Finding the best credit card processing fees

How to Compare Card Processing Quotes: A Like-for-Like UK Checklist

Two card-processing quotations can look as though they are priced in completely different languages.

One provider might offer:

0.65% plus 5p per transaction

Another might quote:

Interchange plus 0.30% and 3p

A third might offer:

1.1% with no monthly fee

The lowest headline percentage is not automatically the least expensive option.

The final cost can depend on:

• The cards your customers actually use
• Average transaction value
• Number of transaction attempts
• Consumer, commercial and international-card mix
• Online, card-present and telephone-payment volumes
• Gateway charges
• Terminal rental
• Monthly minimums
• Refund and chargeback fees
• Currency conversion
• Settlement timing
• Rolling reserves
• Contract length
• Integration and migration costs
• Optional payment services

A quote based mainly on UK consumer debit cards could look extremely competitive but become considerably more expensive if the business receives a high proportion of:

• Commercial cards
• International cards
• Low-value payments
• Failed recurring attempts
• Refunds
• Telephone payments

The correct comparison is not:

Which provider has the lowest advertised rate?

It is:

What would each provider have charged for the same representative set of transactions, services and contractual requirements?

This guide explains how to compare UK card-processing quotes on a like-for-like basis and calculate which arrangement is likely to produce the best overall payment outcome.

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Quick answer: How should you compare card-processing quotes?

To compare card-processing quotes properly:

1. Collect representative processing data.
2. Confirm what each quoted rate includes.
3. Separate consumer, commercial and international cards.
4. Include percentage and fixed transaction charges.
5. Include authorisations, declines and retries.
6. Add gateway, terminal and monthly account costs.
7. Add refund, chargeback and international-payment charges.
8. Compare settlement, reserve and contract terms.
9. Apply both quotations to the same transaction profile.
10. Compare the expected cost in pounds, not percentages alone.

The Payment Systems Regulator found that merchants can find card-acquiring prices difficult to compare and that many businesses could achieve a better deal by shopping around, switching or negotiating with their existing provider. Its findings applied particularly to merchants with annual card turnover below £50 million. 

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Start with your own payment data

A provider cannot produce a reliable quotation from monthly turnover alone.

Consider two businesses that each process:

£500,000 per month

Business A

• 50,000 payments
• £10 average transaction
• Mainly UK consumer debit cards
• Card present
• Few refunds

Business B

• 500 payments
• £1,000 average transaction
• Mainly international commercial cards
• Online future delivery
• Higher refund exposure

Their turnover is identical.

Their likely transaction costs, fixed fees, underwriting requirements and settlement arrangements could be very different.

Before requesting quotations, gather at least three representative months of payment data. Twelve months may be more appropriate for a seasonal or rapidly changing business.

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The information needed for a meaningful quote

Provide each potential payment provider with the same information.

Business profile

• Legal company name
• Trading name
• Business activity
• Website
• Sector and MCC where known
• Countries of operation
• Customer countries
• Length of time trading
• Current provider
• Reason for reviewing the account

Processing profile

• Monthly and annual card turnover
• Transaction count
• Average transaction value
• Maximum transaction value
• Card-present turnover
• Ecommerce turnover
• MOTO turnover
• Payment-link turnover
• Recurring-payment turnover
• Expected future growth

Card mix

• UK consumer debit
• UK consumer credit
• Commercial cards
• International cards
• American Express
• Other card brands
• Digital-wallet transactions

Payment performance

• Successful transactions
• Authorisation attempts
• Declines
• Refunds
• Chargebacks
• Fraud
• Seasonal peaks
• Fulfilment period

Technical requirements

• Payment gateway
• Card terminals
• EPOS integration
• Ecommerce platform
• Booking system
• Subscription platform
• Payment links
• Virtual terminal
• Tokenisation
• Account updater
• Multi-currency processing
• Reporting and reconciliation

A provider pricing only from:

£500,000 monthly turnover

is making assumptions about the remaining information.

Those assumptions may not match the actual business.

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MAS insight: Give every provider the same data

A comparison becomes unreliable where:

• Provider A receives three complete statements.
• Provider B receives only monthly turnover.
• Provider C assumes every payment is UK consumer debit.

The providers are not pricing the same business.

Create one information pack and send the same version to every provider being seriously considered.

Record any additional assumptions each provider makes.

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The card-processing quote comparison table

Complete this table for every serious offer.

Do not mark a field as:

Included

without confirming what it is included within.

For example, a provider may say that scheme fees are included in the quoted rate while another passes them through separately.

