If you're thinking about signing up to Bonsai, or already have an account and want to get paid online through Bonsai, it's good to know that we support a variety of online and offline payment methods to help you get paid quickly.

The three online payment processors we support are Bonsai Payments, Stripe Payments, and PayPal.

👉 Note that Bonsai makes it easy to pass the payment processing fees onto your client so you receive exactly the amount you invoiced.

Bonsai Payments are supported for users from the US (activated by default after sign-up), UK, Canada, and Australia. Because it's the most deeply integrated with Bonsai, it provides faster payouts, better onboarding, and a better client experience compared to Stripe Payments and PayPal. Bonsai Payments often provides the lowest fees among our integrated payment options!

Bonsai Payments allows you to get paid via credit card, debit card, and bank transfer (ACH). The fees for each of those are the following:

👉 Note: for US accounts, if your account is eligible, "Instant Payouts" can be enabled with an additional 1.5% fee on the payout amount.

Pro tip: Active business banking

You can choose to activate business banking within Balance. It is an easy-to-use account to help you manage your business funds, spending, and savings goals. Get paid directly to your Balance and spend your funds with your virtual and physical cards!

Bonsai also supports direct integration with Stripe Connect so you can use your existing Stripe account to get paid. Stripe Payments can be used in any country in which Stripe is supported.

Note: For US users, Bonsai Payments is activated by default as a payment option, so you'll first need to deactivate it (Invoices -> Payouts -> View Payouts -> Deactivate Account) in order to be able to set up Stripe Payments.

Stripe Payment fees are the following:

👉 Note: All Stripe Payments incur an additional 1% platform fee for Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, Discover, JCB, Diners Club, UnionPay and 1.35% for American Express if you're in a country that's supported by Bonsai Payments (US, UK, Canada, and Australia). This platform fee is also applicable on Bank Transfer (ACH) payments done via our integrated Stripe Payments.

PayPal fees are generally 2.9% + $0.30, but note that they vary by country.

🚨 Note: PayPal fees increased last year! If available in your region, consider using Bonsai Payments for lower credit and debit card processing fees.

👉 Note: all PayPal payments incur an additional 1% platform fee if you're in a country that's supported by Bonsai Payments (US, UK, Canada, and Australia).

The Foreign Exchange (FX) fee is a fee that is added to your Bonsai Payments or Stripe Payments invoices when you get paid internationally using one of our online payment methods. This fee is 2.5% of your invoice amount.

You can learn more about the FX fee and when is it effective, in detail here.

Other payment methods outside of Bonsai, such as Wire Transfer and Mailed Check, are not integrated into Bonsai's platform so any invoice template you send will not automatically be marked as paid upon completion.

If you decide to use these options, Bonsai will simply display the information to your client and you will need to mark your invoice as paid.

In order to use these offline payment options, you need to enable the below setting on the Invoice Settings page here: https://app.hellobonsai.com/settings/payments

Upon enabling this option, you can name it as Bank Account, etc to input your instructions to the client to do a wire. Then, these instructions do show up to your client at the time of paying your invoice, under the available payment methods.