Credit Card Processing Basics:
How Fees Work and What to Look For
Every card payment costs you something. This guide explains what, why the same card costs more in some situations than others, how long it takes to get your money and what to check before you sign, in plain language. When you're ready to put numbers on it, the fee calculator does the arithmetic for your own business.
By Riley Park · Last verified: October 2026
The five things that decide what you pay
If you read nothing else: these five, in this order. Each links to the section that explains it.
- The fee on your own typical sale, not the advertised rateA percentage plus a few cents means small sales cost more as a share of the sale than big ones.
- Flat rate or interchange plusOne predictable price, or the card's own cost plus a markup that's cheaper for some businesses and not others.
- How your customers payIn person, online or typed in, and card or bank transfer: each has its own price, because each has its own risk.
- When the money reaches your bank, and how long it can be heldThe part of the deal most merchants discover after they've signed.
- The fees outside the headline rateChargebacks, typed-in cards, monthly plans, instant payouts and the cost of leaving.
Already know all this? The credit card processing fee calculator takes how you sell, a typical sale and your monthly volume and shows what 11 processors would charge you, which one is built for your business and the volume where that changes.
1. Every card payment costs a percentage plus a few cents
Not a percentage. A percentage and a fixed fee, and the fixed fee is why the size of your sales matters so much.
A processor keeps a share of each sale, around 2.3% to 3.5% depending on how the card is used, and usually a fixed fee of 5¢ to 30¢ on top. Square's in-person rate is 2.6% + 15¢, so a $100 sale works out like this: $100 × 2.6% = $2.60, plus 15¢, so the fee is $2.75 and you receive $97.25.
| Sale | Fee at 2.6% + 15¢ | As a share of the sale |
|---|---|---|
| $10 | $0.41 | 4.1% |
| $100 | $2.75 | 2.75% |
| $1,000 | $26.15 | 2.61% |
The same rate costs 4.1% of a $10 sale and 2.61% of a $1,000 sale. On small sales the cents are the whole story; on large sales only the percentage matters. That one fact decides which processor is cheapest for you, and it's why the advertised rate on its own tells you little. The number to compare is the effective rate: everything you paid the processor in a month, divided by what you took in.
Put your own typical sale in: the calculator's "What one sale costs" table shows the fee at every flat-rate processor for that sale and for sales a quarter, five and twenty-five times its size.
2. Flat rate or interchange plus: two ways processors set their price
Behind every card payment is a cost set by the card's bank and the card network, called interchange. Processors either hide it inside one price or pass it through and add their own.
One published price for every card, whatever it is: 2.6% + 15¢ in person, say. Your bill is predictable and easy to check, and you never think about which cards customers use. The price includes a cushion for the expensive cards, so on cheap ones (debit, especially) you pay more than the card cost.
You pay what the card's bank charges, at cost, plus the processor's own markup (Helcim: interchange + 0.40% + 8¢ in person) or a flat monthly membership (Stax: $99 and up). Debit and plain credit cards cost less this way; rewards, business and American Express cards cost more. Your statement is longer and harder to check.
The calculator prices both models for your mix, estimating interchange from Visa's and Mastercard's April 2026 tables, and shows the volume where one overtakes the other.
3. How the customer pays sets the price, because it sets the risk
The same card costs you a different amount depending on whether it's tapped on a reader, entered on your website or read out over the phone.
| How the customer pays | Fee on a $100 sale, published base rates | Why it costs that |
|---|---|---|
| In person: card tapped, inserted or swiped | $2.38 to $2.75 | The card is present and the chip proves it. Fraud and chargebacks are rarest here, so the networks charge the least and processors follow. |
| Online: your website or checkout | $3.18 to $3.60 | The card isn't there. The networks charge about 0.3 to 0.4 points more for card-not-present payments, and processors add their own cushion for the higher chargeback rate. |
| Keyed: a card number you type in | $3.20 to $3.70 | The riskiest kind: no card, no chip, no customer on your site. Over the phone or from a form, this is the most expensive way to take a card. |
| Bank transfer (ACH) on an invoice | 0.8% to 1%, usually capped at $5 to $10 | No card network involved, so no interchange. The cheap option for large invoices, as long as the fee is capped: Square, GoDaddy Payments, QuickBooks Payments don't cap it on their base plan, so a $5,000 bank payment costs $50 there. |
Most businesses take payments more than one way. The calculator prices your mix; under "More options" you can set how many in-person cards get typed in and how many invoices are paid by bank transfer.
