Credit Card Processing Fees

Written by

James Davis

Written by James Davis

Senior Technical Writer at United Thinkers

Author of the Paylosophy blog, a veteran writer, and a stock analyst with extensive knowledge and experience in the financial services industry that allows me to cover the latest payment industry news, developments, and insights. Read more

Reviewed by

Kathrine Pensatori

Reviewed by Kathrine Pensatori

Product Specialist at United Thinkers

Product specialist with more than 10 years of experience in the Payment Processing Industry. I help payment facilitators and PSPs solve their various payment processing issues. Read more

At every level of the payment processing industry, there are many legitimate fees for having a merchant account or being a payment processor – and you have to know how to sort out all those charges and determine where you can save.

There are charges related to providing a mobile app. Of course, there are costs for fraud prevention that industry players must recover as well.

Credit Card Processing Fees and Rates

Still, some companies add in costs you’re not expecting. Here are some of the fee types you will encounter in the payment industry:

Address verification fees. This is simply a charge to see if the billing address a customer enters matches the one on file at the company. While costs are involved, this fee can often be way too high.
Cancellation fees. Most merchant account and payment gateway contracts require a commitment, and canceling will cost you. Make sure you understand your commitment and how you can get out of it before you commit to anything.
Chargeback fees. If you’re lucky, you’ll experience a chargeback percentage of only a tenth of a percent, but there will still be fees with every chargeback.
Gateway fees. You have to have a gateway or intermediary to pass credit card data to the places it needs to go, but costs can often be high. Don’t sign anything until you understand gateway fees and make sure they’re reasonable.
Monthly minimum fees. Many processors charge a monthly minimum fee. As long as you know what it is and your sales exceed it, you’re fine. But paying for more processing than you need doesn’t really make sense.
Statement fees. Payment service providers often charge a statement fee, but it needs to be reasonable. Sometimes, a lower cost is charged for electronic statements than for paper ones.

Remember that there is also often a difference in transaction cost for qualified and non-qualified transactions through a merchant account.

If you’re a payment processor, we hope you work with a gateway like ours that keeps your fees to a minimum. For merchants, we hope you choose to work with payment service providers that keep costs low and reasonable.

The UniPay gateway is a robust and modern payment gateway designed to be efficient in every way.

To learn more about how it can help you save and provide your merchants with better deals, contact us now. We want to be your payment gateway.