Merchant Services
Processing statements are confusing by design. We read yours line by line, tell you what every fee is for, and calculate the rate you are actually paying — not the one on the front page.
The review
Send one recent statement. You get a written breakdown, usually within a couple of business days.
Total fees divided by total volume. It is the only number that matters, and it is almost never the one you were quoted.
Interchange and card-brand assessments are fixed costs nobody can discount. Markup is what your provider adds. Most statements blend them together so you cannot tell which is which. We unblend them.
PCI non-compliance fees, statement fees, batch fees, "network access" charges, monthly minimums, and tiered downgrades. We list every one, what it costs you annually, and whether it is negotiable.
What the same volume and card mix would cost on an interchange-plus structure. Take it to your current provider and ask them to match it — plenty of clients do exactly that, and we are fine with it.
Placement
If the review shows a move is worth it, we place you with a processor suited to your volume, average ticket, card-present mix, and risk profile. If it shows your current setup is already competitive, we tell you that and the conversation ends there.
Worth saying plainly: we are compensated by the processor when a merchant boards. That is how this side of the business works, and it is why the review can be free. It also means you should hold us to the numbers — the comparison we give you is written down, and you can verify every line of it against your own statement.
Good fits
Restaurants, retail, and service businesses running several locations on inherited pricing that nobody has revisited since opening.
Medical, professional services, auto, and trades — where a few tenths of a percent compounds into real money across a year.
"Qualified / mid-qualified / non-qualified" is a structure that exists to obscure margin. If your statement uses those words, the review will be interesting.
The mechanics
Almost nobody selling you processing explains this, because the confusion is what the margin hides behind.
When a customer taps a card, the money passes through four parties before it reaches you: the card network, the bank that issued the customer's card, the processor, and whoever sold you the account. Each takes a cut, and only one of those cuts is negotiable.
Paid to the bank that issued your customer's card, and set by Visa and Mastercard in published rate tables. Every provider pays exactly the same interchange. Nobody can discount it — and anybody implying they can is telling you something else.
Paid to Visa, Mastercard, Discover and Amex themselves. Small, fixed, and also identical for everyone.
What your provider adds on top. This is the only part anyone can actually compete on — and on most statements it is deliberately blended into the first two so you cannot see it.
Monthly minimums, statement fees, PCI fees, PCI non-compliance penalties, batch fees, gateway fees, terminal leases. Individually small, collectively often larger than the markup.
Three ways it gets priced
Tiered
Your provider decides which bucket each transaction lands in, and the buckets are theirs to define. A rewards card or a keyed-in sale quietly "downgrades" to the expensive tier.
Flat rate
Simple and honest about being simple. You overpay on cheap transactions and underpay on expensive ones, which nets out badly once volume grows or your average ticket rises.
Interchange-plus
Interchange and assessments passed through at cost, with the provider's margin shown as a separate line. It is the only structure where you can still audit your provider a year from now.
Getting approved
A merchant account is a line of credit, not a subscription — the processor is liable if you take money and do not deliver. That is why underwriting exists, and it is why the questions look the way they do.
Documents
Assessment
Selling online
Card-not-present accounts get read more carefully, and most declines at this stage are for missing website basics rather than anything financial.
Straight talk
Better to know before you apply than to collect a decline that sits on your record.
Timelines vary and nobody can promise otherwise. A clean, low-risk, card-present account with complete paperwork is often approved within a couple of business days. Higher-risk industries, thin credit, or missing documents take longer and may come back with conditions such as a rolling reserve or a volume cap. Approval, pricing, and terms are the processor's decision, not ours.
Pre-application
This is not the application. It is the information underwriting would look at first, so we can tell you which processors fit, what pricing is realistic, and whether anything in your profile needs handling before you formally apply.
We deliberately do not ask for sensitive details here. No Social Security number, no EIN, no bank account or routing numbers. Those are collected by the processor on its own secure application once you decide to go ahead — this website never touches them, and neither does our database.
No obligation
No contract, no obligation to switch, and we do not sell your information. Worst case you learn your current pricing is good.
