud screening, settlement and support.

The practical consequence: a gateway can only negotiate its own slice. On card payments it can't go below interchange and scheme fees, however good a customer you are. Interchange is capped at 0.2–0.3% of the transaction (we cite the exact figures below) — well under the roughly 1–1.6% that Polish operators actually charge. On BLIK there is one more layer: a 0.19% scheme fee, which PayU lists in its cost table of 8 May 2026 and ING Pay includes in its BLIK rate. That gap is scheme fees plus margin, not evidence that gateways are quietly keeping interchange for themselves.

A gateway isn't the same thing as the set of payment methods you offer. Which methods to support — cards, wallets, bank redirects, buy-now-pay-later — and what each one costs, is covered in our separate article on online payment methods. This one is about the cost and terms of the provider itself.

Gateway rates in Poland — nine operators

Prices read on 30 September 2026 (terms on 1 October 2026). The PayU, Autopay, Paynow and ING Pay price lists do not say whether the amounts are net.

A few notes on reading this table:

• The standard rates of eight of the nine operators fall between 0.95% and 1.6%; PayPal, at 2.90%, is the outlier. What actually decides the cost is the fixed fee at a low basket, payout, refund and dispute fees, payout timing, and any surcharge a platform adds for an external gateway.
• PayPal's BLIK rate is shown as "0.99 + fixed fee" without a percentage sign, so we do not quote it.
• Not every operator publishes a dispute fee. Published: Stripe PLN 90, PayPal PLN 65 or 60, Revolut PLN 80, IdoPay PLN 120 for a chargeback and PLN 50 for a BLIK complaint, PayU PLN 0. Not published: Autopay, Paynow, ING Pay, Tpay, and Przelewy24 does not state one either. Absence of a published number isn't the same as "free" — confirm it before you sign.
• PayU against Przelewy24 at a PLN 150 basket: Przelewy24 PLN 2.24 against PayU PLN 2.54 (PayU promo PLN 1.95). Both make funds available by the next business day. On BNPL, PayU's Klarna costs 1.99% + PLN 0.99 and Przelewy24's PayPo 1.5% + PLN 0.30.
• Operators change price lists, and several allow negotiation.

Why the fixed fee matters more than the headline percentage

Our own worked example, at the standard rates with no promotions, activation or payout fees, for baskets of PLN 30, 150 and 500 (BLIK's average online payment in H1 2026 was PLN 162, hence the PLN 150):

At PLN 30, the PLN 1.00 fixed fee at Stripe or Revolut already exceeds the whole PayU or Przelewy24 fee, and the effective rate passes 4%; at PLN 500 the percentage dominates. If your average order is small, compare gateways on your own basket size, not on the percentage printed at the top of the pricing page. A subscription changes the break-even too: Tpay Business against Starter at PLN 150 costs PLN 1.49 against PLN 2.78 per payment, so the PLN 99 a month pays off from about 77 payments a month (99 ÷ 1.29); Autopay Starter against Standard at a turnover of PLN 5,500 is PLN 65.45 plus PLN 0.34 per payment for Standard.

Payout timing and reserves

The payout schedule matters as much as the rate. Przelewy24: funds are available "no later than the end of the next Business Day", with a default payout once the unpaid balance reaches PLN 1,000 (changeable) (terms, version of 16 September 2024). Tpay: the next business day, with payout to your account within no more than 3 business days (7 for non-PLN), and a rolling reserve is possible. PayU: by the end of the next business day, Friday to Sunday going to Monday (help-centre article of 3 April 2026), and a rolling reserve is possible. Paynow: "next day or instantly"; the new mElements S.A. terms from 7 October 2026 allow a reserve of "no more than 10%" of each payment for "no longer than 90 days". ING Pay: settlement on the first business day after the transaction, with the full amount paid and fees debited separately and no rolling reserve in the terms. Revolut: "settlement in 24 hours" (the terms could not be read, so unconfirmed). Stripe: the first payout usually takes 7–14 days. PayPal: new sellers' payments are held "up to 21 days", released about 24 hours after tracked delivery. Autopay: PLN 0 for payouts, timing not stated. For scale, a 10% reserve for 90 days at PLN 15,000 a month holds back up to PLN 1,500 a month and up to PLN 4,500 after three months, and a first Stripe payout at PLN 500 a day delays PLN 3,500–7,000.

What an online store cannot do: surcharging, interchange and SCA

No surcharge for regulated card payments

Charging a customer extra for paying by card feels like an easy way to pass on the gateway's fee. For most payments in the EU, it's against the law. Directive (EU) 2015/2366 (PSD2), Article 62(4) states: "Member States shall ensure that the payee shall not request charges for the use of payment instruments for which interchange fees are regulated under Chapter II of Regulation (EU) 2015/751 and for those payment services to which Regulation (EU) No 260/2012 applies." In practice, that covers consumer Visa and Mastercard cards and SEPA euro credit transfers. In Poland this is art. 37a(3) of the Payment Services Act (ustawa o usługach płatniczych, consolidated text Journal of Laws 2026, item 623), and where a surcharge is allowed it may not exceed the store's direct costs (art. 37a(2)).

