Does a flat rate, interchange-plus, tiered, or subscription plan cost a merchant the least?
Summary
None of them is cheapest by design. The answer depends on how much you process and which cards your customers carry. Run 100 in-person sales of $100 on one kind of Visa consumer credit card through four published price lists, and the month costs anywhere from $209 to $275, with a $99-a-month subscription landing within a few dollars of a plain flat rate.
What each model charges for
Chase's merchant statement guide sorts its own plans into four types, and says the plan name is printed at the bottom left of the statement.
Flat rate. One set rate for most transactions, with one rate for credit and one for debit. Chase publishes 2.6% plus 10¢ for tap, dip, or swipe. Square's card-present rate is 2.6% plus 15¢.
Swiped/keyed. Your rate depends on how the payment is taken: lower for tap, insert, or swipe, higher for manual entry, which includes online and phone orders.
Interchange pass-through, or interchange-plus. You pay the interchange set for each card and transaction type, plus a processing fee that can be a percentage, a fixed amount, or both. Helcim's in-person markup is interchange plus 0.40% and 8¢ for merchants processing up to $50,000 a month.
Tiered. Transactions are grouped as qualified, mid-qualified, or non-qualified, each with its own rate. No provider we looked at publishes tiered rates.
Subscription pricing is interchange-plus with the markup moved into a monthly fee. Stax charges 0% markup on interchange, 8¢ per card-present transaction, and $99 a month for up to $150,000 a year in processing, $139 up to $250,000.
One month, four price lists
A total needs a card. Visa's published interchange table, effective April 18, 2026, puts a consumer credit card in its "All Other Products" column, taken in person, at 1.51% plus 10¢. Assume every sale is that card.
| Provider and model | Calculation | Month |
|---|---|---|
| Chase, flat | $10,000 x 2.6% + 100 x $0.10 | $270 |
| Square, flat | $10,000 x 2.6% + 100 x $0.15 | $275 |
| Helcim, interchange-plus | $161 interchange + $10,000 x 0.40% + 100 x $0.08 | $209 |
| Stax, subscription | $161 interchange + 100 x $0.08 + $99 | $268 |
The $161 is $10,000 x 1.51% plus 100 x $0.10. Chase's guide lists network assessment fees as a separate kind of charge, and on the last two plans those can come on top. They are not in the table.
Change the cards or the volume and the order moves
Helcim won here because the cards were fixed at a low interchange category. Swap in Visa's Traditional Rewards card, 1.65% plus 10¢ in person, and interchange rises by $14 for the month. The Chase and Square figures stay where they are, because a flat rate absorbs the card mix.
The subscription depends on volume. At $10,000 a month, Stax's $99 is about 1% of sales. Against Helcim's 0.40% markup it pays for itself only above $24,750 a month in card sales ($99 / 0.004), and $24,750 a month is close to $300,000 a year, where Stax's fee is already in its $199-and-up band. The break-even point keeps moving away.
Tiered pricing cannot be run at all from public numbers, since the provider decides which bucket each sale lands in. How many of your sales went non-qualified shows up on the statement and nowhere else. The reason interchange-plus has no shop-wide total is the subject of the site's article on why interchange-plus cannot be totaled.
Sources
- chase.com/business/support/payments/statements-and-fees
- chase.com/business/payments/merchant-fees
- developer.squareup.com/docs/payments-pricing
- helcim.com/pricing
- staxpayments.com/pricing
- usa.visa.com/content/dam/VCOM/download/merchants/visa-usa-interchange-…
Related on this site
- Why interchange-plus pricing cannot be totaled
- What the headline rate leaves out
- Where on a merchant statement do you find what card processing actually cost you?
- Why does a keyed-in or online card payment cost a merchant more than a tapped one?
- Is a debit card sale cheaper for a merchant than a credit card sale?
- Effective rate calculator
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.