Can you break out all fees I can expect to pay for online xaction processing and where they come from? I am looking at solutions for our company in this space and I would like to get a basic understanding of what ALL of the fees are (interchange, processing and anything else), who charges them (e.g. Visa/MC charges the interchange fee, your bank charges for processing, etc.) and what I can control around any of these fees if at all. Thank you.
Can you break out all fees I can expect to pay for online transaction processing and where they come from?
Answers
Michael,
Here are the four broad categories of fees you'll incur for online credit/debit card processing:
1. Interchange fees - set by Visa/MC/Discover and go to the bank that issued the card. Typically, makeup 70-90% of card processing costs and range from 1.3% to 3.20% depending on type of card and how it is processed. Visa/MC/Discover have over 300 interchange categories. Although interchange cannot be negotiated, it can be optimized by getting the best qualification for each transaction. For instance, entering zip code for AVS saves about 0.50% per transaction.
2. Assessments and Dues - assessment are fixed at 0.11% for Visa and MC and 0.0925% for Discover. Dues include the $0.0185 MC NABU fee and the $0.0195 Visa AFP fee per transaction. There are few other ancillary fees but these are the main ones. All assessments and dues go to card network (Visa, MC, or Discover) that charges these fees.
3. Acquirer fees - can be negotiated and includes all fees relating to authorizing and settling transactions, as well as, chargeback, reporting, statement, PCI, customer service, ACH, etc. fees.
4. Gateway fees - if you use a gateway like Authorize.net or Payflow Pro then you'll a per transaction gateway fee, and perhaps, a monthly gateway fees.
I hope this helps. If you have a more specific need, here's my contact info:
best,
Anand Goel
Optimized Payments Consulting
Filed Under:
Cash Management