Paystone vs Square vs Moneris vs Stripe
Four processors and three pricing models — but the rate is only the first decision. The second, which almost nobody quotes on, is what your payments are connected to once they are running.
Authorized Rogers dealer · Authorized Paystone reseller · Software built in-house
Telebridge is an authorized Paystone reseller, and we build the software that connects it to the rest of your business. We have no commercial relationship with Square, Moneris or Stripe. Below we are specific about the situations each of them suits — and equally specific about what you give up.
The three pricing models
Almost every processing decision comes down to which model you are on, not whose logo is on the terminal.
Published rates, side by side
Card-present credit, Canadian rates as published on each provider’s own site in July 2026. Verify before signing — Square raised online rates in January 2026.
Square
Moneris
StripePaystone + Telebridge buildSources: Square Canada fees page; Moneris pricing page; provider documentation, checked July 2026. Square applies an additional 1.5% on cards issued outside Canada.
Where the alternatives fit — and what they cost you
Square
New, low-volume, or you need to take a card this afternoon. Free basic software, no monthly fee, running same-day. For a market stall or a brand-new shop, that is the right answer and we will say so.
Flat-rate pricing that cannot fall when interchange does — when Canadian small-business interchange dropped in October 2024, flat-rate merchants saw nothing. Processing is locked to Square, so you cannot move it later without replacing the system. And it is a closed box: getting Square data into your accounting, CRM or reporting means middleware, manual exports, or living without it.
Moneris
Heavy Interac debit volume. A flat 12¢ per debit transaction is genuinely strong, and bank-backed support suits businesses that want a domestic incumbent.
Flat-rate is often what gets offered first to smaller merchants — you have to ask for interchange-plus specifically. Contract terms tend to be longer, and the platform is sold as a platform: what it connects to on your side is your problem to solve.
Stripe
Online-first businesses with developers in-house — SaaS, marketplaces, custom checkouts. Best-in-class API and documentation.
Flat-rate only, so the same volume ceiling applies. In-person retail is not its strength. And the developer tooling only helps if you have developers — which for most Canadian SMBs is exactly the gap.
What we do that none of them do
Every processor on this page will take a card. Not one of them will sit down with your business, work out how money actually moves through it, and then build the software that makes the rest of it work. That is the difference between buying payments and having payments that fit.
Paystone is a strong platform. What we add is everything between that platform and the way your business actually runs — written by our own developers, not outsourced.
What we build around your payments.
These are the integrations we are asked for most. All built in-house, all tailored to the business rather than dropped in from a template.
Not a bolted-on checkout page. We integrate payment acceptance directly into the site, portal or booking system you already use, so customers never leave your brand and the flow matches how you sell.
Card volume, tips, taxes and settlements flowing straight into your accounting package. The reconciliation that eats a day a month simply stops being a task.
Deposits, milestones, retainers, memberships, split payments — whatever your commercial model is, rather than whatever the platform ships with.
Balances and member behaviour landing in the same system as your sales pipeline, so marketing can act on it instead of exporting spreadsheets.
Custom reporting that consolidates all sites and channels — in-store, online, recurring — into a single view you actually check.
Settlement mismatches, failed recurring charges and chargeback notices surfaced automatically, so nobody finds out a week later.
Every one of these is written and supported by the same in-house team that installs the terminals. There is no hand-off to a third party, and no ticket queue in another timezone.
Platform + in-house buildA worked example
A multi-site restaurant group comes to us on flat-rate processing with three problems: the rate is too high for their volume, online orders sit in a separate system, and month-end reconciliation takes a day and a half.
The processor swap saves them on rate — that part any reseller could do. What changes the business is the rest: online ordering wired into the same payment rail, settlements posting automatically into accounting, gift card liability tracked in one place across all sites, and a dashboard the owner opens on a Monday instead of assembling. The saving on rate is real. The saving in hours is bigger.
How to actually decide
- Work out your effective rate. Total fees ÷ total card volume, across three statements.
- Check your debit share. Heavy Interac changes the answer materially.
- Ask for the markup as a separate number. If a provider cannot give it, that is the answer.
- List what payments should talk to — accounting, e-commerce, booking, CRM. This is the question that gets skipped and later costs the most.
- Ask who writes the integration when the platform does not do it out of the box.
- Check the exit terms before signing anything.
FAQ
Not at low volume. It becomes expensive as you grow, because a flat rate cannot fall when interchange does — and the bigger cost is usually the integration work it makes impossible rather than the rate itself.
Yes — that is one of the things we are asked for most. We integrate payment acceptance into existing websites, customer portals and booking systems so checkout stays inside your brand and the data lands where you need it. It is bespoke work, scoped to your setup.
Per-transaction debit pricing generally beats percentage-based pricing at reasonable ticket sizes. Moneris publishes 12¢ per Interac transaction; Square charges 0.75% + 7¢. On a $60 sale that is a real difference — check your own debit mix.
Paystone is what we deploy and know deepest, so it is where integration is fastest and best supported. Our development team works with whatever systems you already run on the other side — accounting, e-commerce, CRM, booking.
Taken from each provider’s published Canadian pricing in July 2026. Rates change — treat this as a structural comparison and confirm before signing.
Send three recent statements and tell us what systems you run. We will work out your true effective rate and show you what connecting it properly would change.
Get a free rate review