Method: where every card fee here comes from and how the ordering is produced
Every rate on this site is copied from the provider's own published pricing page, with the date it was read. Nothing is estimated, and no third-party figure is used anywhere.
Every ordering is by one computed number — the share of card sales that leaves the business over three years, ascending — and listing position is not for sale.
The formula, in full
The average sale is an assumption of this site, not a published figure: $25.00 in the United States and £20.00 in the United Kingdom. It decides how heavily a per-transaction fee lands, so the calculator lets you change it. Interchange, chargebacks, refunds, currency conversion, sales tax and VAT are not in any figure on this site, because the pricing page does not price them for a given shop. Every figure here is a floor. The full method is at Method.
The one assumption, and why it is here
A per-transaction fee costs more on small sales than large ones, so a total cannot be built without an average sale. We assume $25.00 in the United States and £20.00 in the United Kingdom and say so on every page that uses it. It is the only number on this site that no provider published. The calculator lets you replace it with your own, and on plans that charge a percentage only it changes nothing at all.
What is added and what is not
Added: the published card-present rate, the published per-transaction fee, the monthly software or plan fee, terminal rental, a published PCI fee, the provider's minimum monthly charge where it states one, and hardware bought outright, spread across 36 months.
Not added: interchange (on interchange-plus pricing), chargeback fees, refund fees, foreign and commercial card surcharges, currency conversion, early-termination charges, sales tax and VAT. Every figure on this site is a floor, not a forecast.
How companies get on this site
We include every provider selling card acceptance to small businesses in the United States or the United Kingdom that publishes a rate on its own website, plus the largest providers that do not, marked as quoting per business. No provider can pay to be included, excluded, or moved. We do not own, operate, or hold a stake in any product listed. The ranking formula is: share of card sales over three years, ascending. We do not accept free hardware, demos or accounts.
Four reasons a total can be missing
These are not the same thing and this site does not mix them:
- The provider publishes no rate (3 providers). Its own pages ask you to call or fill in a form. We quote that wording.
- It is quoted as interchange plus a markup (5 plans). The markup is published and the interchange is not, and interchange is the larger part. A total would be a guess, so we do not print one and we do not rank the plan.
- It is published as a starting figure (13 plans). “From 1.4%” is not a price; we print it and leave it out of the ranking.
- We could not read it (2 providers). The page draws its figures with scripts that did not run when we retrieved it, or refused our checker. That is our limitation and it is labeled as ours, not held against the provider.
Percentage-only pricing
15 of the plans we compute publish a percentage and no per-transaction fee. We compute them as though there is none, because that is what the provider's own page says, and we mark the cell so you can see the claim rather than assume it. If a provider quotes a flat fee later, those figures rise.
How ties are broken
Share of card sales over three years, ascending. If two plans are equal, the lower advertised percentage goes first. If those are equal too, alphabetically by provider. That is the entire sort key. There is no score, no weighting, no editorial adjustment and no provider input.
What is not in the sort key
Commission. Whether a provider runs a referral program at all. Whether we have applied to it. Brand size, review counts, hardware quality, support. The disclosure page names every program we are in.
Why the three-year horizon
Hardware is bought once and a monthly fee is paid forever, so any single month flatters whichever provider you have not paid for the terminal yet. Thirty-six months is the length most published terminal contracts run to, and it spreads the one-off cost the way a shop actually feels it. A shorter horizon makes free hardware look better; we show the hardware line separately so you can judge that.
VAT, and why we do not convert
UK providers publish on different bases: some quote ex-VAT, some inc-VAT, and some do not say. At 20% that is larger than most of the gaps between providers. We print the figure as published and label the basis where it is stated. We do not convert, because converting means printing a number no provider published.
Currency
USD plans appear in the United States tables, GBP plans in the United Kingdom tables. We never convert between currencies, because a converted figure cannot be checked against the source page. Where the same brand sells in both, it has one page and two sets of published figures.
How often this is re-checked
Every figure carries the date it was read. The whole dataset was last refreshed on 2026-08-25. Any figure older than 90 days is automatically labeled “not re-checked since” on every page it appears on — that label is generated, not written by hand.
What we do not do
We do not test these products, and no page here claims otherwise. There are no ratings, no stars, no badges and no “editor's choice”. We have never been paid for placement and we do not sell listings, reviews or leads. We do not collect your details and we do not pass anyone's details to a provider.
The data itself
The whole dataset is published at data.json under CC BY 4.0, with the source URL and check date attached to every row. If a figure here is wrong, tell us and it will be re-checked and re-dated.
This site is 157 pages, generated from 32 rows of data by one script. 41 of 85 plans carry enough published detail to compute with.
Related
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.