When Real Merchant Services says you can stop paying card fees, who pays instead?
Summary
Your credit card customers, mostly. Real Merchant Services' own site lists no prices, but its Hawaii representative publishes a Hybrid program where credit cards cost the merchant 0% and the customer 4%, consumer debit costs the merchant 1.5% + $0.25, and there is a $25 monthly fee. The merchant's bill shrinks because part of it moves onto the customer's receipt.
The main site sells the idea, not a price
realmerchantservices.com opens with "Tired of paying processing fees?" and says it can drastically reduce, if not completely eliminate, 100% of your credit card processing fees. No page on it shows a rate, a per-transaction fee, or a monthly charge; every button leads to a call or a contact form.
The mechanism it describes is dual pricing: show a cash price and a card price and let the customer choose. "If they pay cash, you keep 100% of that sale." It also sells REAL-branded terminals, POS stations and kiosks, its own REAL Payment Gateway with integrations for Authorize.net, NMI, QuickBooks, WooCommerce, Shopify, and GoHighLevel, a Dealer Genie platform for car dealers built on a surcharging program, and billing and ACH tools for utilities.
Where the prices are published
realmerchantservices-hawaii.com calls itself a local representative of Real Merchant Services, and its terms name the operator as REAL MERCHANT SERVICES, doing business as Real Merchant Services Hawaii, in Honolulu. It says it is not a separate processor, bank, or legal entity. Its solutions page lists three programs.
| Program | Monthly | Who pays on each sale |
|---|---|---|
| Hybrid | $25 | Credit: customer 4%, merchant 0%. Consumer debit: merchant 1.5% + $0.25. Mid-qualified cards 2.50%, non-qualified 3.50%; keyed debit does not get the 1.5% rate |
| Cash Discount | $25 under $5,000 a month, $50 from $5,000 to $25,000, $100 above $25,000 with one Dejavoo Z8 terminal | Flat monthly fee, unlimited processing |
| Traditional | $15 | Merchant pays interchange + 0.30% + $0.10 swiped, interchange + 0.30% + $0.30 keyed |
The dual pricing page shows a $10.00 cash price next to a $10.35 card price, labeled as an illustration, not a program quote.
A $20,000 month on Hybrid
Say 70% of sales are credit and 30% are consumer debit at a $25 average ticket.
Between the shop and its customers, $735 a month still goes to card costs. The shop sees $175 of it.
The fine print does not all agree
The Hawaii About page promises no term commitment, free cancellation at any time, and rates that will not increase. The homepage says only that month-to-month arrangements are available for some programs, and the terms say nothing on the site guarantees approval, a specific rate, specific fees, elimination of fees, funding timing, or savings.
Debit is described two ways. The dual pricing page says a surcharge cannot be applied to debit cards. The About page describes a "True Cash Discount" that adds a 4% non-cash adjustment to all credit and debit card transactions.
Sources
- realmerchantservices.com
- realmerchantservices.com/Small-Business-Payment-Solutions-USA
- realmerchantservices-hawaii.com/solutions
- realmerchantservices-hawaii.com/dual-pricing
- realmerchantservices-hawaii.com/about
- realmerchantservices-hawaii.com/terms
Related on this site
- Who pays when a card processor advertises zero fees?
- Is a debit card sale cheaper for a merchant than a credit card sale?
- Why interchange-plus pricing cannot be totaled
- Every provider we hold, and which publish a rate
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.