There are a myriad of potential credit card processing fees involved in putting together an ecommerce Web site. This often makes it difficult to compare processing fees across different credit card options.
Potentially, you could be charged credit card processing fees by each provider involved with your credit card merchant account – application fees, set-up fees, yearly memberships, monthly statement charges, monthly minimums, gateway access fees, statement fees, fixed transaction fees, variable transaction discount rates (i.e. a processing fee for each transaction), and merchant account cancellation penalties are all common.
Because there are potentially so many credit card processing fees, it is easy to misinterpret your fees. Rarely are all processing fees and minimums revealed in one place.
Quoted credit card merchant account fees, for example, may not include gateway access, hosting, and/or a shopping cart processing fees. Because you may be comparing “apples to oranges”, options that at first appear low cost can – upon implementation – turn out to be pricey. Similarly, expensive-sounding solutions may actually be reasonably priced.