United States first · published prices only

Card Processing Fees: Calculate What You Actually Pay

Enter your sales and fee terms to see total processing fees, net proceeds, effective rate and annual cost. Then compare published processor pricing using the same sales assumptions.

How to use this

1. Find the provider in the list and read the monthly fee and hardware columns, not just the percentage.
2. Put your real card takings into the calculator. A monthly fee spread over a quiet month is what changes the answer.
3. Read what the headline rate leaves out before you treat it as a budget.

Where the advertised rate is furthest from the bill

Why the percentage on the poster is not the price

A monthly fee, a terminal and a per-transaction charge are fixed amounts. Spread across a quiet month they are a large share of takings; across a busy one they are almost nothing. That is why every table here is expressed as a share of card sales at a stated volume, and why 5 plans are left out of the ranking altogether: interchange plus a markup cannot be totalled without the interchange, and no provider publishes it.

What this is not

This is not a review site and it is not a quote service. Nothing here is rated, scored or recommended; there are no stars or badges, and we have not used any of these products. Every table is ordered by one computed number and the formula is published in full. No provider has paid to appear here. It is not free of bias either: the editor chose which providers to hold, which rate to compute with and what average sale to assume, and all three choices are written down on the method page so you can disagree with them.

Questions answered

52 articles, each answering one question with the providers' own published figures and the arithmetic shown.

How a card payment works

• What actually happens between a card tap and the money reaching your bank?
• Is a merchant account just another business bank account?
• Who is the acquirer in a card payment, and how is it different from the card issuer?
• What are you actually buying when you sign up for merchant services?
• Do you need a merchant account, a processor, and a gateway, or can one company cover all three?
• Who is your contract really with when you sign up through an ISO or a payment facilitator?

Reading the price

• The three numbers behind a card rate
• What the headline rate leaves out
• How to read the effective rate on this site
• Why interchange-plus pricing cannot be totaled
• Does a flat rate, interchange-plus, tiered, or subscription plan cost a merchant the least?
• Where on a merchant statement do you find what card processing actually cost you?
• Is a debit card sale cheaper for a merchant than a credit card sale?
• Why does a keyed-in or online card payment cost a merchant more than a tapped one?
• Do online card payments cost more than in-person ones?
• What does it cost you when a customer pays with a card from another country?

Choosing a plan and equipment

• Is there one card processor that is cheapest for every shop?
• What should a small shop decide before it picks a card processor?
• Does a card payment cost the same at the counter, online, by invoice, and over the phone?
• Can you take card payments on your phone without buying a reader?
• Does a small shop need a card reader, a payment terminal, or a full POS system?
• What does a POS system really cost each month once card processing is included?
• What kind of payment software do you need for phone orders, online checkout, or your own app?
• Why does the same card rate cost a gift shop more than a furniture store?
• Should a restaurant pay a higher rate to get POS hardware included?
• Does a small business still have to deal with PCI DSS if a processor handles the cards?

Deposits, disputes, surcharges and risk

• What does it cost to get card sales into your bank faster than the next business day?
• How much more does a chargeback cost a merchant than a refund?
• Who pays when a card processor advertises zero fees?
• What changes once a processor decides your business is high risk?

Banks and local sellers

• What a 'get a quote' button is for
• Who publishes a card rate, and who does not
• Is card processing from your own bank cheaper than Square or Stripe?
• Does it matter whether your merchant services company is local?
• Do you have to bank with Bank of America to use its merchant services?
• Do U.S. Bank's published card rates apply if you sign up at a branch?
• Does Truist Merchant Services only make sense if you already bank with Truist?
• Does QuickBooks Payments cost more than Stripe or Square once the invoices get bigger?

Named providers

• When you sign up for Clover, which company are you really signing with?
• Who pays the card fees when Slice says processing costs the merchant nothing?
• Is GoDaddy's Rate Saver really 0%, or only 0% on some of your sales?
• Will a high-risk business get HighRiskPay.com's 1.79% rate?
• When Real Merchant Services says you can stop paying card fees, who pays instead?
• What does START Merchant Services charge on top of interchange?
• Is United Merchant Services the same company as BLUU?
• How much does Paysafe charge a U.S. business to process cards?
• Is 2.69% + 9¢ really what Valor Merchant Services would charge?
• With iQ Merchant's 0% markup, what do you actually pay each month?
• What does Clarus Merchant Services offer B2B distributors, and what does it charge?
• Does CardConnect publish its processing rates anywhere?
• Is Global Merchant Services part of Global Payments?
• Is AUS Merchant Services a card processor a U.S. shop can sign up with?

Start here

• Every provider, with published rates
• Effective rate calculator
• How the ordering is produced
• The three numbers behind a card rate: the fixed fee, the flat fee and the floor

Written by Kaz (pen name). Figures are copied from providers' published pricing pages on the dates shown. We have not used these products. Corrections: contact form.