A manually entered card payment is a transaction where a customer's card details are typed into and processed on the Stripe Dashboard or with the Stripe Terminal Mail Order and Telephone Order (MOTO) function. Transaction fees for manually entered card payments are higher due to increased fraud rates associated with collecting card details by phone or other unencrypted sources. Alternatives to manually entering card information include Payment Links, Hosted Invoices, Third-party integration, and Terminal.

What is a manually entered card payment?

A manually entered card payment is a transaction in which a customer’s card details have been typed into and processed on the Stripe Dashboard or with Stripe Terminal MOTO. This includes the following:

• One-time payments where the customer’s card details have been entered into the Dashboard or with Terminal MOTO at the time of transaction.
• One-time payments using a saved card on file whose details were previously entered into the Dashboard or with Terminal MOTO.
• The first subscription payment using a card whose details have been typed into the Dashboard. (All subsequent subscription payments using that card will be charged the standard 2.9% + 0.30 USD card processing fee.)

Why are transaction fees higher for manually entered card payments?

Transaction fees on cards entered manually in the Stripe Dashboard or with Terminal MOTO are 3.4% + 0.30 USD for businesses on standard pricing based in the US and 3.4% + 0.30 CAD for businesses based in Canada compared to 2.9% + 0.30 USD and 2.9% + 0.30 CAD, respectively, for standard card payments.

The higher fees reflect the cost of higher fraud rates associated with collecting customer card details by phone or other unencrypted sources. Directly typing in sensitive customer data bypasses much of the security that’s built into Stripe’s online payments. As a result, we see higher fraud rates on manually entered payments, leading to higher costs for Stripe.

What are alternatives to manually entering card information?

Below are alternatives to consider for more secure and easy-to-use payment options that allow your customer to directly enter their card information:

3DS Secure and manually entered card payments

In the context of Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) and Japan’s 3DS mandate, card details collected over the phone or by mail do not require authentication. Payments made by manually entering card details are automatically marked as MOTO by Stripe.

PCI burden and manually entered card payments

When card information is manually entered into the Dashboard or Terminal MOTO, we can’t verify that it’s being kept secure outside of Stripe. You’re then responsible for ensuring the protection of card data in accordance with PCI compliance requirements. Refer to the PCI DSS compliance guide to better understand PCI requirements.

If you need to process phone and mail payments via the Dashboard, API, or Stripe Terminal, contact us to enable this feature on your Stripe account.

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