Credit Card Processing Fees in 2026: Interchange, Assessments, and the Processor's Markup, With the Math at $10,000 and $50,000 a Month

Credit card processing fees: what a small business actually pays in 2026

As of 2026, a small business pays somewhere between about 1.7% and 3.5% of every card sale in processing fees, and the number depends far more on how your processor prices than on what the card networks charge. Three layers make up the fee: interchange, which goes to the customer's bank and is published by Visa and Mastercard; a small network assessment, which goes to the network; and the processor's markup, which is the only layer you can negotiate. Flat-rate processors such as Square and Stripe fold all three into one number, 2.6% + 15 cents in person on Square's free plan and 2.9% + 30 cents online on Stripe, read from their pricing pages today. Interchange-plus processors show you the published interchange and add a stated markup. This page explains each layer with the published rates, does the math at $10,000 and $50,000 a month, and tells you when it is worth switching.

Sourcing note: interchange figures below are from Visa's USA Interchange Reimbursement Fees document, rates effective April 18, 2026, and from Visa's small-business fees page, both read September 15, 2026. Square figures are from squareup.com/us/en/pricing and Stripe figures from stripe.com/pricing, read the same day. Mastercard publishes its own interchange table; it did not render to our fetch today, so no Mastercard rates are quoted. All processors change rates; confirm on the vendor's page before you sign.

The three layers of a card fee

1. Interchange. A fee set by the card network and paid to the bank that issued the customer's card. Visa's own document says merchants do not pay interchange directly; merchants pay a "merchant discount" to their financial institution that typically includes it. Interchange varies by card type (debit, credit, rewards, premium), by whether the card was present, and by merchant category.
2. Network assessments. A small percentage the card network keeps on each transaction. Each network publishes its own assessment schedule; it is the smallest of the three layers.
3. Processor markup. What Square, Stripe, your bank, or an independent processor adds on top. This is the layer that differs between providers, and the only one you can shop.

A flat-rate processor blends all three into one rate so you never see the layers. An interchange-plus processor passes the first two layers through at cost and charges a stated markup on top. Neither is always cheaper; it depends on your average ticket, your card mix, and your monthly volume, which is why the math section below matters more than the labels.

What interchange fees actually are, with Visa's published rates

Visa publishes its US interchange table publicly. A few rows from the April 18, 2026 schedule show how wide the range is:

• Debit, card present, exempt (smaller issuing banks): CPS/Retail Debit is 0.80% + $0.15; CPS/Restaurant Debit is 1.19% + $0.10.
• Debit, regulated (large issuing banks, the Regulation II cap): 0.05% + $0.21 across every card-present and card-not-present program, plus $0.01 for issuers certified on fraud-prevention standards. On a $50 sale that is about 24 cents.
• Consumer credit, card present: Retail Credit at Performance Threshold III ranges from 1.51% + $0.10 for Traditional Rewards and other products up to 2.30% + $0.10 for Visa Infinite spend-qualified cards; Non-Qualified Consumer Credit is 3.15% + $0.10.
• Consumer credit, card not present: Services 1 (transactions of $100 or more) runs 1.65% + $0.10 to 2.40% + $0.10; Recurring runs 1.33% + $0.05 to 2.30% + $0.05.
• Small merchant program: Visa's Small Merchant fee program, which applies below a gross Visa consumer credit sales maximum of $280,000 (based on 12 months of Visa activity ending September 30, 2024), lists Small Merchant Services at 1.55% + $0.10 for all other products up to 2.30% + $0.10 for premium cards, and Small Merchant Restaurant at 2.10% to 2.60% with a 4-cent minimum.

Two things to take from that table. Debit is dramatically cheaper than credit, and regulated debit is cheaper still: a large-bank debit card costs the issuer side about a quarter on a $50 sale, while a premium rewards credit card can cost over a dollar. And your merchant category matters: restaurants, services, retail, and recurring billing each have their own rows. A flat-rate processor charges you the same 2.6% whether the customer hands you a regulated debit card or a Visa Infinite, which is exactly where flat-rate makes its money.

Merchant account fees: the monthly lines that are not per transaction

A traditional merchant account from a bank or independent processor usually carries fees that are not tied to a sale: a monthly account or statement fee, a PCI compliance fee, a gateway fee for online payments, sometimes a monthly minimum, and an early termination fee if you are on a contract. Flat-rate providers mostly eliminate these. Square's free plan and Stripe's standard pricing carry no monthly fee, no setup fee, and no contract; you pay only when a sale happens. Square's paid plans are $49 and $149 a month per location and lower the per-transaction rate. The trade is transparent: a merchant account with a low markup and $30 to $50 of monthly fees beats flat-rate at high volume and loses to it at low volume.

