Take card payments on your invoices — Stripe setup for tradies (step by step)

Why bother taking card at all?

Most tradies should lead with PayID — it's free to receive, lands in seconds, and there's no account to set up. But some customers just want to put the job on a card: they're low on cash this week, they want the credit card points, or they're a business paying on the company card. If card isn't an option, "I'll sort it later" creeps in — and later means chasing.

• Get paid on the spot — the customer taps the button while you're still packing the van.
• Fewer chases — every extra payment option removes an excuse to put it off.
• No hardware — no card reader, no terminal rental. Just a link on the invoice.

The trade-off is the merchant fee. Here's what each option actually costs you.

What it costs: PayID vs card vs Afterpay

Stripe setup, step by step

The whole thing takes about 15 minutes. You create the account once, create one link once, and you're done — the same link works for every invoice you ever send, because the customer types in the amount.

Step 1: Create your Stripe account

Go to stripe.com/au, hit Start now, and sign up with your email and mobile. To activate the account for real payments you'll need your ABN, some ID (driver's licence or passport), and your BSB and account number so Stripe knows where to send your money. Approval is usually same-day — often minutes. Heads-up: your very first payout takes 7–14 days to arrive (standard for new accounts); after that it's typically a couple of business days.

Step 2: New payment link → "Customers choose what to pay"

In the Stripe dashboard, open Payment Links and click + New. You'll be asked what kind of link you want — pick "Customers choose what to pay". This is the trick that makes one link work for any invoice amount: instead of a fixed price, the customer types in what they owe. Give it a clear title like "Invoice payment — Dave's Electrical".

Two optional settings worth a look before you create it: you can skip the suggested "preset amount" (your invoice already says what's owed), and you can set a minimum so nobody accidentally pays $5. By default the maximum payment is the equivalent of US$10,000 — plenty for most jobs, and Stripe support can raise it if you quote bigger.

Step 3: Create the link and copy it

Click Create link. Stripe gives you a short URL that looks like buy.stripe.com/abc123. Hit Copy — that one link is now your card-payments machine. You never need to make another one.

Step 4: Paste it into Yamate

In Yamate, open Settings → 💳 Get paid online and paste your link into the "Card payment link" field, then save. That's the last bit of setup — Yamate does the rest.

Step 5: Every invoice now has a "Pay by card" button

From now on, every invoice (and every chase-up reminder) you send shows a "Pay by card" button next to your PayID. The customer taps it, types in the invoice total, and pays on their phone in under a minute. The money lands in your Stripe balance straight away and pays out to your bank on Stripe's schedule.

Can you pass the card fee on to the customer?

Short version: right now yes (within limits), but the rules are about to change. As at July 2026, Australian businesses can surcharge card payments, but only up to the actual cost of acceptance — the ACCC can penalise excessive surcharges. However, the RBA has finalised reforms that ban surcharging on eftpos, Visa and Mastercard from 1 October 2026 — that covers pretty much every card your customers will use.

Our take: don't build your pricing around a surcharge that's weeks away from being banned. Treat the ~2% card fee as a cost of doing business and build it into your rates — the same way you price in fuel and insurance. If a customer pays by PayID instead, that's a couple of dollars back in your pocket.

This isn't legal or financial advice — surcharging rules have exceptions and timing details, so check with your accountant or see rba.gov.au for the current state of play.

What about Afterpay?

Once your Stripe account is running, you can switch on Afterpay as a payment method (Stripe dashboard → Settings → Payment methods) and it appears as an option on the same payment link. The customer splits the bill into four interest-free fortnightly instalments; you get the full amount up front, minus the fee, and Afterpay chases the instalments — not you.

• Fee to you: 6% + 30c per payment (as at July 2026 — roughly 3.5× the card fee).
• Transaction limits: $1 to $4,000 AUD per payment, Australian customers only.
• Worked example: on a $2,000 job, Afterpay costs you $120.30 vs $34.30 by card vs $0 by PayID.

Our honest verdict: leave it off by default. For routine work under about $500 it's an expensive convenience — most customers can find $300 without an instalment plan. Where it earns its keep is discretionary jobs in the $800–$3,000 range — the deck extension, the reno extra, the "while you're here" upgrade — where "four payments of $500" genuinely wins a job that "pay $2,000 now" loses, or replaces a DIY payment plan you'd otherwise be chasing for months. If that's your work, price the 6% into the quote and it can pay for itself. If it's not, PayID + card covers you.

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General information for Australian businesses, not legal or financial advice. Yamate isn't affiliated with Stripe or Afterpay; screens above are simplified illustrations, not real product screenshots. Fees, limits and surcharging rules change — check stripe.com/au/pricing and rba.gov.au for current details.