4. Small, large or mixed: what to look for by the size of your sales
The headline percentage matters most on big sales; the cents matter most on small ones. Start from how big a typical sale is.
The fixed fee is the whole story. At 2.6% + 15¢, the 15¢ is as much as the percentage on a $6 sale. Look for the lowest fixed fee (GoDaddy Payments's in-person 0¢ is the lowest published) and ignore small differences in the percentage. Bank transfers and interchange-plus pricing don't help here, and a monthly membership only pays off at high volume.
Percentage and fixed fee both count, so compare the fee on your actual average sale rather than the advertised rate. Flat rate keeps the bill predictable. Interchange plus can come out a few tenths of a point lower at steady volume, more so if many customers pay with debit cards, but only a monthly total for your own mix will tell you.
The percentage is everything: 2.9% of $5,000 is $145, and the 30¢ is noise. Ask customers to pay invoices by bank transfer where the fee is capped, avoid processors with no cap, and consider interchange plus, which passes each card through at its own cost; business and rewards cards cost more, so the saving over a flat rate is smaller than the quoted markup suggests.
Price the whole month, not each channel on its own. One account that's built for every way you sell usually beats the cheapest processor in each channel, because you get one deposit, one statement and one set of hold terms. The calculator labels each processor as built for, limited in, or not built for each way you sell, so price never outranks fit.
The calculator's cheapest-by-sale-size chart shows which processor costs least at every typical sale from $1 to $10,000, at three monthly volumes.
5. When the money reaches your bank, and how long it can be held
Few merchants learn this before they sign up, and it matters as much as the rate: a day's delay on every sale is a day of your cash sitting with the processor.
Most processors deposit the next business day for payments taken before a daily cutoff, or within two business days; PayPal money lands in your PayPal balance within minutes and takes about a business day to reach your bank. Business days exclude weekends and US federal holidays, so Friday-evening sales usually arrive on Tuesday. A new account waits longer for its first payout, from about three days to two weeks, while the processor checks you out. If you need the money the same day, every processor that offers it charges 1.5% to 1.95% extra, on top of the processing fee.
Separately, every agreement lets the processor hold a payment while it reviews it, and keep a reserve, a slice of your money set aside against refunds and chargebacks, for months after you close the account, usually at its sole discretion and often without notice. Holds and reserves exist because the processor is on the hook for your refunds and chargebacks; the agreement decides how much it can keep and for how long. Read that clause before you sign, especially if you sell anything delivered later (pre-orders, events, custom work), which is what triggers reviews.
6. The fees outside the headline rate
The rate is the fee you'll see quoted. These are the ones you'll find on the statement.
Five to look for. A chargeback fee ($15 to $25 at the processors that publish one) each time a customer's bank reverses a payment, whether or not you win the dispute. A higher keyed rate for card numbers you type in. A monthly plan fee, which can be worth paying: a paid plan with a lower rate overtakes a free one at a few thousand dollars a month. An instant-payout fee if you want money the same day. And the cost of leaving: most of these processors have no contract and no closure fee, but Stax's terms carry a one-time $750 fee, Clover's hardware subscriptions are non-cancelable, and U.S. Bank's linked Elavon terms set a three-year auto-renewing term. Add international cards (+1% to +1.5%) and currency conversion (+1% to 4%) if you sell abroad.
Passing the fee to the customer is allowed, within limits: Visa's rules permit a surcharge on credit cards only, never debit, capped at 3% and never above your own cost, with disclosure at the door and on the receipt; Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Oklahoma prohibit or limit it.
7. What's changed in 2026
Rates move. Dated changes we've recorded on vendors' own pages this year; we re-read every source monthly and add to the list.
