Stripe can charge your customers on a schedule without anyone having to chase them. Subscriptions run through Stripe Billing, which is priced on top of Stripe's standard processing fees.
This guide covers the real cost of recurring charges once Stripe Billing is included, what you can set up without code, where those no-code options fall short, and how to run subscriptions through your own Stripe account when you need more flexibility.
Quick answer
Stripe takes recurring payments through Stripe Billing, which costs 0.7% of billing volume on pay-as-you-go, on top of processing. Stripe's no-code tools cover more than most people expect: a subscription payment link, an embeddable pricing table with several plans side by side, free trials, custom fields, your own branding, and a self-serve customer portal. What they don't cover is a paid trial a customer can start themselves, a renewal date set at signup, or a checkout that runs on your own site. A no-code checkout such as Checkout Page does those on your own Stripe account.
What are Stripe recurring payments?
A recurring payment is a charge that repeats on a schedule against a payment method the customer saved the first time, and keeps going until someone stops it.
Three different things get called recurring payments, and they behave differently enough to separate before you set anything up.
- Subscriptions repeat indefinitely. The customer keeps paying and keeps receiving something on a set schedule, with no end date, until they cancel. A gym membership, a software account, a monthly retainer, or a subscription box.
- Payment plans split a fixed price into a set number of installments, then finish on their own. A $1,200 course paid over six months is six charges and then nothing. We've covered these in our guide to Stripe payment plans, because the setup and the risks are different.
- Recurring donations use the same mechanism as a subscription with a different intent behind it.
Stripe splits the work across two products, and the distinction decides what you pay. Stripe Payments handles payment processing: taking the card, moving the money, settling it to your bank. Stripe Billing provides the subscription functionality: the schedule, the invoices, and the retries when a card fails. Anything that repeats on a schedule is recurring billing and runs through Billing, so it carries the Billing fee as well as the processing fee.
What Stripe charges for recurring payments
A recurring charge costs more than the headline processing rate, because Billing is priced on top of it. Here's how that adds up on a US account.
What you pay | Rate | Applies to |
|---|---|---|
Card processing | 2.9% + $0.30 | Every successful charge |
Stripe Billing, pay as you go | 0.7% of billing volume | Recurring charges |
Stripe Billing, annual contract | From $620/month | One-year contract |
International cards | Plus 1.5% | Cards issued outside the US |
Currency conversion | Plus 1% | Where a conversion is needed |
Rates verified 1 September 2026 against Stripe's published pricing. Confirm current rates before relying on them; you can model the processing side with our Stripe fee calculator.
On a US domestic card on pay-as-you-go Billing, a recurring charge costs about 3.6% + $0.30 rather than the 2.9% + $0.30 most people have in mind. That figure is 2.9% processing plus 0.7% Billing, and it only applies to that case. An international card adds 1.5%, and currency conversion adds another 1%, so a subscriber paying from abroad costs more again.
On $5,000 of monthly subscription revenue, the Billing share is $35 a month. Stripe's annual Billing contract starts at $620 a month on a one-year term, which at 0.7% is the equivalent of about $88,500 in monthly billing volume, or a little over $1 million a year. Below that, pay-as-you-go is cheaper.
Two costs sit outside all of that. Putting your own domain on Stripe-hosted pages, including the customer portal, is $10 a month. Advanced usage-based billing, where the amount depends on what someone consumed, is handled by Metronome, now a Stripe product and priced on its own terms, though Stripe Billing does include metered pricing for simpler cases.
If you want the full picture of what Stripe charges outside the recurring context, we've broken down Stripe's processing fees in detail.
What Stripe can do without code
If you're selling a simple subscription, Stripe's Dashboard tools will probably cover it.
A payment link with a recurring price handles the basic case. Stripe charges the customer on the interval you set, saves their card, and creates the subscription. In the same Dashboard editor you can add a free trial, including one that doesn't ask for a card, collect custom fields, names, addresses and phone numbers, accept promotion codes, cap the number of times the link can be used, and require a terms of service checkbox.
Branding is a Dashboard setting, not a build. Your logo, background color, button color, font and corner shapes apply across Stripe's hosted pages. For $10 a month you can serve those pages from your own subdomain instead of buy.stripe.com.
A pricing table shows several plans at once. You build it in the Dashboard with up to four products, up to three prices each, and three pricing intervals, which is enough for monthly and annual side by side across a good-better-best lineup. It supports tiered pricing and free trials, and Stripe generates a script tag you paste into your site.
An embeddable buy button does the same for a single product, with the button styled to your site and the payment happening on Stripe's page.
The customer portal is a no-code toggle. Customers log in with their email and can update their card, download invoices and cancel. If you switch the options on, they can also switch plans, change quantities and apply promotion codes, and you can ask for a cancellation reason or offer a retention coupon before they leave.
Failed payments are handled for you. Smart Retries picks retry times using Stripe's own model, with a default of eight attempts over two weeks, and you set what happens if recovery fails. It's configured in the Dashboard under Revenue recovery. It's a Billing feature, so it arrives with the 0.7%.
The Dashboard subscription editor covers the rest. You can create a subscription for a named customer with free trial days, schedule it to start on a future date, add later phases that change the price, reset the billing cycle, and cancel or refund.
If your case is covered by that list, you're done. There's no reason to add anything else.
Where Stripe's no-code setup stops
The limits are narrower than they're usually described, and they mostly show up when a customer is signing themselves up rather than when you're creating a subscription for someone.
