Guide · Costs

Understand your card processing fees

The calculator: what have you paid in 6 months?

Use simple averages. Pick your processor to fill in its list rates, or enter the ones from your contract.

In 6 months you have paid roughly $0.

Estimate using list rates published by each provider as of August 22, 2026 (sources at the end); includes the software monthly where it applies. Toast does not publish a processing rate, so you enter your quote there. Your real rate depends on your contract, card mix, and extra fees.

The short version

Card processing is not one fee. It is a stack of three, and only the top layer is negotiable.

  1. Interchange. Set by Visa and Mastercard, paid to the bank that issued your customer's card. This is most of what you pay, and it is the same for everyone.
  2. Assessments and network fees. Set by the card networks, paid to Visa or Mastercard.
  3. The processor's markup. Set by whoever sold you your point of sale system or merchant account. This is the part you can shop and negotiate.

The National Restaurant Association, an industry trade group that lobbies on this issue, says that "for most restaurants, processing credit card transactions is the third largest operating expense, behind food and labor." Source: https://restaurant.org/issues-and-advocacy/policy-agenda/swipefees/ (note: advocacy source, no underlying survey published on the page).

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the federal regulator for national banks, puts the total merchant discount rate in a plain range: "The discount rate generally ranges from 1 percent to 4 percent for small to medium-size merchants." Source: OCC Comptroller's Handbook, "Merchant Processing," p. 31, https://www.occ.treas.gov/publications-and-resources/publications/comptrollers-handbook/files/merchant-processing/pub-ch-merchant-processing.pdf

Layer 1: interchange, and why restaurants are their own category

Visa publishes its full U.S. interchange schedule as a public PDF and updates it in April each year. Restaurants get their own line items.

From the schedule effective April 18, 2026:

Source: Visa U.S.A. Interchange Reimbursement Fees, rates effective April 18, 2026, https://usa.visa.com/content/dam/VCOM/download/merchants/visa-usa-interchange-reimbursement-fees.pdf

Mastercard publishes the same kind of document. Source: https://www.mastercard.com/content/dam/mccom/us/business/documents/merchant-rates-2026-2027-april2026.pdf

Two practical consequences:

Rewards cards cost you more. The same $60 check costs you materially more on a Visa Infinite card than on a plain Visa. You cannot refuse the expensive card, and until recently you could not treat it differently at checkout. See the settlement note at the end of this article.

Debit is much cheaper than credit. Under the Federal Reserve's Regulation II, a large card issuer may not charge more than $0.21 plus 0.05 percent of the transaction, plus a $0.01 fraud-prevention adjustment. Smaller "exempt" issuers are not capped. In the Fed's most recent published data (2024), the average debit interchange fee was $0.23 on covered transactions and $0.51 on exempt transactions, or $0.34 across all transactions. Source: https://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/regii-average-interchange-fee.htm

That gap is why a flat rate can quietly work against a restaurant with a high debit mix and a low average ticket. A flat 2.6% on a $12 debit coffee-shop ticket is about $0.31 in percentage fees against roughly $0.23 in real debit interchange, before the per-transaction cent charge.

Layer 3: the four ways processors price the markup

Flat rate (Square, Clover, SpotOn, Toast style)

One published number, or a small menu of them, applied to every card. Simple, predictable, and usually higher on average than interchange-plus once you pass a certain volume. You are paying for the simplicity and for the software bundled with it.

Interchange-plus (also called cost-plus)

You pay actual interchange, whatever it turns out to be, plus a stated markup: for example, interchange + 0.30% + $0.10. This is the most transparent structure because the markup is a single number you can compare across bids. Your statement should show the interchange line and the markup line separately.

Tiered (qualified, mid-qualified, non-qualified)

The processor sorts your transactions into buckets and charges one rate per bucket. The problem is that the processor decides which transactions land in which bucket, and the rules are usually not published. A keyed-in phone order, a rewards card, or a batch settled late can all get "downgraded" into a more expensive tier. If your statement has a "non-qualified surcharge" line, you are on tiered pricing.

Subscription or membership

A flat monthly fee plus interchange plus a small per-transaction amount, with no percentage markup. This can be the cheapest structure at high volume and the most expensive at low volume.

The OCC handbook describes the industry practice behind the fee soup directly: acquirers "unbundle fees for statement preparation, application, customer service, membership, maintenance, and penalty fees." Source: OCC Comptroller's Handbook, "Merchant Processing," p. 31.