Flat-rate pricing: Square and Stripe, from their pages today

• Square: in-person cards are 2.6% + 15 cents on the free plan, 2.5% + 15 cents on Plus, and 2.4% + 15 cents on Premium; online and invoice payments are 3.3% + 30 cents on Free and 2.9% + 30 cents on Plus and Premium; manually keyed cards and cards on file are 3.5% + 15 cents. Premium is $149 a month per location, and Square offers custom pricing to businesses processing over $250,000 a year.
• Stripe: online domestic cards are 2.9% + 30 cents; in-person through Stripe Terminal is 2.7% + 5 cents; international cards add 1.5% and currency conversion adds 1%; ACH Direct Debit is 0.8%; each dispute carries a $15 fee.

The stripe-vs-square question is settled by where the customer pays, and the full comparison is on Stripe vs Square. What both share is a rate that never changes with the card type, which makes bookkeeping simple and makes debit-heavy businesses overpay.

Interchange-plus pricing: what "interchange plus 0.30% and 10 cents" means

An interchange-plus processor charges you the published interchange for whatever card the customer used, the network assessment, and a fixed markup, quoted as a percentage plus a per-transaction amount. The markup is the whole negotiation. The upside is that a regulated debit card costs you about 24 cents of interchange plus the markup, instead of 2.6%. The downside is a statement with dozens of interchange categories on it, and the monthly fees described above. Interchange-plus pays off when your volume is high, your tickets are large, or your customers pay with debit; it is rarely worth the complexity under a few thousand dollars a month.

The math at $10,000 and $50,000 a month

Assume a $50 average ticket, so $10,000 a month is 200 transactions and $50,000 is 1,000. The interchange floor uses Visa's Small Merchant Services rate for all other products, 1.55% + $0.10, as the lowest plausible cost of the first layer for a mixed credit card; real interchange will be lower for debit and higher for rewards cards.

The gap between the interchange floor and the flat rate, $115 a month at $10,000 and $575 a month at $50,000 in this example, is what covers the network assessment and the processor's margin. An interchange-plus processor's markup and monthly fees have to fit inside that gap to be worth switching. At $10,000 a month they usually do not; at $50,000 a month a markup of a few tenths of a percent plus $40 in monthly fees leaves several hundred dollars a month on the table with flat-rate. Run your own numbers with your average ticket; a $15 ticket makes the per-transaction cents matter far more than the percentage, and a $500 ticket makes the percentage everything.

Can you pass fees to customers?

Visa's small-business fees page covers merchant credit surcharging directly: merchants must notify their acquirer 30 days before they begin surcharging, and Visa publishes considerations and sample disclosure signs. Rules on surcharging and cash discounts also vary by state, and the networks cap surcharges on credit cards, so read your processor's surcharge program and your state's rules before adding a line to the receipt. A cash discount, where every price is the card price and cash customers pay less, is the version most small businesses find simpler to explain.

How to lower credit card processing fees without switching

1. Take cards in person when you can. Card-present rates are lower than keyed or online rates on every schedule above; Square's keyed rate is 3.5% + 15 cents against 2.6% + 15 cents for a tapped card.
2. Offer ACH for large invoices. Stripe's ACH Direct Debit is 0.8%, and Square supports ACH on invoices. On a $5,000 invoice, the difference between 0.8% and 2.9% + 30 cents is about $105.
3. Batch and reconcile so disputes stay rare. Stripe's $15 dispute fee and the lost sale cost more than the processing on most tickets.
4. Ask for custom pricing at volume. Square's page invites businesses over $250,000 a year to ask; interchange-plus quotes start to make sense in the same range.

When the website is the problem, not the processor

Most owners come to this page because the fee line on the statement went up. For a service business, the larger leak is usually upstream: a site that does not take a deposit, an invoice flow that makes the customer hunt for a way to pay, or a checkout that drops people on mobile. SuperDupr's custom web design builds the payment path into the site so the fee is charged on sales that would otherwise not have closed; the cost of that build is covered in how much does a website cost. For a restaurant or retail counter choosing hardware, Square vs Toast vs Clover and is Square worth it carry the point-of-sale side of the decision.

The bottom line

Credit card processing fees are three layers, and only the top one is negotiable. Under about $10,000 a month, take the flat rate, keep the bookkeeping simple, and push large payments to ACH. Above about $50,000 a month, or with a debit-heavy card mix, get an interchange-plus quote and check whether its markup and monthly fees fit inside the gap between Visa's published interchange and the 2.6% to 2.9% you pay now. Either way, the cheapest fee is the one on a sale your website actually closed.