[dangrossman]

Stripe has never competed on price, they compete on product.

The interchange rate, basically what Visa/MC charge to processors, is as low as 0.05% for debit cards and less than half what Stripe charges on many credit cards. There are hundreds of merchant account providers a business can go with that charge less than 2.9%, or charge a fixed markup over interchange. Heck, PayPal goes to 2.2% if you process just $10K/month, and 1.9% or less for bigger accounts -- that's been the case for over a decade.

Most people aren't choosing Stripe to get the best fees, they're choosing Stripe because you can get started immediately, their UX is awesome, and their reputation among the developers who have to implement the payment processing integration is stellar.