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Compare the scope of each quote first

Before comparing prices, establish what each provider is actually supplying.

A quotation might cover:

Acquiring only

The merchant account and card processing, but not the gateway or terminal.

Acquiring and gateway

Online processing and gateway technology combined.

Acquiring, gateway and additional services

This could include:

• Fraud tools
• Tokenisation
• Recurring billing
• Reporting
• Payment links
• Account updater

Payment facilitator package

One combined price may include payment acceptance, onboarding, gateway and settlement.

Acquiring and terminal package

A card-present quotation may include terminal rental, connectivity and maintenance.

Comparing an acquiring-only quote with a complete gateway package will produce a misleading result unless the excluded services are added separately.

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What does the quoted percentage include?

Ask the provider to define the quotation precisely.

For example:

0.75% plus 5p

Could mean:

• One blended rate for most eligible UK cards
• UK consumer debit only
• UK consumer cards only
• Acquirer margin on top of interchange
• Acquirer margin with scheme fees still charged separately
• An introductory price
• A rate conditional on minimum turnover
• A rate excluding ecommerce or telephone payments

Ask:

1. Which card categories receive this rate?
2. Which cards are excluded?
3. Does it include interchange?
4. Does it include scheme and processing fees?
5. Does it include the acquirer margin?
6. Are authorisations charged separately?
7. Does it apply to refunds?
8. Is it fixed for the contract term?
9. Can the provider vary it?
10. Is it dependent on processing volume?

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Blended, IC+ and IC++ quotes cannot be compared by rate alone

A blended quote combines several underlying costs into one or a small number of merchant rates.

An IC+ quotation generally presents:

Interchange + provider markup

An IC++ quotation generally separates:

1. Interchange
2. Scheme and processing fees
3. Provider markup

Suppose a merchant receives:

Provider A

Blended rate: 1.05% + 5p

Provider B

Interchange + 0.25% + 4p

Provider B’s 0.25% is not the merchant’s complete transaction cost.

Interchange and potentially scheme fees must still be included.

The only reliable comparison is to reprice the same transaction data under both models.

For a more detailed explanation, see the MAS guide to merchant account fees.

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MAS insight: Ask for the predicted total in pounds

Do not accept only:

We expect to save you 0.20%.

Ask for:

• Estimated monthly cost
• Estimated annual cost
• Data period used
• Charges included
• Charges excluded
• Assumptions
• VAT treatment where relevant
• Expected first-year implementation cost

The provider should be able to explain how the estimated saving was calculated.

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A worked comparison between two providers

Suppose a business processes:

Monthly card turnover: £250,000
Successful transactions: 10,000
Authorisation attempts: 12,000

For simplicity, assume the relevant transaction mix has already been reflected in the quoted blended rate.

Provider A

• Transaction rate: 0.75%
• Fixed fee: 5p per successful transaction
• Authorisation fee: 2p per attempt
• Gateway fee: £100 per month
• Account fee: £30 per month

Provider A calculation

Percentage charge:

£250,000 × 0.75% = £1,875

Fixed successful-transaction charges:

10,000 × £0.05 = £500

Authorisation charges:

12,000 × £0.02 = £240

Monthly platform and account costs:

£100 + £30 = £130

Total Provider A cost

£1,875 + £500 + £240 + £130 = £2,745

Effective processing rate:

£2,745 ÷ £250,000 × 100 = 1.098%

Rounded:

1.10%

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Provider B

• Transaction rate: 0.90%
• No fixed successful-transaction fee
• No separate authorisation fee
• Gateway included
• Monthly account fee: £25

Provider B calculation

Percentage charge:

£250,000 × 0.90% = £2,250

Monthly account fee:

£25

Total Provider B cost

£2,275

Effective processing rate:

£2,275 ÷ £250,000 × 100 = 0.91%

Provider A has the lower headline percentage.

Provider B is approximately:

£470 cheaper per month

in this simplified example because the business generates a high number of transaction and authorisation events.

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Average transaction value can change the answer

Now consider two merchants with the same £250,000 monthly turnover.

Merchant 1

• 50,000 transactions
• £5 average transaction

Merchant 2

• 500 transactions
• £500 average transaction

A fixed charge of 5p would cost:

Merchant 1

50,000 × 5p = £2,500

Merchant 2

500 × 5p = £25

The same percentage and fixed fee can produce very different results.