Interchange caps

Regulation (EU) 2015/751 caps the interchange fee on consumer cards: 0.2% of the transaction value for debit cards (Art. 3(1)) and 0.3% for credit cards (Art. 4). This is one layer of the fee, and member states may set lower domestic caps. It doesn't explain the full 1–1.6% a Polish gateway charges — that figure also carries scheme fees and the gateway's margin.

Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) and the EUR 30 threshold

RTS (EU) 2018/389 requires two-factor authentication for most card payments online, with exemptions that shape how many steps a customer sees at checkout:

• Remote low-value payments (Art. 16) — up to EUR 30, provided the cumulative total since the last strong authentication doesn't exceed EUR 100 or five consecutive transactions. The commonly repeated "EUR 50" figure is Art. 11, which covers contactless payments at a physical point of sale, not online checkout.
• Recurring payments (Art. 14) — strong authentication is required when a series is set up; later payments in the same series can be exempted.
• Transaction-risk analysis (Art. 18) — thresholds of EUR 100, 250 or 500, depending on the payment service provider's own fraud rate.

These exemptions belong to the payment service provider, not the merchant — you choose the gateway, the gateway (and the card issuer) decides whether a given customer skips the extra step.

The SaaS platform surcharge: Shopify's third-party-gateway fee

On a subscription platform, the gateway decision isn't only between providers — the platform itself can add a fee if you skip its own payments product. Shopify Payments in Poland, on the Basic plan (shopify.com/pl/pricing; net or gross not stated): standard cards 1.95% + PLN 1.20; BLIK 1.3% + PLN 1.20; Przelewy24 1.6% + PLN 1.20; Klarna 4.99% + PLN 1.65, with lower card and Przelewy24 rates on higher plans.

The third-party gateway surcharge is 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced and 0.2% on Plus (help.shopify.com). It is charged on top of whatever your chosen gateway bills you, for every payment that isn't a manual method like cash on delivery or a bank transfer. On the Basic plan, routing a PLN 150 order through an external Przelewy24 costs PLN 2.24 (Przelewy24) plus PLN 3.00 (Shopify's 2%). The surcharge shrinks fast on higher plans.

Other platforms: IdoSell IdoPay (from 1.09.2026, net) Business 1.49%, cards 0.99%, chargeback PLN 120; the external-gateway integration fee from 1.08.2026 is up to 0.25% on Expert+, 0.19% on Enterprise and 0.15% on Individual, and 0% for IdoPay, Klarna, Stripe, PayPal and InPost Pay (the Business plan isn't listed). Shoper takes no sales commission; Standard includes payments and Stripe foreign payments (shoper.pl/cennik). Selly: Autopay 1.19% + PLN 0.30, Tpay 1.19% + PLN 99 a month, PayU and Przelewy24 1.19% "or your own contract" (selly.pl). AtomStore adds 0.50% / 0.40% / 0.30% by plan on gateways other than IdoPay (price list from 1.03.2026). WooCommerce, by contrast, charges "0% revenue share" on any gateway you connect (woocommerce.com/pricing) — you pay the gateway and nothing else at the platform level, in exchange for running and securing the integration yourself. Which platform fits depends on more than this one line item; we compare the full set in our platform comparison.

How to negotiate a gateway rate

Not every rate card is open to negotiation: Przelewy24 states that "fees may be individually negotiated", Tpay's card rates are individual, Autopay has an "Individual" plan and Revolut "individual pricing", while Paynow says there is no negotiation. When you do ask, bring numbers, not a general request for "cheaper":

1. Your online payment volume over the last few months, and its trend.
2. Your average basket — it decides whether you're negotiating the percentage or the fixed fee.
3. Your payment-method mix — BLIK, transfers, cards, wallets and BNPL each carry a different cost structure.
4. Your refund and dispute rate — a low dispute rate is itself a case for a better rate.
5. Competing quotes on the same volume — the table above gives you a starting point for each provider.

Negotiate more than the headline rate. Fixed fees, dispute costs and reserve terms can matter more than a tenth of a percentage point.

Choosing a gateway in six steps

1. Work out your average basket. Below roughly PLN 50, the fixed fee dominates; above a few hundred złoty, the percentage does. Run your own basket through the worked example above.
2. Check the payment methods you need. Does the gateway support BLIK (Revolut lacks it), cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay, and BNPL? See our payment methods guide for the full breakdown.
3. Add up the fees the headline rate doesn't show. Activation, subscription, payouts, refunds, disputes and currency conversion — together they give the effective payment fee per month.
4. Confirm payout and reserve terms directly with the provider. Przelewy24's PLN 1,000 default threshold, Stripe's first payout of 7–14 days, PayPal's hold of up to 21 days for a new account and Paynow's reserve of up to 10% for 90 days show how much the terms differ.
5. Check what your store platform says. Shopify's surcharge shrinks sharply by plan tier, AtomStore and IdoSell from Expert+ add their own fees, Selly ties you to its operator contracts, and WooCommerce has none.
6. Keep an alternative integrated. A second gateway is insurance against an outage, a frozen account, or a rate increase. Revisit the comparison once a year, or whenever a provider changes its price list.

To see gateway and platform costs together over several years, use our e-commerce TCO calculator. If you're still planning the store itself, the online store cost calculator includes payment integration in the starting cost. For the rest of the payments and logistics picture, see payments and logistics.