What the headline rate leaves out
The advertised percentage is the price of one kind of card, on one kind of sale, in a month busy enough to clear the minimum charge. Interchange, business and foreign cards, chargebacks, PCI fees, terminal rental, and VAT all sit outside it.
What is the headline percentage actually a price for?
A domestic consumer card, presented in person, on a plan you already pay for. The wording that limits it usually sits beside it. Square's UK figure of 1.75% is "for transactions with UK cards" (checked 2026-08-25). Stripe's UK 1.40% plus 10p is quoted for EEA cards, with non-EEA cards at 2.90% plus 10p (checked 2026-08-25).
Neither qualifier is hidden. They are simply not the number in the advertisement. The provider list marks which providers publish a rate at all, and which publish only a starting figure.
Interchange is not inside an interchange-plus price
An interchange-plus quote is a markup, not a total. Helcim publishes interchange plus 0.40% and $0.08 for card-present sales up to $50,000 a month (checked 2026-08-25). Interchange is set per card type by the card networks, and Helcim does not publish it.
So no total exists for those plans. Five US plans in the set are interchange-plus, and none of them is computable for that reason (checked 2026-08-25). The argument is set out in why interchange-plus pricing cannot be totaled.
Business cards, foreign cards, and Amex carry their own rates
The second rate line is often further from the headline than the headline is from a rival provider.
| Provider (UK) | Domestic consumer card | Other cards as published | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|
| myPOS, pay as you go | 1.10% + £0.07 | EEA consumer 2.20%, Amex 2.45%, all other consumer and commercial 2.85%, each + £0.07 | 2026-08-25 |
| Tyl by NatWest | 1.39% + 5p | Other cards 1.99% + 5p, up to £50,000 a year | 2026-08-25 |
| Paymentsense (Nexi) | 1.40% + 5p | Business cards 1.99% | 2026-08-25 |
| SumUp, Payments Plus | 0.99% | Non-EU or corporate cards, including Amex, 1.69% | 2026-08-25 |
A shop selling to tourists or to other businesses never pays the headline. It pays a blend, and no pricing page can know the weights. Read the second rate line as carefully as the first.
What does a minimum monthly charge do to a quiet month?
It swaps your card fees for a fixed floor, so a slow month costs about what a busy one costs. Paymentsense publishes a minimum monthly service charge of £24.95, a terminal at £20.00 a month, and a PCI DSS fee of £4.95 (checked 2026-08-25). Its card-present rate is 1.40% plus a 5p authorisation fee (checked 2026-08-25). This site assumes an average UK sale of £20.00, the only figure used here that no provider published.
Take a month at £1,000 of card sales, half the lowest turnover band this site computes.
The headline is 1.40% and the quiet month costs 4.99%, because the minimum, the rental, and the PCI fee do not fall when trade does. Cardnet publishes a smaller minimum monthly charge of £10.00 against a 0.50% plus 3p rate (checked 2026-08-25). Tyl states there is no minimum monthly service charge on its terminal plans (checked 2026-08-25).
The effective rate calculator runs the same arithmetic against whatever turnover you type in.
Rental turns into a percentage when trade is slow
The effective rate here spreads the monthly fee, the rental, a published PCI fee, and any minimum across the card sales of the same month. One plan therefore has two very different prices at two turnovers.
| Plan (UK) | Headline card-present rate | Effective at £2,000 a month | Effective at £25,000 a month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paymentsense (Nexi), point of sale terminal | 1.40% + 5p | 2.90% | 1.75% |
| Tyl by NatWest, PAX A920 Pro portable | 1.39% + 5p | 2.64% | not published (Tyl publishes only up to £50,000 a year) |
| Cardnet (Lloyds Bank), Castles Saturn | 0.50% + 3p | 1.80% | 0.74% |
| SumUp, pay as you go | 1.69% | 1.72% | 1.69% |
Cardnet has the lowest headline of the four, yet at £2,000 a month its effective rate is higher than SumUp's (checked 2026-08-25). A rental only pays for itself once the volume arrives to carry it.