Low-value merchants should pay close attention to:

• Fixed transaction fees
• Authorisation charges
• Gateway events
• Declines
• Minimum monthly charges

High-value merchants may be more affected by:

• Percentage rate
• International and commercial cards
• Fraud controls
• Maximum transaction limits
• Settlement
• Reserves

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Successful transactions versus attempted transactions

A quote may show:

4p per transaction

But the word transaction can be ambiguous.

Ask whether the fee applies to:

• Successful authorisations
• Declined authorisations
• Verification attempts
• Reversals
• Partial captures
• Recurring retries
• Refunds
• Payment-token updates

Suppose the business completes:

20,000 successful payments

but submits:

30,000 authorisation attempts

At 4p per authorisation, the cost is:

30,000 × 4p = £1,200

not:

20,000 × 4p = £800

This is particularly important for:

• Subscription businesses
• Memberships
• Debt collection
• Insurance
• Charities
• High-decline MOTO processing
• Automated payment retries

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Declines can affect cost and revenue

A cheaper provider is not necessarily producing a better commercial outcome if more legitimate payments are declined.

Compare:

• Authorisation rate
• Soft and hard decline handling
• Retry support
• Account updater
• Network tokens
• 3D Secure configuration
• Issuer-response reporting
• Fraud controls
• Payment-routing options

The relevant question is not only:

How much does each attempt cost?

It is also:

How much valid customer revenue is successfully collected?

A quote cannot guarantee a particular authorisation-rate improvement. Performance depends on the merchant, customer, card mix, transaction data, fraud settings, authentication and provider configuration.

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Compare consumer, commercial and international cards separately

A provider may advertise a low rate for UK consumer debit cards while charging substantially more for:

• Consumer credit cards
• Commercial cards
• Cards issued outside the UK
• Premium cards
• Certain card brands

Use the merchant’s actual card mix.

Example transaction mix

Apply each provider’s relevant price to each category.

Do not apply the UK consumer debit price to the full £250,000.

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Weighted card-rate example

Suppose the proposed rates are:

The weighted percentage cost is:

£2,400 ÷ £250,000 × 100 = 0.96%

The provider may advertise:

Rates from 0.60%

But this merchant’s actual card mix produces an estimated percentage cost of:

0.96% before fixed and additional charges

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Do not assume future card mix will match the past

Historic statements are the best starting point, but expected business changes also matter.

Examples include:

• Launching into Europe or the United States
• Beginning B2B sales
• Adding subscriptions
• Moving from a shop to ecommerce
• Introducing telephone payments
• Increasing transaction values
• Adding a marketplace
• Moving customers from monthly to annual billing
• Opening new locations

Ask the provider to model:

1. Current transaction profile
2. Expected future transaction profile

A quote that is cheapest today may become less competitive after the business changes.

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Compare card-present, online and MOTO pricing

Payment channels can be priced differently.

Card present

Usually involves a physical or software-based payment terminal.

Costs may include:

• Transaction rate
• Fixed transaction fee
• Terminal rental
• Connectivity
• EPOS integration
• Maintenance

Ecommerce

Usually requires:

• Acquiring
• Gateway
• Checkout integration
• Fraud controls
• 3D Secure
• Tokenisation
• Reporting

MOTO

Telephone or mail-order payments may involve:

• Virtual terminal
• Card-not-present pricing
• Separate security controls
• Different provider appetite
• Higher fraud and dispute exposure

A blended quote across all channels can hide a particularly expensive part of the business.

Ask for channel-level pricing.

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Gateway fees

For an online business, establish whether the payment gateway is:

• Included
• Charged per transaction
• Charged monthly
• Subject to a minimum
• Provided by a separate company

Example

Gateway monthly fee: £50
Gateway transaction fee: 6p
Monthly transaction count: 20,000

Monthly gateway cost:

£50 + £1,200 = £1,250

A provider with a lower acquiring rate could still be more expensive once the gateway is included.

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Check which gateway features are included

Two gateways may not provide the same service.

Compare:

• Hosted payment page
• Direct API
• Payment links
• Virtual terminal
• Tokenisation
• Recurring billing
• Account updater
• Network tokens
• Fraud tools
• 3D Secure
• Multi-currency processing
• Alternative payment methods
• Reporting
• Webhooks
• Reconciliation files
• Support
• Service levels

A more expensive gateway may still deliver better value if it improves:

• Payment acceptance
• Security
• Customer experience
• Subscription recovery
• Reconciliation
• Operational efficiency

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Card-terminal costs

For card-present processing, add:

• Terminal rental
• Terminal purchase
• SIM or connectivity
• Installation
• EPOS integration
• Replacement
• Maintenance
• Additional terminals
• Accessories
• Termination
• Collection or return costs

The terminal agreement may be separate from the acquiring agreement.

