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Adding Payment Processing Fee to Gravity Forms Checkout

  |  by Chris Eggleston

If you are using Gravity Forms to collect payment for a service, sell a product, or collect donations, you know that the payment processors, such as Stripe, Square, and PayPal, all charge a fee. That fee is usually somewhere around three percent or more specifically 2.9% +.30.

Unfortunately, we can’t make the fees go away, but if you’d like to pass that fee on to your customer or donor, you can do so with a product field and a simple formula.

Requirements

  • Gravity Forms License (Pro or Elite)
  • A Payment Add-On (i.e Stripe, Square, PayPal)
  • About 10 minutes

Optional: Solutions to simplify this setup:

I will touch on these solutions at the end of this tutorial, but we do not use them in this demo.

Setting up Your Form

In this demonstration, instead of forcing the customer to pay the processing fees, we’re going to give them the option to choose if they will cover the processing fees.

If you prefer to force the user to cover the fee, simply skip steps one and three below.

Step 1: The Choice Field

  • Add a Standard Radio Button Field

You want this field to be at the top of the checkout section, ideally above the Total field and credit card field.

Step 2: Processing Fee Calculation

Part 1:

For the first part of this step, we need to add a product field to the form. Once added you need to change the field type to Calculation:

Part 2:

Once part one is complete, you will need to add the formula below to the formula field.

( {The Product (Price):ID} + .3 ) / (1 - .029) - {The Product (Price):ID}

For this to work, you will need to switch out the {The Product (Price):ID} merge tag with your actual product field price merge tag as shown below.

Step 3: Removing the Fee

Remember that we’re giving the user the option to choose if they want to cover the processing fee or not, so we need to add conditional logic to the processing fee field for them to opt out of paying the fee.

  1. Click on the Processing Fee field
  2. Click on the Conditional Logic setting section
  3. Enable conditional logic
  4. Configure the logic based on the radio button field we set up in step one
  5. Save the form

Step 4: Testing the Form

Now that the form is set up and saved, you will be able to pass the processing fee along to the customer.

The best part about using this specific formula is that the outcome is a perfect price split between your original product price and the processing fee, as shown in the payment details below:

FAQs

What if you have multiple products?

You can add multiple products to the processing fee calculation formula. As demonstrated here:

What if you have Products with Quantity Fields?

You can still make this work; you will need to get a little more complex with the formula.

Let’s say you have two products with a quantity field; the formula would look like this:

( ({Product 1(Price):1.2}*{Product 1(Quantity):1.3}) + ({Product 2(Price):2.2}*{Product 2(Quantity):2.3}) + .3 ) / (1 - .029) - ( ({Product 1(Price):1.2}*{Product 1(Quantity):1.3}) + ({Product 2(Price):2.2}*{Product 2(Quantity):2.3}) )

In this calculation, you multiply the product price by the quantity and then add the total of those two fields together. The rest of the formula is the same.

I recommend you use the merge tag selector when creating your formula so that you can get the right field element. You probably noticed that the ID looks different than if you had just a standard product field.

Optional Add-Ons

In all cases, single products, multiple products, and products with quantities and options, these add-ons will simplify the calculations.

This add-on is free and only works in calculations. But it means that you do not have to add every product and product option to the formula.

This is an example of how the calculations for products with quantities would look if you used this plugin.

Take this:

( ({Product 1(Price):1.2}*{Product 1(Quantity):1.3}) + ({Product 2(Price):2.2}*{Product 2(Quantity):2.3}) + .3 ) / (1 - .029) - ( ({Product 1(Price):1.2}*{Product 1(Quantity):1.3}) + ({Product 2(Price):2.2}*{Product 2(Quantity):2.3}) )

and make it this:

({subtotal} + .3 ) / (1 - .029) - {subtotal}

I think you would agree this is much simpler.

This add-on is a bit more advanced than the one above, and it is not free. With this one, you get a few new fields that can be used in your forms:

  1. Tax Field
  2. Subtotal Field
  3. Discount Field

If you’re looking for a way to extend your commerce forms, this plugin is worth looking into.

Need More Help?

If you still need help, feel free to use the comments or chat options below.

If you have an active Gravity Forms license, you can also open a support ticket here.

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About the Author
Chris Eggleston
I’m not just a Gravity Forms enthusiast; I’m a dedicated father and loving husband. As the owner of WP Mantis & Marketing Draft, I’m on a mission to simplify the WordPress experience for site owners. I try to bring a unique perspective to the Gravity Forms community.

Support Chris - Donate $5

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Bekee
1 year ago

Thank you so much for this article! i was not sure how to accomplish this and it helped a lot. Cheers!

Charles
Charles
1 year ago

Hi, I would like to deduct an amount from the sub total if the sub total is above a minimum amount, I kind of understand how the calculations part works but how do I affect the changes to the stripe payment?

Bruce
Bruce
1 year ago

If you add the fee onto the donation amount, wouldn’t PayPal just charge a fee on the increased amount?

Last edited 1 year ago by Bruce
Peter
Peter
Reply to  Bruce
3 months ago

I too am wondering this. Doesn’t paypal just look at the total that comes in and charge the fee based on that? Am I missing something here?

N D
N D
2 years ago

I am using this for an event registration. It is possible for certain users to select options that would reduce their price to 0, letting them register for free. In this case, their subtotal is $0 but, due to the processing fee calculation that is added on, it still charges them a fee of $0.31. How can I remedy this? I thought the answer may lie in conditional logic somehow, but can’t figure it out since I can only select one “total” field for the payment amount in the Stripe feed setup.

N D
N D
Reply to  Chris Eggleston
2 years ago

I appreciate your response. I will export and email the file. Thank you!

Tom
Tom
2 years ago

Hi Chris,

I wondered how you handle the two types of Stripe fees? For us in AU and I think elsewhere Stripe has the below:

1.75% + A$0.30 for Domestic cards
2.9% + A$0.30 for International cards

I can see from your calcs. above it looks like you only do one calculation?

Any response would be greatly appreciated!

James P
Reply to  Chris Eggleston
2 years ago

Cheers I used this on a project today Chris!

Having the same issue as Tom, though being in Australia.

I wonder if you can block international cards in Stripe?

Most people use Visa or Mastercard in Australia for small business so if you can reject other cards that would work.

I think the fees are less for normal debt cards vs credit cards? which needs to be taken into account if so.

Probably have to ask the customer directly what card do you have with a drop down. A lot of logic but doable. If anyone has a work around keen to hear.

Last edited 2 years ago by James P
Steve
2 years ago

Can the Quantity: field on a Product be figured into the total? On my form, the page is letting parents order a year book — or a few year books, depending on whether they have a couple of kids in that school. It shows only the $1.35 for a single purchase — nothing changes when the Quantity is increased — I’d imagine there would be a “times” component added to the snippet?

Hannah
Hannah
2 years ago

Hey, do you think this fee recovery solution would work with recurring donations?

And doesn’t it require 2 different Stripe feeds, one with fees and one without?

Referencing “How to Pass Payment Transaction Fees to the Customer” by mr. technique

Hannah
Hannah
Reply to  Chris Eggleston
2 years ago

Thank you for the fast reply! Much appreciated.

ren
ren
3 years ago

Hi there, how do you do this when you have multiple products? There’s no way I can find to do the calculation off a total field…