This is one of the best questions you can ask, possibly the best thing to know. An effective rate is the total average rate of all fees paid to process all credit card sales. It may be displayed as a combined total credit card effective rate or displayed per card network (Visa, Mastercard, etc), but by law it has to be listed somewhere on your processing statement.

There are essentially 2 reasons why this exists. First, Interchange can be a bit complex to understand. We get it, it's definitely confusing, at first, how the rate varies depending on who you are, how you accept payment and what card you're accepting payment from. We completely empathize when the response is "But, what's my rate?" after being first introduced to the concept of Interchange (cost) rates. The effective rate is the answer to that question.

Second, many processors like to hide fees (read how below) or advertise misleading rates. It doesn't matter though how many different ways the processor chops things up, where they hide things or what they intially claimed, the effective rate will bring everything together and tell you your true average rate. Always look for your effective rate. This is also what can be compared to flat rates like 2.65% or 2.9% + $0.30, etc.

One thing to note, effective rates do not take into consideration fixed monthly fees so you'll need to look out for those separately. You don't have to worry about that with us though because we don't have any monthly or annual fees (excluding equipment rental).

Your estimated rate will vary slighty month to month because it's still dependent on the cost rates of the cards you accept, but it shouldn't vary too much. Who you are (industry) and how you accept payments (in person vs card not present) doesn't usually change, so all that's left is the card types you accept. We know the proportion/popularity of the different card networks and card types (that's how we're able to estimate) but there is still variance that will occur. Also, every business has their own customer demographics.

If you want an exact effective rate instead of an estimate, all you have to do is send us a past processing statement (form at the bottom of this page) and we will do a complete cost analysis and penny-for-penny comparison. We'll show you exactly what you would have paid with us if you were our customer and how much you're wasting every year overpaying on fees.

The true cost of a transaction consists of interchange and card brand fees. Card brand fees (also known as assessment fees or network fees) are the fees charged by the card brands (Visa, Mastercard etc.). It is a small fixed percentage rate. Interchange is the rate paid to the issuing bank of the credit card and is set by the card brand. Interchange varies depending on the industry, method of acceptance, and type of card accepted. That is why we must say "cost plus ..." instead of just a simple flat rate. Learn more about interchange.

Cost-plus pricing (also known as iPlus or interchange-plus pricing) is exactly as it sounds. It is the strict cost rate of the transaction (interchange and card brand fees) plus a transparent markup. We use this pricing method (there are others) because it is the best one for merchants. It is the best way to pay for payment processing because there is nowhere for fees to hide and it is cheaper than the high flat rates other providers charge. Learn more about cost-plus pricing.

This is a great question, but it doesn't have a short answer. First, let's define "hidden". Hidden means that you were promised and swore to by the salesperson that your rate is X but when your statement comes you notice you're paying a lot more than you expected. This is what hidden fees are; you're promised one thing but receive something else. The problem is that everyone says "no hidden fees", including the very people who deliberately hide fees. The trick is they are hiding behind the technicality of what "your rate" is. It is a lie of omission because the deception is deliberate.

Imagine you go to a store, see an item on the shelf that has a $10 price tag, go to the cashier, pay $10 and walk out with the item. Then, you check your bank statement and notice that $20 was taken out. You call up the store and say "hey, I think there's been a mistake" to which they explain that the product was indeed $10 but there were also additional taxes and fees that had to be applied. Maybe they even blame you and say "you chose to buy that item" and insist the item was indeed $10. This is what's called information asymmetry. The store knows more than the consumer and uses that disparity to deliberately mislead. They have every opportunity to share this information but make a point not to, they even advertise the $10 price compared to the $15 price of their competitors. But it's apples vs. oranges because the $15 price is all-in while their $10 price isn't. This is the state of payment processing in a nutshell.

