What Is The Average Credit Card Processing Rate?

 While credit cards are incredibly convenient and offer useful benefits for consumers, they also come with substantially higher fees than cash. Over the past decade, as people have ditched wallets full of bills and coins for plastic cards, the credit card processing rate has skyrocketed. Though credit cards undoubtedly provide value, the average costs of accepting credit card payments are enough to make your eyes water.

Average Credit Card Processing Rate

Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover charge merchants hefty interchange or “swipe” fees, averaging around 2% of each credit card transaction. For a $50 purchase, that comes to a dollar straight out of the merchant’s pocket. And those fees only tell part of the story. Processors and payment gateways also tack on additional BS fees, like transaction charges, monthly service fees, PCI compliance fees, and more. All told, merchants can pay 3-4% or even more per credit card sale.

These fees definitely add up for businesses, especially when you’re processing millions of transactions per year. While large companies have more leverage to push back on rates, smaller merchants are often left with no choice but to accept whichever fees the card networks choose to charge. At the end of the day though, someone has to pay, and that someone is usually the customer in the form of higher prices.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the convenience of credit cards and appreciate the benefits they provide as a consumer. Fraud protection, purchase guarantees, rewards, and more – credit cards offer tons of value. But not without cost. As cash becomes obsolete and credit card spending rises, it’s crucial that both merchants and consumers fully understand the real costs of plastic. Credit card processing fees may seem reasonable on the surface, but at the volumes, we’re talking about, we’re talking real money. By going in with eyes open, merchants can optimize their payment strategies and consumers can choose credit cards that actually boost their wallets rather than drain them.

Interchange or “swipe” fees

You know those fees stores charge when you pay with a credit or debit card? Those aren’t actually the stores’ fees at all. They’re interchange fees, and they go straight into the pockets of the big credit card companies like Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover. Each time you swipe your card, the store pays these networks a percentage of the sale, typically around 2% for credit cards or even higher for debit cards.

So if you buy $50 worth of stuff with your card, the store is probably eating $1 or more of that just to process your payment. And it’s not just one sale – stores pay these fees on everything. All day, every day. The fees really add up, especially for stores that see a lot of card transactions.

Don’t get me wrong, I love using cards too. The fraud protection, rewards, purchase guarantees – all that stuff is great. But somebody’s gotta pay for it, and unfortunately, that somebody is often all of us in the form of higher prices, or the stores themselves with smaller profit margins. The networks will argue the fees are fair to cover the costs of their infrastructure, but many say they’re excessive. Either way, stores pass along the costs to us through the prices we pay.

As more and more people ditch cash and checks for cards, these interchange fees have become hugely profitable for the networks. But few stop to consider how much we’re all paying in the end. The fees may seem small, like 2% here and there, but added up across every single card swipe, we’re talking hundreds of billions of dollars moving from consumers and businesses to the networks each year.

Hey, I’m not saying we should give up the convenience of plastic. But we should go in with our eyes wide open about the hidden costs. Be aware of the fees so you can use the cards that’ll cost you less versus more. And we need public policy to bring some transparency and limit overly burdensome fees when possible.

Other merchant fees

In addition to interchange fees, merchants also face a slew of other charges from credit card processors, payment gateways, and third-party services. These extra fees include:

• Transaction fees: A flat fee, often around $0.20-$0.30 per transaction, just for the privilege of processing a payment. These add up quickly for businesses with high volumes.
• Monthly service fees: Processors and gateways frequently charge merchants a monthly fee for basic services like the ability to accept cards, batch reporting, etc. These monthly fees are often $30-$100 per month or more.
• PCI compliance fees: The Payment Card Industry Security Standard requires regular audits and grading to ensure data security. PCI compliance fees include the costs of audits, ongoing monitoring, certification, and any penalties for non-compliance. These fees often range from $500 to $50,000 per year depending on the merchant.
• Chargeback fees: When a customer disputes a charge, it results in a “chargeback” and the merchant pays a fee to the processor for handling it, typically $5-$15 per chargeback. Unjustified chargebacks still cost the merchant money to contest.
• Gateway fees: Merchants using a third-party payment gateway to process transactions pay a percentage of sales, typically 1-3%, as a gateway fee. Some gateways also charge additional transaction, monthly, and PCI fees.
• Equipment fees: Merchants renting point-of-sale equipment to process card payments frequently pay monthly or yearly equipment rent fees of $30-$200 or more. Using own equipment avoids these costs but has larger upfront expenses.