Where the fees hide

Pull your last full monthly statement and look for these lines. Every one of them is real and common. None of them is automatically improper. The point is that you should know what each one is and whether you agreed to it.

Line item What it is What to ask
PCI compliance fee A monthly charge, often $8 to $25, tied to card-data security validation The PCI Security Standards Council sets the standard but does not run the compliance programs; the payment brands and your acquirer do. Source: https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/merchants/ Ask what the fee buys and whether completing your Self-Assessment Questionnaire removes it.
PCI non-compliance fee A penalty for not having filed the SAQ Ask for the deadline and the filing link. This one is usually avoidable by filing paperwork.
Batch fee Charged each time you settle the day's transactions If you batch twice a day, you are paying it twice. Ask if it can be waived or if batching once is enough.
Statement fee / monthly service fee / maintenance fee Recurring administrative charges The OCC lists exactly these as standard unbundled charges. Ask what the fee covers and whether it is negotiable at renewal.
Non-qualified or mid-qualified surcharge The tiered-pricing downgrade charge Ask for the qualification criteria in writing. If the processor will not put them in writing, that is your answer.
Monthly minimum A floor charged when your processing volume is low Matters most in slow season. Ask what the minimum is and how it is calculated.
Early termination fee Charged if you leave before the term ends See the FTC case below. Ask for the exact dollar amount and the exact term end date.
Equipment lease A separate lease, often with a separate company, for terminals See the Northern Leasing case below. A lease is a different contract from your processing agreement and often does not cancel when processing does.
Annual fee, application fee, chargeback fee, gateway fee Assorted Get the full list.

Two enforcement cases worth reading before you sign

FTC v. First American Payment Systems (July 2022). The Federal Trade Commission alleged the processor and two sales affiliates trapped small businesses with hidden terms and surprise exit fees. According to the FTC, salespeople "regularly promise businesses they will be able to cancel services any time or within a trial period without a fee, when the company's standard written agreement requires businesses to sign on to a three-year term with a $495 cancellation fee." The FTC also alleged the company's online enrollment system "hid a three-year obligation, cancellation requirements and fees, the fact that agreements would automatically renew," and that it continued withdrawing money from merchant accounts after consent was withdrawn. The proposed order required the defendants to return $4.9 million. Source: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/07/ftc-takes-action-stop-payment-processor-first-american-trapping-small-businesses-surprise-exit-fees The FTC sent more than $2.6 million in refunds to affected small businesses in February 2025. Source: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/02/ftc-sends-more-26-million-refunds-small-businesses-harmed-payment-processor-first-american

New York Attorney General v. Northern Leasing Systems (June 2020). The New York AG won a judgment over credit card processing equipment leases. The court ordered roughly 29,617 default judgments vacated and dismissed with prejudice, declared contracts from April 1, 2013 forward null and void, ordered restitution, permanently enjoined the company from equipment finance leasing, and ordered Northern Leasing Systems dissolved. More than 5,600 complaints had been filed with the AG's office since 2010. Source: https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2020/attorney-general-james-wins-lawsuit-against-northern-leasing-systems-delivering

Neither case says your processor is doing anything wrong. Both cases say that terminal leases and exit fees are the two places where independent restaurants have historically gotten hurt, and both are worth reading before you sign anything.

The clause almost every agreement contains

The OCC handbook states it plainly: "Most agreements allow acquirers to increase discount rates and fees at any time during the life of the contract." Source: OCC Comptroller's Handbook, "Merchant Processing," p. 30.

This is why your rate today is not your rate forever, and why re-checking your effective rate once a year is not paranoia. It is standard practice on the other side of the table.

How to find the fees in your merchant agreement

Your "merchant agreement" is usually not one document. It is typically three, and the fees live in different places:

  1. The Merchant Application or Merchant Processing Agreement (one or two pages, has your signature). Look for the rate schedule box, the term length, and the early termination clause.
  2. The Program Guide or Terms and Conditions (long, dense, often only linked, not attached). This is where the fee change clause, the auto-renewal clause, and the arbitration clause live.
  3. The equipment lease or rental addendum (a separate agreement, sometimes with a different company entirely). Check whether it survives cancellation of the processing agreement, and whether you personally guaranteed it.

If you do not have all three, you have not seen your whole deal.