The PSR’s current card-acquiring remedies require in-scope point-of-sale terminal providers to limit the initial term of relevant terminal hire contracts to 18 months, followed by a rolling arrangement. The precise application depends on the provider and terminal arrangement. 

Ask:

• Who owns the terminal?
• Who invoices the rental?
• What is the initial term?
• What happens after the initial term?
• What notice is required?
• Can it work with another acquirer?
• Is EPOS support included?
• What happens if it is damaged?
• Who pays for replacement?

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Compare terminal packages over the full term

Suppose:

Provider A

Terminal rental: £20 per month
Initial term: 18 months

Simplified rental cost:

£360

Provider B

Terminal rental: £35 per month
Initial term: 18 months

Simplified rental cost:

£630

Provider A appears £270 cheaper.

But also compare:

• Transaction pricing
• Connectivity
• Support
• Replacement
• Integration
• Number of devices
• Early exit
• Settlement

Do not select the entire payment arrangement based on the terminal rental alone.

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Monthly and minimum charges

Check for:

• Monthly merchant-account fee
• Statement fee
• Reporting fee
• Merchant-ID fee
• Gateway minimum
• Minimum service charge
• Support package
• Additional-location fee
• Additional-currency fee

Minimum monthly charge example

Minimum service charge: £50
Qualifying transaction charges generated: £32

Additional charge:

£18

Ask which fees count towards the minimum.

Gateway, terminal and PCI charges may sit outside it.

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PCI-related fees

A provider might charge:

• PCI administration fee
• Compliance portal fee
• Security support fee
• Non-compliance fee
• Scanning fee

Compare:

• Normal compliant charge
• Non-compliance charge
• Services provided
• Validation process
• Renewal date
• Whether the integration changes the merchant’s PCI scope

Do not treat every charge labelled PCI as an unavoidable card-scheme fee.

It may be a provider-specific administration or service charge.

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Refund costs

For businesses with frequent returns or cancellations, ask:

1. Is there a refund administration fee?
2. Is the original transaction fee returned?
3. Are interchange or scheme elements adjusted?
4. Is the fixed transaction fee retained?
5. Does the gateway charge for the refund event?
6. How are partial refunds treated?
7. What happens where the exchange rate has changed?

Refund example

Suppose a retailer processes:

1,000 refunds per month

Provider A charges:

20p per refund

Monthly refund fees:

£200

Provider B charges no separate refund fee but does not return the original processing charge.

The cheaper result depends on:

• Original transaction values
• Original rates
• Number of refunds
• Provider treatment

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Chargebacks and retrieval fees

Compare:

• Chargeback administration fee
• Retrieval or information-request fee
• Pre-arbitration fee
• Dispute platform fee
• Representment support
• Monitoring-related charges
• Whether the fee applies even if the dispute is won

The PSR’s implementation guidance for comparison information specifically distinguishes retrieval fees, which may apply when an issuer requests further transaction information. 

The disputed transaction value is separate from the administration fee.

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International and currency costs

For merchants accepting foreign-issued cards or multiple currencies, compare:

• International-card rate
• Cross-border fee
• Currency-conversion margin
• Settlement-conversion charge
• Multi-currency account fee
• Refund conversion
• Chargeback conversion
• Dynamic currency conversion terms
• Supported settlement currencies

Ask each provider to show:

What reaches our bank account after all card and currency costs?

A competitive processing rate can be outweighed by an expensive foreign-exchange margin.

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Settlement can change the commercial result

A quote may offer:

• Same-day settlement
• Next-working-day settlement
• T+2 settlement
• Weekly settlement
• Delayed settlement
• Settlement after fulfilment
• Premium instant payout

Compare:

• Standard timetable
• Working-day definition
• Cut-off time
• Weekend treatment
• Bank-holiday treatment
• Settlement fee
• Eligibility
• First-payout delay
• Multi-currency settlement

A lower transaction price may not suit a business that needs faster access to working capital.

For more detail, see the MAS guide to card payment settlement times.

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Rolling reserves must be included in the comparison

A rolling reserve is not usually an ordinary processing fee, but it can have a larger cash-flow effect than a small rate difference.

