Why the headline rate is the wrong number
Every provider quotes a percentage. None of them quote your effective rate, which is every fee you paid divided by everything you processed. Two stores on the same 2.9% can be a full percentage point apart once monthly fees, per transaction fees and the fixed line items are counted.
The way to find yours takes five minutes: take last month statement, add every charge on it including the monthly minimum, the statement fee, the PCI fee and the gateway fee, then divide by the volume processed. That number is the only one worth comparing between providers.
What moves the answer
- Average order value. Per transaction fees hurt small baskets and barely register on large ones. At $20 a basket the 30c is 1.5% on its own.
- Card mix. Debit is cheap, corporate rewards cards are not. A B2B store pays more for the same rate card.
- Data sent. AVS on card not present, and Level II and III on commercial cards, move transactions to cheaper interchange rows. See Level II and Level III.
- Payment method. Moving large invoices to ACH removes the percentage entirely.
When switching is worth the work
Below roughly ten thousand a month, the saving is usually smaller than the effort, and an aggregator is the sensible choice. Between ten and fifty thousand it becomes a real number, and above that the difference is normally a salary. The other half of the decision is not price at all: it is whether you can afford to have your payouts frozen by an automated risk model, which is covered in why keep your own merchant account.
Questions to ask before you sign
- Is this interchange plus, or tiered? If the words qualified and non qualified appear, ask for interchange plus.
- What is the margin over interchange, in writing, as basis points?
- List every monthly fee, including PCI and any non compliance fee.
- Is there a reserve, and on what terms? See how reserves work.
- What is the term, and the early termination fee?
- Who owns the gateway account if I leave?
That last one decides whether your next switch costs a weekend or a migration. Our guide to interchange and your effective rate goes deeper on the arithmetic.