How to request a full fee schedule and a statement audit

Send your processor's support or relationship manager a written request. Email, so you have a record. Ask for:

  1. A complete, current schedule of all fees on the account, including every recurring monthly charge and every per-transaction charge, with the effective date of each.
  2. Your pricing model in writing: flat rate, interchange-plus, tiered, or subscription. If tiered, the written qualification criteria for each tier.
  3. The contract term end date, the auto-renewal terms, the notice period required to cancel, and the early termination fee amount.
  4. A copy of the Program Guide or Terms and Conditions in effect on your account today.
  5. Whether any equipment lease is attached to the account, with whom, for how long, and whether it is personally guaranteed.
  6. The last six months of processing statements in PDF, if you do not have them.

Then do the arithmetic yourself. Effective rate = total fees for the month divided by total card volume for the month. Use total fees, including every monthly line item, not just the percentage. That single number is the only fair way to compare two offers, and it is the number a salesperson quoting you "2.4%" is not quoting.

If a competing processor offers to audit your statement, that is a sales tool, not a neutral service. It is still useful. Just get the same analysis from two of them and compare, and never hand over a statement with your full merchant ID visible if you are not ready to be sold to.

What the big restaurant POS providers publish

Rates verified 2026-08-22 from each company's own site. Rates change. Check the link before relying on it, and note that every one of these companies will quote custom pricing at volume.

Square

Square publishes its rates on one unified pricing page.

Plan Software Tap, dip, or swipe Online
Square Free $0/mo per location 2.6% + 15¢ 3.3% + 30¢
Square Plus $49/mo per location 2.5% + 15¢ 2.9% + 30¢
Square Premium $149/mo per location 2.4% + 15¢ 2.9% + 30¢

Source: https://squareup.com/us/en/pricing (the food and beverage pricing page shows the same rates: https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/6415-square-for-restaurants-pricing)

Clover

Clover publishes restaurant rates on its restaurant pricing pages, for both full service and quick service.

Sources: https://www.clover.com/pricing/restaurant and https://www.clover.com/pricing/quick-service-restaurant. Clover's main pricing page advertises "Pay as little as 2.3% + 10¢ per transaction" and notes "Prices shown are only available on Clover.com," which matters because Clover is also sold through banks and independent sales offices that set their own pricing: https://www.clover.com/pricing

That last point is the single most important thing to know about Clover. Clover is hardware and software sold through many different resellers. The rate on Clover.com is not necessarily the rate the reseller in your market will quote you.

SpotOn

Plan Software Card present Keyed
All-In $0/station per month 2.79% + $0.20 3.79% + $0.20
POS Essentials $55/station per month 2.45% + $0.15 (Amex: 3.19% + $0.15) 3.45% + $0.15
Build Your Own Custom Custom Custom

SpotOn's page notes on the All-In plan: "Processing minimums apply, 2yr minimum term." An optional Core bundle is listed at $50/month plus 20 basis points of gross processing volume, capped at $200.

Source: https://www.spoton.com/pricing/

Toast

Toast publishes plan prices but does not publish a payment processing rate. On its pricing page, the plans listed are Starter Kit at $0/month, Point of Sale starting at $69/month, POS and Payroll starting at $69/month plus $9 per employee per month, and Build Your Own at custom pricing. Payment processing is described in the comparison table only as "Simple, flat rate," with no number attached. Source: https://pos.toasttab.com/pricing

On its payment processing fees page, Toast states: "We'll work with you to build a custom rate specific to the characteristics of your restaurant." Source: https://pos.toasttab.com/payments/payment-processing-fees

That is a legitimate way to price, and it is how most traditional merchant services work. It also means you cannot compare Toast to Square on a website. You have to get the quote in writing, and you have to compute the effective rate on your own volume. Third-party review sites publish specific Toast rates; we have not been able to verify any of those figures against a Toast-published source, so we are not repeating them here.

Disclosure: this site has a commercial partnership with Toast. We have applied the same standard to Toast as to every other provider listed, which is why the section above says what it says.

One thing changing right now

On November 10, 2025, Visa and Mastercard announced a revised proposed settlement in the long-running interchange antitrust litigation. As reported, it would cut average interchange on most domestic credit transactions by 0.1 percentage point for five years, cap the standard consumer card rate at 1.25% for eight years, end the "honor all cards" rule, and give merchants more room to surcharge or discount by card type. Court-appointed economists valued it at roughly $38 billion through 2031. Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/10/visa-mastercard-reach-revised-swipe-fee-settlement-with-merchants-.html

This is contested and not final. The National Retail Federation and the Merchants Payments Coalition have opposed it, arguing it does not fix the problems Judge Margo Brodie identified when she rejected the previous settlement in June 2024. It requires her approval. Sources: https://www.paymentsdive.com/news/merchants-assail-card-fees-pact/807846/ and https://www.americanbar.org/groups/antitrust_law/resources/newsletters/in-re-payment-card-interchange-fee-merchant-discount-antitrust-litigation/

Do not build your 2027 budget on it.