| Date | Who | What changed |
|---|---|---|
| Jan 13, 2026 | Square | Online and invoice card rate on the Free plan rose from 2.9% + 30¢ to 3.3% + 30¢ (Plus and Premium plans keep 2.9% + 30¢) |
| Jan 30, 2026 | GoDaddy Payments | GoDaddy's own QuickBooks sync ended; syncing now needs a paid third-party app |
| Apr 17, 2026 | Mastercard | New US interchange table took effect |
| Apr 17, 2026 | Visa | Level 2 commercial-data rates retired; business-card transactions without Level 3 data price at Level 1 |
| Apr 18, 2026 | Visa | New US interchange table took effect |
| Jun 1, 2026 | BigCommerce | Added a 2% / 1% / 0.6% fee by plan on orders paid through payment providers that aren't "Embedded" (Stripe and PayPal exempt) |
| Oct 1, 2026 | PayPal | US merchant fees page updated; rates unchanged from DDR's Oct 13 read (PayPal/Venmo 3.49% + 49¢, cards 2.99% + 49¢) |
Key figures, sourced and dated
For writers and researchers: the numbers behind this guide, each read on the vendor's or network's own page on the date shown in the vendor list. Quote them with a link to this page.
| Figure | Published or derived value |
|---|---|
| Fee on a $100 sale, card tapped or inserted in person | $2.38 (PayPal) to $2.75 (Square) at published flat base rates |
| Fee on a $100 sale, online checkout | $3.18 (PayPal) to $3.60 (Clover) |
| Fee on a $100 sale, card number typed in | $3.20 (Authorize.net) to $3.70 (Stripe) |
| Bank transfer (ACH) fee on an invoice | 0.8% to 1%, capped at $5 to $10 a payment where capped; no cap on the base plan at Square, GoDaddy Payments, QuickBooks Payments |
| Standard card payout | Square: Next business day if paid before 5 PM PT · Stripe: 2 business days · PayPal: In your PayPal balance within minutes; to your bank in about 1 business day (up to 3) · Helcim: 1 to 2 business days after the day's batch closes · QuickBooks Payments: Next business day if paid before 3 PM PT |
| First payout on a new account | About 3 business days at Helcim, up to 5 at QuickBooks Payments, 7 to 14 days at Stripe |
| Instant payout fee | Stripe 1.5% (50¢ minimum) · PayPal 1.5% (50¢ minimum) · QuickBooks Payments 1.75% · Square 1.95% · Helcim not offered |
| How long a reserve can be kept after you close | At least six months at Helcim and Stax · at least 180 days at U.S. Bank/Elavon · 270 days or longer at QuickBooks Payments (terms as read Oct 10, 2026) · up to a year at GoDaddy · PayPal can hold a balance up to 180 days |
| Interchange, consumer credit card with no rewards | In person Visa 1.51% + 10¢ · Mastercard 1.65% + 10¢; online or keyed Visa 1.89% + 10¢ · Mastercard 1.95% + 10¢ |
| Interchange, debit card from a large bank | 0.05% + 21¢ (+1¢ fraud adjustment) (Federal cap for banks over $10 billion in assets; 60.7% of US debit transactions in 2024) |
| DDR's estimate of what the networks collect, before any processor markup | About 1.66% of in-person sales, 2.05% online, 2.57% on business-to-business invoices (an estimate from the April 2026 tables and a labelled card mix) |
| Debit vs credit, by number of US card payments | 52.9% of US card payments in 2024 (99.3 billion); credit 35.7% (67.1 billion); prepaid 11.4% (21.3 billion) |
| Rewards cards' share of credit card spending | 92% of general-purpose credit card purchase volume is on rewards cards, which carry the higher interchange rates |
| Biggest published rate change of 2026 (Jan 13, 2026) | Square: Online and invoice card rate on the Free plan rose from 2.9% + 30¢ to 3.3% + 30¢ (Plus and Premium plans keep 2.9% + 30¢) |
Where these figures come from
Rates come from each processor's own pricing page; deposit timing and hold terms from its help pages and merchant agreement; interchange from Visa's and Mastercard's published US tables; card-mix shares from the Federal Reserve's payments study and industry reports. Each figure carries the date we last read it, and the list below links every page. Where two vendor pages disagree, we publish both rather than pick one. We re-read every source at a monthly review, and the "Last verified" date in the header moves when we do. The arithmetic on this page (the $100 example, the ranges on a $100 sale) is computed from those published rates, so it changes when they do.
Spotted a figure that's changed? Vendors and writers can send the current page and we'll re-check it against the source.
Cite or link to this page
You're welcome to quote the figures here. Please name Data Driven Reviews and link to this page, so readers can see the date each fee was checked.
Data Driven Reviews. (2026, Oct 21). Credit Card Processing Basics (2026). https://datadrivenreviews.com/guides/credit-card-processing-basics/
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