Not to worry though because we're going to take you behind the curtain and show you exactly how the magic trick is done. First, be aware of the term "qualified rate". This is heart of it. Unfortunately, the people looking to hide fees know that too and may avoid actually saying those words even though that's what's going on. There is no escaping the true cost of a transaction. What "qualified rate" really means is "if your transaction's interchange rate is at or below the qualified rate then you get the qualified rate". Basically it is a minimum rate. Anything that doesn't satisfy the condition above will be subject to interchange differential fees and non-qualifying fees. Not to mention every transaction will be subject to the card brand fees which more than likely were never mentioned and are probably significantly marked up. This all without even getting into possible monthly / quarterly / annual fees, minimum fees, batch fees, additional transaction authorization fees etc.

The name of the pricing approach I'm describing above is Merchant Discount Rate pricing (also known as MDR, discount rate pricing, and tiered pricing - click here for a quick overview of the 3 main pricing approaches). It wasn't initially conceived of to be deceptive, but that is how it is currently used almost exclusively. What happens is the company and salesperson focus exclusively on a super low qualified rate (the price tag and advertising in the story above), they avoid mentioning anything else and keep bringing your attention back to the qualified rate that they can even physically point to on the agreement. Seeing it written in black and white makes it seem real so you sign the agreement (pay at the cashier) and go about your business.

After your first month of processing goes by and you get your statement you'll quickly realize that in reality you're not paying anywhere near what you thought you would be. We've now come full circle back to the deception in the technicality of how your promised rate was defined without telling you. If you take the sum of all transaction fees for a card brand and divide it by the total sales for that card brand you will get what is called your "effective rate". The effective rate is your total average all-included processing rate, aka your true processing rate. Effective rates are required by law to be somewhere on your statement because there are so many ways processors can chop things up to confuse you and hide a bunch of seemingly tiny fees that really add up.

If you're feeling overwhelmed or confused at this point, we don't blame you - all of this is not obvious or intuitive and is very hard to explain both fully and briefly. We'd love to just say "trust us" but that's what scammers do. Everyone is asking you to trust them. Instead of just asking, this is our attempt at earning yours. To make things clear and save you time, we would be happy to prepare a cost comparison for you to review. Let us turn all these apples and oranges into dollars and cents for you and show you how much you could be saving.

Fill in the form at the bottom of the page, upload your statement, and we'll send you back our analysis and comparison within 24hrs.
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We'd love to just lean on the old adage of "if it sounds 'too good to be true', it probably is" but we've actually lost sales because of this. We're proud that our offer appears to be too good to be true and would like to propose a new adage: if it sounds too good to be true, ask questions. If something is true it should survive scrutiny. This is the difference between us and other processors, we invite questions and love to answer them fully. Maybe too fully.

In terms of processing; absolutely nothing! Like we've highlighted above, there are no batch fees, deposit fees, minimum fees, statement fees or setup fees. There are also no fixed montly, quarterly or annual fees either. Monthly admin fees and quarterly or annual PCI fees are quite popular but we don't charge them. Some processors charge a customer service fee but we think that's kind of crazy - that's what you're paying for in the first place. The only other cost involved is whatever hardware or software you choose.

Chargebacks are a per-occurrence fee of $25 but if you get it reversed then we refund it. Chargebacks are rare and most businesses never see them. A chargeback is when the cardholder goes directly to the credit card network to contest a charge and have it reversed. You have a chance to provide proof of the purchase and reverse the chargeback.

To see everything as clear as day, let us prepare a cost comparison for you to review (just fill inthe form at the bottom of the page)! We examine a past statement and show you exactly what you would have paid with us.

Yes. Part of the reason how we're able to provide such amazing rates is because we set you up with a Merchant Account directly with our banking partner, called a payment acquiring bank. With our cost-plus pricing, we pass on the straight wholesale cost rates directly from the bank plus just a small transparent markup for transaction processing, clearing, settlement, reporting, and customer service. There are no monthly fees, no additional per-transaction fees and no hidden fees of any kind. Let us prepare a free, no obligation cost comparison for you to show you how much you could be saving (just fill in the form at the bottom of the page).

We administer the account and completely control the fees, so you don't need to worry about the bank mentiond above. Aside from seeing their name on the application and statements you wouldn't even know they exist because you only deal with us if you have any questions or issues. Our banking partner, Fiserv, is the largest in this industry in the world. It processes over 2,800 transactions per second and $2.2 trillion annually. The combination of their size, and scale, and our customer support focus gives you the absolute best of both worlds.