The surcharging option, briefly

Visa's rules allow U.S. merchants to surcharge Visa credit transactions, capped at the lower of your merchant discount rate for that card or 3%. You must notify Visa and your acquirer at least 30 days before you start, disclose the surcharge at the point of entry and the point of sale, and show it as a separate line on the receipt. Source: https://usa.visa.com/content/dam/VCOM/global/support-legal/documents/merchant-surcharging-qa-for-web.pdf and https://usa.visa.com/support/small-business/regulations-fees.html

Several states restrict or prohibit surcharging, and the rules differ for debit. Check your state law and talk to your processor before you put a sign on the door.

Sources

  1. OCC Comptroller's Handbook, "Merchant Processing." https://www.occ.treas.gov/publications-and-resources/publications/comptrollers-handbook/files/merchant-processing/pub-ch-merchant-processing.pdf
  2. Visa U.S.A. Interchange Reimbursement Fees, effective April 18, 2026. https://usa.visa.com/content/dam/VCOM/download/merchants/visa-usa-interchange-reimbursement-fees.pdf
  3. Mastercard 2026–2027 U.S. Region Interchange Programs and Rates. https://www.mastercard.com/content/dam/mccom/us/business/documents/merchant-rates-2026-2027-april2026.pdf
  4. Federal Reserve, Regulation II average debit card interchange fee data. https://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/regii-average-interchange-fee.htm
  5. FTC, "FTC Takes Action to Stop Payment Processor First American...", July 2022. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/07/ftc-takes-action-stop-payment-processor-first-american-trapping-small-businesses-surprise-exit-fees
  6. FTC, "FTC Sends More Than $2.6 Million in Refunds...", February 2025. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/02/ftc-sends-more-26-million-refunds-small-businesses-harmed-payment-processor-first-american
  7. New York Attorney General, "Attorney General James Wins Lawsuit Against Northern Leasing Systems," June 2020. https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2020/attorney-general-james-wins-lawsuit-against-northern-leasing-systems-delivering
  8. Square pricing. https://squareup.com/us/en/pricing
  9. Square food and beverage pricing. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/6415-square-for-restaurants-pricing
  10. Clover restaurant pricing. https://www.clover.com/pricing/restaurant
  11. Clover quick service restaurant pricing. https://www.clover.com/pricing/quick-service-restaurant
  12. Clover pricing overview. https://www.clover.com/pricing
  13. SpotOn restaurant pricing. https://www.spoton.com/pricing/
  14. Toast pricing. https://pos.toasttab.com/pricing
  15. Toast payment processing fees. https://pos.toasttab.com/payments/payment-processing-fees
  16. PCI Security Standards Council, merchants page. https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/merchants/
  17. National Restaurant Association, swipe fees policy page (advocacy source). https://restaurant.org/issues-and-advocacy/policy-agenda/swipefees/
  18. CNBC, "Visa, Mastercard reach new swipe fee settlement with merchants," November 10, 2025. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/10/visa-mastercard-reach-revised-swipe-fee-settlement-with-merchants-.html
  19. Payments Dive, "Merchants assail card fees pact." https://www.paymentsdive.com/news/merchants-assail-card-fees-pact/807846/
  20. American Bar Association Antitrust Section, summary of the November 2025 proposed settlement. https://www.americanbar.org/groups/antitrust_law/resources/newsletters/in-re-payment-card-interchange-fee-merchant-discount-antitrust-litigation/
  21. Visa, U.S. Merchant Surcharge Q and A. https://usa.visa.com/content/dam/VCOM/global/support-legal/documents/merchant-surcharging-qa-for-web.pdf
  22. Visa, credit card processing fees and interchange rates, small business. https://usa.visa.com/support/small-business/regulations-fees.html

Editorial note. Rates and plan structures change frequently. Every figure above was verified against the linked source on 2026-08-22. Where a provider does not publish a figure, we say so rather than repeat a number from a review site we cannot verify.