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

A remodeler's money arrives in phases: a $4,000 deposit, an $18,500 rough-in payment, a $40,000 kitchen collected across a draw schedule. Stripe, Square, Adyen, Chase, Fiserv, Global Payments, and Worldpay built their pricing for coffee shops and SaaS — then never wrote a word about what 2.9% does to a $40,000 kitchen. We ran their published rates against real remodeling ticket sizes, rates checked October 2026. Also see Custom Remodelers, AI for Remodelers, and Tech for Remodelers.

The fee table: what each processor actually charges you

Published rates, checked October 2026. Square: 2.6% + $0.15 in person, roughly 2.9–3.3% + $0.30 online depending on plan, ~3.5% + $0.15 card-on-file/keyed. Stripe: 2.9% + $0.30 online, 2.7% + $0.05 in person, 3.4% + $0.30 stored cards. Interchange-plus: about 0.3% over interchange. ACH: about $5 flat.

$4,000 deposit: Stripe online $116.30. Square in person $104.15. Interchange-plus roughly $75–$95. ACH about $5.

$18,500 phase payment: Stripe online $536.80. Square in person $481.15. Interchange-plus roughly $300–$380. ACH about $5.

$40,000 kitchen (total card-collected): Stripe online $1,160.30. Square in person $1,040.15. Interchange-plus roughly $650–$800. ACH about $5.

The devastating row is the kitchen: $1,160 to take a kitchen by card at flat rate. That's a mid-range appliance, donated to the processor. Collect the phases by ACH and the entire kitchen's processing cost is about $20. Nobody at Stripe or Square will ever write that sentence. We just did.

The workflow checklist the big processors fail

• Deposits with legal caps. California caps home-improvement down payments at 10% or $1,000, whichever is less — most states have a version. A generic payment link doesn't know that. Collect an illegal deposit and the card receipt won't save you.
• Phase billing tied to the contract. "Phase 2 due at rough-in complete" needs invoicing that references the phase, the contract balance, and what's left — not a one-off payment link with no memory.
• Change orders mid-project. The $1,800 in extra recessed lights needs to be billable the day it's agreed, attached to the project, payable by link. Generic processors make every change order a new manual invoice.
• Final walkthrough balances. The last 10% — the punch-list holdback — is the hardest money to collect in remodeling. It needs a card on file taken at signing, charged the day the punch list clears, not a "we'll send the check" conversation.
• Financing as a close tool. A $40,000 kitchen closes faster with a 12-month 0%-APR option than with a 10% discount. The big processors don't do consumer financing; partners like Wisetack, Hearth, and Service Finance do. If you're not offering financing, your competitor is.
• Allowances vs. overages. When the homeowner blows the $5,000 fixture allowance by $1,200, that overage needs its own invoice, immediately — before it becomes a final-invoice fight.

The honest verdict on each processor

• Square: fine for the handyman-phase side of your business — small jobs, in-person. The moment you run a $40,000 kitchen through it, you're paying appliance money in fees. Also: Square's aggregated-risk model freezes accounts on outlier transactions, and a $25,000 phase payment after months of $500 ones is exactly an outlier.
• Stripe: great if you're technical enough to build phase billing on its API. Almost no remodeler is, and out of the box it's a generic online checkout at 2.9% — the most expensive way to collect a kitchen.
• Adyen: enterprise. Unless you're doing $20M+ with a finance team, skip.
• Chase Payment Solutions: fine if you bank at Chase and want one statement. No phase billing, no change-order anything, quote-based pricing that rewards whoever negotiates hardest.
• Fiserv/Clover, Global Payments, Worldpay: quote-maze, hardware bundles, zero remodeling-specific content. Interchange-plus exists if you push — which tells you the opening quote is theater.

What a remodeler should actually run: ACH for every scheduled phase payment, card-on-file (tokenized, 3.4%-style rates avoided via interchange-plus) for deposits and final balances, and a financing partner at the proposal stage. ClaroPro.ai handles the collection choreography — phase invoices on schedule, payment links by text, change orders billable same-day — over processing priced for your ticket sizes, not coffee-shop ones.

Notes from Finix's public docs: ACH, card-on-file, surcharging

Finix's public docs read like they were written by someone who's watched a remodeler's draw schedule:

• ACH for phase payments. Every scheduled phase — the $18,500 rough-in, the $12,000 finish payment — costs about $5 by ACH. Finix's docs cover ACH origination, timing, and returns handling, which is the unglamorous part that matters when a phase payment bounces the week payroll hits.
• Card on file via tokenization. Take the card at contract signing, vault it as a token, charge the deposit now and the final walkthrough balance automatically when the punch list clears. The client never re-enters a card; you never chase the last 10%.
• Surcharging, legally. Credit only, disclosed upfront, capped around 3% — and check your state's current rules. On an $18,500 phase, a compliant surcharge recovers ~$540. Many remodelers instead quote "3% off for ACH," same math, friendlier framing.
• Payment links and invoicing primitives. Finix documents the building blocks — tokenized cards, ACH, hosted payment flows — that software like a phase-billing system is built on. If your software runs on infrastructure like this instead of a flat-rate aggregator, your per-phase cost drops by two-thirds.

The point, in one line: Finix prices like infrastructure because it is infrastructure — and infrastructure pricing is what makes a $40,000 kitchen affordable to collect.

The phase-collection playbook

How a tight remodeler collects a $40,000 kitchen without the awkwardness:

• At signing: deposit plus tokenized card. The deposit (within your state's cap) goes on the card; the same card is vaulted as a token for the final balance. One card entry, whole project covered.
• Each phase: invoiced the day it completes. Demo done Monday, phase invoice texted Monday. The client pays while they're happy about the progress, not three weeks later when they're thinking about the dust.
• Change orders: billed the day they're signed. The $1,800 in extra lights gets its own invoice, its own link, its own payment — before it dissolves into the final invoice and becomes negotiable.
• Allowance overages: invoiced when they happen. The fixture allowance breaks in week six; the overage invoice goes out in week six. Waiting until the end turns a $1,200 fact into a $1,200 argument.
• Final 10%: auto-charged at punch-list sign-off. The card on file does the chasing. The "we'll send the check" conversation never happens because the mechanism was agreed at signing.

The policy, stated once at signing: phases by ACH (about $5 each), deposit and final by card on file, change orders billed same-day. Clients don't argue with a system — they argue with surprises.

FAQ

What's the cheapest way to collect an $18,500 phase payment? ACH — about $5, settling in 3–5 days. You knew the phase was coming for weeks; the wait costs nothing and the card fee is $537.

Should I offer financing on kitchens? Yes — a 12-month 0%-APR option closes more $40,000 kitchens than any discount. Use Wisetack, Hearth, or Service Finance; the big processors don't offer it.

Can I surcharge the final walkthrough balance? Where legal, yes — credit only, disclosed before they pay. Or quote the ACH discount instead; clients hear "discount," not "fee."

How do I stop chasing the last 10%? Card on file at signing, auto-charged when the punch list clears. The chase ends the day you tokenize the card, not the day you send the fourth reminder.

The rule: ACH for every scheduled phase, card-on-file for deposits and final balances, financing offered at the proposal — never flat-rate on a $40,000 kitchen. Then read Tech for Remodelers: the right stack is what turns selection deadlines, allowance tracking, and phase billing from memory into machinery.