Every line on your credit card processing statement falls into one of three buckets. Two you can't control. One is burning money you don't have to spend.
✓ Free calculator✓ No signup✓ Industry benchmarks
Calculate your effective rate
Enter your monthly numbers. We'll compare your effective rate against the industry benchmark (~2.2%) and estimate how much you're overpaying.
Every fee on your statement comes from one of three places
Two are set by card networks and banks — you can't negotiate them. The third is where your processor makes money. That's the one worth fighting over.
Non-negotiable
🏦
Interchange Fees
Goes to the card-issuing bank (Chase, Bank of America, etc.). Every time a customer pays with a credit card, that bank earns a fee. Set by Visa/Mastercard networks — your processor has zero control over it.
% of total fees~70–80%
Non-negotiable
🌐
Assessments
Goes to the card networks (Visa, Mastercard, Discover) to fund infrastructure, fraud protection, and network operations. Also set by networks — not negotiable.
Typical rate0.13–0.15%
You control this
⚙️
Processor Markup
The spread your processor adds on top of interchange and assessments. This is their profit. This is the number you can negotiate — and most merchants never try.
Typical markup0.40–0.80%
The four hidden fees inside your statement
Processors don't advertise these. They're buried in your monthly statement and easy to overlook — but they add up fast.
PCI Compliance Fees
Charged monthly for Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard compliance — or, more often, for non-compliance. Many processors bill $10–$50/month regardless of your actual compliance status, and add a separate annual non-compliance penalty if you skip the self-assessment questionnaire.
$120–$600/yr typicalOften reducible
What to do: Complete your annual PCI SAQ (free, takes 20 min) and ask your processor to remove the non-compliance surcharge.
Batch Fees
Charged every time you "settle" your terminal at end of day — essentially a per-batch processing fee. Typically $0.10–$0.30 per batch. If you batch once a day, that's $36–$109/year for nothing more than the routine settlement process.
$36–$110/yr typicalUsually negotiable
What to do: Ask your processor to waive or reduce batch fees — they're frequently removed for high-volume accounts.
Statement Fees
A monthly fee to access or receive your own statement — paper or digital. Some processors charge $5–$25/month for this. It's a pure margin fee with no corresponding service cost to your processor and is almost always negotiable.
$60–$300/yr typicalHighly negotiable
What to do: Call and ask it be removed. Most processors waive it immediately on request rather than lose the account.
IRS 1099-K Reporting Fees
Some processors charge a fee for generating the annual 1099-K tax form they're legally required to file anyway. This is a compliance requirement that costs processors next to nothing — but many bill $5–$20/year as a separate line item.
$5–$20/yr typicalAlmost always waivable
What to do: Dispute it directly — processors are already required to file this form. There's no legitimate justification for a surcharge.
Frequently asked questions
Your effective rate is the total percentage of your card volume you pay in processing fees: (Total Fees ÷ Total Volume) × 100. For example, $2,200 in fees on $85,000 in volume = a 2.59% effective rate. The industry average runs 2.2–2.5%. Above 3.0% typically means your markup is too high or you have avoidable fees baked in.
No. Only the processor markup is negotiable. Interchange fees (paid to card-issuing banks) and assessment fees (paid to card networks like Visa and Mastercard) are set by the networks and cannot be changed — not by you, not by your processor. The markup is your processor's profit margin, and it's the one piece you can push back on. It typically represents 20–30% of your total processing costs.
At minimum, once a year. But also review after any processor rate change notice — processors can adjust fees with just 30 days notice. Small fee creep is common: processors add $5–$15/month in new charges, knowing most merchants don't notice. A 15-minute annual review typically catches hundreds or thousands in unnecessary fees.
Interchange is the fee paid to the bank that issued your customer's credit card — Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, etc. Visa and Mastercard publish the rates in pricing tables with 600+ categories based on card type, transaction method, and merchant industry. Your processor passes this cost through to you unchanged. It accounts for roughly 70–80% of your total processing bill and is completely outside your processor's — or your — control.
Three levers work: (1) Negotiate your markup. Call your processor, ask for a rate review, and reference competitor quotes. Most processors have room to move on accounts doing $50K+/month. (2) Eliminate junk fees. PCI, statement, and batch fees are often removed on request. (3) Optimize transaction setup. Card-present transactions cost less than card-not-present. Avoiding "non-qualified" downgrades saves money on rewards card transactions.
Not necessarily. Many merchants save 20–40% by negotiating with their current processor first — no switching required. Bring a competitive quote and ask for a rate match. If they won't move after two conversations, switching typically takes 2 weeks and causes zero sales interruption. The savings usually recover any switching cost within the first month or two.
Ready to see what's actually on your statement?
Upload your merchant statement and get a full fee breakdown — interchange, assessments, markup, and hidden fees — delivered in minutes. Free.