Payments for Painting Contractors: What Stripe, Square, and the Big Processors Actually Cost You

The short version: painting runs on deposits for exteriors and walkthrough payments for everything — and the processor decision hinges on ticket size, not volume. A $450 bedroom repaint and a $9,000 full exterior are different businesses wearing the same logo. Flat-rate processors are fine for the bedroom and a tax on the exterior. Here's the math at your ticket sizes, with published rates checked October 2026. Also see Painters, AI for Painting Companies, and Tech for Painting Contractors.

The fee table: what each processor actually charges you

Published rates, checked October 2026. Square: 2.6%+$0.15 in-person, 2.9%+$0.30 online, 3.5%+$0.15 keyed/stored. Stripe: 2.7%+$0.05 in-person, 2.9%+$0.30 online, 3.4%+$0.30 stored. Interchange-plus (typical ISO contractor pricing): ~0.3% markup over interchange.

$450 bedroom repaint (reader at walkthrough): Square $11.85 · Stripe $12.20 · Interchange-plus ~$9.90

$3,200 whole-interior (invoice link): Square $93.10 · Stripe $93.10 · Interchange-plus ~$70.40

$9,000 full exterior (online): Square $261.30 · Stripe $261.30 · Interchange-plus ~$198 · ACH (0.8%, capped at $5) $5.00

$9,000 exterior (deposit keyed in at the kitchen table): Square $315.15 · Stripe $306.30 · Interchange-plus ~$234

$15,000 commercial repaint (online): Square $435.30 · Stripe $435.30 · Interchange-plus ~$330 · ACH $5.00

$261 versus $5 — same $9,000 exterior. At volume: 60 exteriors a year at $7,500 = $450,000. Square/Stripe online: ~$13,068/year. Interchange-plus: ~$9,900/year. Difference: ~$3,168/year — the paint for three houses. The card rails are identical for every brand here — Finix builds the underlying payment infrastructure; the table is what the logos charge to ride it.

The hidden row: the kitchen-table deposit. Half down on a $9,000 exterior is $4,500, keyed into a phone at signing — Square's keyed rate takes $157.65. That's the most expensive single transaction in the painting business, and it happens on every exterior. Take the deposit by ACH or card-present reader at signing, and the number drops by two-thirds.

The workflow checklist the big processors fail

• Deposits on exteriors before you buy paint. 50% down on $9,000 — the transaction that funds the job. On a new Square account it's also the outlier that triggers a hold. Underwritten accounts price it in advance.
• Walkthrough payment links. The final payment happens standing in front of the finished house. The invoice-plus-link has to go out in under a minute, from the phone, with the photos attached.
• Kitchen-table deposits without the keyed-in penalty. A mobile reader at signing turns a 3.5% keyed transaction into a 2.6% card-present one. On $4,500, that's $40 saved per exterior — carry the reader.
• ACH for big balances. $4,500 balance: $5 by ACH vs $130+ by card. "Most of our customers pay the balance by bank transfer" — say it at signing, not at the walkthrough.
• Progress payments on commercial. The $15,000 office repaint bills in thirds against milestones. You need scheduled invoicing, not a send button.
• Surcharging where legal. Most states allow it with disclosure; Connecticut and Massachusetts restrict it. On exteriors, a compliant surcharge beats rate shopping — put it in the contract.
• Card-on-file for the touch-up. The 1-year touch-up visit on a stored card: the customer who'd never call to schedule one gets it automatically, and you get the review.

Square's pages cover the reader. Nobody's generic page covers the kitchen-table deposit problem, because that's painting.

The honest verdict on each processor

Square: genuinely good for interior repaints and walkthrough swipes — the reader, the $0.15 in-person fee, the simplicity. Wrong for exteriors at flat rate: $261 on $9,000 is a tax, and big kitchen-table deposits on new accounts invite holds. The split verdict: Square for the bedroom, something else for the exterior.

Stripe: best API, worst fit out of the box. Walkthrough links, progress billing, deposit flows — all custom. Fine if you have a developer; otherwise you're paying to rebuild invoicing.

Adyen: enterprise interchange-plus. Excellent rates, zero interest in your $9,000 exteriors. Skip.

Chase Payment Solutions, Fiserv, Global Payments/Worldpay: quote-based, bank-led. Their interchange-plus pricing fits exterior-heavy shops — but bring your own workflow, because the salesperson has never scheduled a walkthrough payment.

The painting answer: reader-first for interiors and walkthroughs, interchange-plus merchant account for exteriors, ACH as the default conversation on anything over $3,000. Two tickets, two setups — same as the business.

How a painting company actually wires this up: notes from Finix's public docs

ClaroPro handles voice-to-invoice — the walkthrough gets dictated, the invoice texts out. The money movement underneath is where Finix's public docs (docs.finix.com) get painting-specific. What to look for:

• Payment links for walkthroughs. Docs cover generating the invoice-plus-link in the moment — the final payment collected while the homeowner is still admiring the work, not after.
• Fee profiles (interchange-plus). Per-merchant pricing structures in their documentation — the mechanism behind the "$261 vs $5" table above.
• ACH for exterior balances. Bank-transfer guides with the $5-cap math — the $4,500 balance that should never ride a card.
• Stored cards for touch-ups. Tokenization docs for the 1-year touch-up on file — the visit that happens automatically instead of never.
• Webhooks for deposit events. Payment events that fire when the exterior deposit lands, so the paint order goes out the same day instead of waiting for the office to check the account.

Architecture, not brand: underwritten exterior deposits, walkthrough links in under a minute, ACH on balances, money events driving the schedule. That's a painting payments setup.

FAQ

What does processing cost on a $9,000 exterior? Square/Stripe online: ~$261. Interchange-plus: ~$198. ACH: $5. Rates checked October 2026.

How do I take the deposit at the kitchen table without the keyed-in rate? Bring a mobile reader to every signing. Card-present at 2.6% vs keyed at 3.5% saves ~$40 on a $4,500 deposit — the reader pays for itself at the first signing.

Should I surcharge? On exteriors, in most states, yes with contract disclosure — Connecticut and Massachusetts restrict it. On $450 interiors, skip it; the friction costs more than the fee.

Card or ACH for the walkthrough balance? Offer both, lead with ACH over $3,000: "most customers pay the balance by bank transfer and skip the fee." The walkthrough glow is the best ACH salesperson you'll ever have.

This month: get a mobile reader to every signing, move exterior balances to ACH by default, and put the surcharge disclosure in the exterior contract. Then read Tech for Painting Contractors — the estimator that quotes in two hours needs software that keeps up.