Chargeback and refund fees are billed on their own
Paymentsense publishes a £28.00 chargeback fee, and a 50p refund fee on its gateway plan (checked 2026-08-25). Stripe publishes a $15 chargeback fee in the US (checked 2026-08-25). Tyl states its terminal plans carry no fees for card-not-present transactions, cancellations, or refunds (checked 2026-08-25). Epos Now states that customer refunds are free (checked 2026-08-25). For several providers, including Square and PayPal (Zettle), a chargeback fee is not stated on the provider's published page (checked 2026-08-25).
These stay out of the effective rate, because the number of disputes is a fact about the shop. That does not make them small. One £28.00 chargeback would add more than half again to the fee bill in the quiet month above.
Some providers publish a PCI fee and most do not
Paymentsense publishes a PCI DSS fee of £4.95 a month plus VAT (checked 2026-08-25). Epos Now publishes none, and Helcim states it charges no PCI compliance, monthly minimum, or annual fees (checked 2026-08-25). For the rest, a PCI amount is not stated on the provider's published page (checked 2026-08-25).
The UK prices sit on two different VAT bases
Square, Stripe, PayPal (Zettle), SumUp, Tyl, Barclaycard, Cardnet, and Paymentsense quote UK hardware and monthly charges excluding VAT (checked 2026-08-25). Shopify, Elavon, Dojo, Epos Now, and myPOS state no basis on the pages read, so the dataset records it as unconfirmed (checked 2026-08-25).
The difference lands at the bottom of the invoice. A VAT-registered business reclaims the VAT on a rental, a PCI fee, and a terminal. A business below the threshold does not.
What the effective rate here does and does not carry
It carries the card-present percentage, the per-transaction fee, the monthly fee, terminal rental, a published PCI fee, and a published minimum charge. Hardware bought outright is spread over 36 months. It excludes interchange on interchange-plus deals, chargebacks, refunds, foreign and business card surcharges, and tax.
Publishing that exclusion list is the only way the number stays honest. What card payments cost walks the same fees in statement order, and the three numbers behind a card rate covers the percentage, the fixed fee, and the floor.
Where the answer changes
- If your takings are almost all domestic consumer debit, the headline is close to your real cost. Check the monthly floor instead.
- If you take business, foreign, or Amex cards in any volume, do not decide yet. Get the second and third rate lines in writing, then compare.
- If you trade seasonally, compare plans at your quietest month rather than your average. Minimums and rentals bite hardest there.
Who this article is not for
This does not help a business already signed to an interchange-plus contract with a negotiated markup. No published total exists for those deals, so the arithmetic here cannot reach them. Nor does it help a reader who wants one plan named, because this site does not rate products.
Sources
- Paymentsense pricing page, checked 2026-08-25
- Cardnet prices page, checked 2026-08-25
- Tyl by NatWest pricing page, checked 2026-08-25
- myPOS pricing page, checked 2026-08-25
- SumUp UK card readers page, checked 2026-08-25
- Square UK pricing page, checked 2026-08-25
- Stripe pricing pages, UK and US, checked 2026-08-25
- PayPal Zettle pricing page, checked 2026-08-25
- Epos Now payments page, checked 2026-08-25
- Helcim pricing page, checked 2026-08-25
- What You Keep dataset and provider counts, data/dataset.json and review-kit/facts.json, checked 2026-08-25
How this article was made. Written by Kaz, an independent publisher. All figures come from the companies' own published documentation; each figure carries the date it was last checked. I have not used these products, and nothing here is a personal test result. The arithmetic is shown so you can recalculate with your own numbers. Found an error? Use the contact form; corrections are logged on the Editorial policy page.
Related articles
- The three numbers behind a card rate
- What a 'get a quote' button is for
- How to read the effective rate on this site
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.