Together, these extra fees can add 1-3% or more to the total cost of accepting credit card payments for most merchants, significantly increasing the prices they charge or reducing profit margins. While large merchants have more leverage to negotiate lower fees, smaller businesses especially struggle with these additional burdens.

Costs to issuing banks

In addition to the fees charged by credit card networks and processors, issuing banks also make substantial profits from credit card transactions and accounts. Some of the major ways banks generate revenue from credit cards include:

• Interest charges: The biggest source of revenue for credit cards is the interest charged on balances. The average APR for credit cards is around 15% according to recent reports. Even with average balances of $6,000, annual interest charges of $900 per card add up to huge profits for banks.
• Annual fees: Most credit cards charge annual membership fees of $50-$100 or more. For a bank issuing 10-20 million credit cards, annual fees represent $500-$2000 million in annual revenue at a minimum. These fees provide high-profit margins for banks.
• Overlimit and penalty fees: Fees for going over the credit limit or paying late provide additional revenue and profit opportunities for banks, typically $35-$50 per violation. Massive numbers of violations result in substantial fees.
• Foreign transaction fees: The fees charged for using a credit card for international purchases, typically 3% of each transaction, generate significant revenue with high-profit margins since little to no additional cost is incurred. These fees provide a lucrative revenue stream from traveling customers.
• Rewards revenue: While rewards like cash back, travel points and other perks are promoted as benefits for customers, their true purpose is to influence spending habits. The revenue generated from this spending far outweighs the cost of providing rewards. Each swipe in pursuit of more rewards is highly profitable.
• Other services: Cards are also used to charge customers for other services like wire transfers, balance inquiries, ATM use, special card types (business, secured), etc. Fees for these services, although more modest, still contribute additional revenue and profit for banks.

In summary, credit cards and the related fees are an enormously profitable business for banks. By calculating multiple fees on a single transaction and charging for services and overage penalties at every turn, banks are able to generate profits of 15-30% or more from credit cards according to industry experts.

Overall, it is clear that the profits and economics of credit cards overwhelmingly favor the banks, not the merchants or consumers using them. With growing popularity, these profits show no signs of slowing. But someone has to bear the costs, and in the case of credit cards, that someone is often society as a whole.

Conclusion

 While credit cards offer benefits to both merchants and consumers in terms of convenience, fraud protection, and rewards, the costs of acceptance and use have grown substantially over time. From fees charged directly by credit card networks and processors to additional charges from payment gateways and third parties, to interest paid on balances and annual fees from issuing banks, the total cost of credit card payments averages around 3-4% per transaction according to industry reports.

For merchants, high-volume credit card processing costs represent a major expense and ultimately impact the prices consumers pay. Smaller businesses especially struggle with fees that can reduce profit margins in a competitive market. At the same time, consumers appreciate the value credit cards provide but pay for it through higher costs of goods and services. There is no “free lunch” when it comes to payments, only a question of how costs and benefits are allocated.

While awareness of credit card fees has increased, more transparency and understanding are still sorely needed. Complex fee structures, opaque pricing from service providers, and the tendency to overlook fees that seem small on any single transaction have resulted in a system where costs frequently outweigh the benefits, especially for smaller players. Both merchants and consumers deserve straightforward information and a balanced perspective on the total value of credit cards versus the total cost.

Policy changes could also help bring more reasonableness and fairness to credit card pricing practices, at least for certain fee types like interchange or interchange fees. There are reasonable arguments on multiple sides of the issue, but lack of competition and inevitability have allowed excessive pricing to persist.

As cash use continues declining and contactless/mobile payments expand, attention to credit card processing costs and fees should remain consistent. The impacts of rising fees may seem marginal for any single transaction, but at global scales the amounts at stake are staggering. Neither merchants, consumers, nor society as a whole can afford to continue ignoring these costs or accepting unjustified burdens on commerce and financial well-being. Only by bringing light to the dark, compounding complex fees can we work toward a balanced, sustainable system for all.