- Paid trials a customer can start themselves. Stripe supports paid trials through trial offers, which you can create in the Dashboard, and $1 for the first week is a normal setup. But Stripe's documentation says trial offers aren't supported by Payment Links, Checkout or Elements. They only apply to subscriptions created through the Subscriptions API or the Dashboard, so a customer can't sign up for one on a link you share. The feature is also in preview rather than generally available.
- A renewal date set at signup. If you want everyone to bill on the 1st regardless of when they joined, the billing cycle anchor has to be set when the subscription is created, and Stripe exposes that through the API only. You can reset the billing cycle from the Dashboard afterwards, but one subscription at a time.
- A future start date on a self-serve signup. Subscription schedules do this without code, but only in the Dashboard for a customer you pick. There's no equivalent option on a payment link.
- Checkout that runs on your site. The pricing table and buy button embed into your page, but the payment itself happens on a Stripe page. A custom domain gets you a subdomain of your own for $10 a month; it doesn't put the form inside your own layout.
- The cost of the recurring machinery. Retries, invoices, the portal and the schedule are all Billing features, so every subscription carries the 0.7% whether or not you use them.
Beyond those, you're into API territory. If what you need instead is subscription reporting and dunning workflows built for a finance team, that's a different category of tool, and we've compared the options in our roundup of recurring billing software.
How to set up recurring payments in Stripe without code
If the limits above are the ones blocking you, a no-code checkout that connects to your Stripe account closes them. Here's what that looks like with Checkout Page.
1. Connect your Stripe account
You're connecting an existing account, not creating a new one. Payouts, payment methods and any subscription products you've already built in Stripe carry over, and payments land in your account the same way they do now. Every subscription is created in your own Stripe account rather than ours, so if you stop using Checkout Page the subscriptions stay in Stripe and keep billing.
2. Create the checkout and set the billing cycle
Charge daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly. You can add several prices to one plan and let subscribers pick the cycle at checkout, or reuse subscription products you already have in Stripe. Monthly and annual side by side is the usual setup.
3. Add a trial, a start date, or a setup fee
Trials can be free, or paid: you set a trial duration and a setup fee, the customer pays that amount up front, and the normal price starts when the trial ends. You can also set a future start date, so the customer completes checkout now and billing begins on the date you choose, with nothing charged in between. That covers a program that begins next term.
4. Put it on your own site
Embed the checkout in a page, trigger it as a pop-up from any button, or share it as a hosted link. It shows your logo and colors, and on paid plans there's no Checkout Page branding anywhere the customer sees, including the emails. If you're weighing this against Stripe's own hosted checkout, we've compared Checkout Page and Stripe Checkout side by side.
5. Let customers manage their own subscriptions
A customer portal lets people view their purchase history, update payment details, download invoices and cancel. It displays in the customer's browser language across eight languages, and you can customize the header. From your side, you can edit, cancel or refund any subscription from the dashboard, and every change lands in your Stripe account. Clubs, associations and faith communities tend to run this way, which is what our membership payments setup is built around.
One limitation worth stating: this is for selling subscriptions to customers. Metered billing, where the amount depends on what someone consumed that month, isn't what it does. One-click upsells and cart abandonment recovery sit on the Scale plan rather than Launch.
Checkout Page is free up to $3,000 a month in sales, with Checkout Page branding on the page and no card required. Paid plans start at $24 a month billed annually and come with a 7-day free trial that doesn't ask for a card. We don't add a platform fee on top of payments, so Stripe's rates are what you pay.
Which route fits
- A single plan, Stripe's branding, no trial complications. A Stripe payment link. Nothing else needed.
- Two or three plans, monthly and annual, on your marketing site. A Stripe pricing table, embedded with the script tag Stripe generates.
- Customers who self-serve a paid trial, a fixed renewal date, a future start date, or checkout inside your own page. A no-code checkout on your own Stripe account.
- Subscription reporting and dunning for a finance team. Dedicated recurring billing software, not either of the above.
Stripe recurring payments FAQ
Can Stripe take recurring payments?
Yes, through Stripe Billing, which sits on top of standard Stripe processing and provides the subscription schedule, invoices and automatic retries. You don't need a developer for a simple plan: a payment link with a recurring price, or a pricing table for several plans, both get set up in the Dashboard.
How much does Stripe charge for recurring payments?
On a US domestic card, 2.9% + $0.30 for processing plus 0.7% of billing volume for Stripe Billing on pay-as-you-go, so roughly 3.6% + $0.30 per charge. International cards add 1.5% and currency conversion adds 1%. Stripe also sells an annual Billing contract starting at $620 a month, which works out cheaper than 0.7% only above roughly $88,500 of monthly billing volume.
How do I stop recurring payments in Stripe?
Cancel the subscription from the Subscriptions page of your Stripe Dashboard, or let the customer cancel through the customer portal, which allows cancellation by default. You choose whether it takes effect immediately or at the end of the current billing period. Cancelling stops future charges but doesn't refund past ones.
Can you set up Stripe subscriptions without code?
Yes, and further than most people assume. A payment link handles one plan with a free trial, custom fields and your branding. A pricing table handles up to four products with monthly and annual pricing. The customer portal handles cancellations, card updates and plan switches. The gaps are self-serve paid trials, setting a renewal date at signup, and hosting the checkout on your own site, which is where a no-code checkout connected to your Stripe account comes in.
What's the difference between a Stripe subscription and a payment plan?
A subscription repeats until someone cancels it, with no end date, which suits memberships and software. A payment plan splits a fixed price into a set number of installments and then stops on its own, which suits a course or a high-value product. Stripe treats both as recurring charges, though they need different setups.