The only downside of this arrangement is there are a couple rules of theirs we have to play by; namely contracts. The old school thinking about contracts is that there are costs associated with earning a customer and they need to stay a certain amount of time for it to be worth it. While this is true, we feel that contracts are unnecessary in this industry and overly coercive. We believe that if we simply provide amazing service then our customers will stay. The contract is for 4 years, but we do everything possible to mitigate its effects on our merchants.

First, you have 30 days completely risk free to try us out. If you're unhappy you can leave, no hassle, no charge, no questions asked and we'll even refund your terminal rental for the month.

After 30 days, you don't need to worry about us holding up our end of the deal because if we ever do something you don't like (such as increase the rates) you can leave, no hassle, no charge and no questions asked. This is part of the CFCA's Code of Conduct for payment processors, aka the law. So not only are we incentivized to keep you happy so that you'll stick around, you are also protected by the law.
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Next, if anything ever changes on your end we can pause the account so that no fees are charged at all until you're ready to resume. This came in handy during the recent COVID-19 outbreak for many of our merchants, and also applies to situations like seasonal businesses, undergoing renovations, taking a vacation or anything else.

Our rates are amazing and our customer service is unmatched, as evidenced by a large proportion of new signups with us coming from referrals. All of the above covers the majority of possible situations, for all others just give us a call and we'll work with you to figure something out. We are eager to resolve any issue you may experience and depending on the situation there could be compassion options available.

We constantly leave money on the table to align our incentives with yours, we invest heavily in customer service, we go the extra mile for our merchants like entering their menus or customer lists, we're the only processor that actively informs merchants of their rights and we're also the only processor that passed on 100% of the savings from a recent industry change where others quietly adjusted things so that they could take the savings for themselves and increase their margin.

That's what transparency means to us, we guarantee our merchants their rates will never increase so we don't increase them even if they would have never noticed. We keep things simple - honesty is simple.

To recap, you have 30 days completely risk free. Past that, you are protected from us changing anything on our end and we have you covered if anything happens on your end. This pretty much covers everything, and if your situation is unique just reach out and we'll be happy to work through things with you. A happy former customer is better than a disgruntled forced customer.

Minimum fees, also known as minimum discount fees, are when if there aren't a certain amount of processing fees (because there were low sales for that month) then a fee to cover the difference up to a $25 minimum (for example) are applied. Many processors have minimum fees but you won't have to worry about it because we don't.

Chargebacks are a per-occurrence fee of $25 but if you get it reversed then we refund it. Chargebacks are rare and many businesses never see them. A chargeback is when the cardholder goes directly to the credit card network to contest a charge and have it reversed. You have a chance to provide proof of the purchase and reverse the chargeback.

We're always here to help. If you have any questions about this please let us know.

The cost rates (interchange and card network fees) are pretty much unaffected by sales volume. We say "pretty much" because nothing starts happening until you're doing $2 billion in Visa sales, for example, and we understand this is completely out of reach for most businesses. However, our cost-plus rates get better according to much more reasonable sales volume brackets and the rate above takes your sales volume into account.

This is a completely fair question and good on you for asking. Please check out our company guarantee and, even better, check out what others say about us. Everything we say we can back up with past actions, examples and case studies.

We constantly leave money on the table to align our incentives with yours, we invest heavily in customer service, we go the extra mile for our merchants like entering their menus or customer lists, we're the only processor that actively informs merchants of their rights and we're also the only processor that passed on 100% of the savings from a recent industry change where others quietly adjusted things so that they could take the savings for themselves and increase their margin.

That's what transparency means to us, we guarantee our merchants their rates will never increase so we don't increase them even if they would have never noticed. We keep things simple - honesty is simple.

Our rates are amazing and our customer service is unmatched, as evidenced by a large proportion of new signups with us coming from referrals. Let us to a cost comparison for you (below) to show you how much you're currently overpaying in fees.