Provider A

• Estimated fees: £8,000 per month

• No reserve

Provider B

• Estimated fees: £7,000 per month
• 10% rolling reserve

At £500,000 monthly processing, Provider B may retain:

£50,000 of new processing each month before earlier reserve releases begin

The £1,000 monthly fee saving needs to be considered against the working capital being withheld.

Compare:

• Reserve percentage
• Holding period
• Cap
• Review process
• Release frequency
• Contractual variation rights
• Effect after closure

See the MAS guide to merchant account rolling reserves.

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MAS insight: Compare usable cash, not only fees

The best payment quote is not necessarily the one with the smallest invoice.

Compare:

Usable cash reaching the business bank account

after:

• Payment fees
• MCA deductions
• Refunds
• Chargebacks
• Rolling reserve
• Currency conversion
• Settlement timing

This is particularly important for businesses with:

• High turnover
• Low margins
• Future delivery
• Seasonal activity
• Significant supplier payments
• Merchant cash advances
• Existing reserves

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Contract length and notice

Record:

• Initial contract term
• Renewal arrangement
• Notice period
• Early termination fee
• Minimum processing commitment
• Terminal agreement
• Gateway agreement
• Price-review clauses
• Right to vary charges
• Right to terminate after a price change

A provider offering an annual saving of £3,000 may be less attractive if the business must pay:

• Existing termination costs
• New integration costs
• Duplicate terminal rental
• Token migration costs
• Extended parallel processing

Calculate the first-year position separately from the recurring annual position.

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First-year cost versus ongoing cost

First-year costs can include

• Setup
• Integration
• Development
• Terminal installation
• Data migration
• Token migration
• Early termination
• Parallel processing
• Staff training
• Consultancy
• Testing

Ongoing costs can include

• Transaction fees
• Authorisations
• Gateway
• Terminals
• Monthly charges
• Optional services
• Support

A new provider might be:

£10,000 cheaper each year

but require:

£18,000 of migration and termination costs

The expected break-even point would be approximately:

£18,000 ÷ £10,000 = 1.8 years

This calculation should form part of the decision.

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Token and subscription migration

A subscription or recurring-payment business may need to move stored payment credentials.

Ask:

• Can tokens be exported?
• Who owns or controls them?
• Is the destination provider eligible to receive them?
• Which credentials cannot be moved?
• Must customers re-enter payment details?
• Are customer and subscription records separate?
• Can both systems operate during migration?
• How will failed renewals be handled?
• What happens to refunds on the old provider?

A rate saving can be lost quickly if the migration causes:

• Customer churn
• Failed payments
• Duplicate charges
• Interrupted subscriptions
• Manual reconciliation

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Integration and development costs

Before accepting a payment quote, confirm:

• Supported platform
• Plugin or API
• Development responsibility
• Testing environment
• Webhook support
• Reporting format
• Refund integration
• Subscription support
• Payment links
• Virtual terminal
• Tokenisation
• Data migration
• Go-live support

Ask whether the quotation includes:

• Setup
• Development
• Certification
• Support
• Ongoing maintenance
• Version updates

A provider cannot be considered cheaper if the required solution does not work with the business’s systems.

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Support and service levels

Compare:

• Support hours
• Telephone support
• UK or international team
• Dedicated account manager
• Emergency support
• Technical support
• Dispute support
• Response time
• Service credits
• Escalation process

The value of support depends on the business.

A small seasonal retailer may need little assistance.

A platform processing millions of pounds with several integrations may need rapid access to technical and settlement teams.

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Compare fraud tools properly

A quote may include or separately charge for:

• Risk scoring
• 3D Secure
• Device intelligence
• Velocity controls
• Blocklists
• Address verification
• CVV checking
• Manual review
• Chargeback alerts
• Fraud guarantees

Do not compare only the monthly fee.

Ask:

• Which transactions are screened?
• Which rules are configurable?
• Does the tool affect conversion?
• Is liability shifted?
• Are alerts charged separately?
• Is manual review included?
• How are false positives measured?

A cheaper fraud tool is poor value if it blocks substantial legitimate revenue.

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Pay by Bank and alternative payment methods

A provider may also offer:

• Pay by Bank
• Open Banking payments
• Direct Debit
• Digital wallets
• Buy Now Pay Later
• Local payment methods
• Bank transfer reconciliation

Compare each method separately.

Ask:

• Percentage or fixed fee
• Refund support
• Settlement
• Customer authentication
• Reconciliation
• Consumer protection
• Recurring capability
• Geographic coverage

Do not assume every non-card method is automatically cheaper or suitable for every customer journey.

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Comparing quotations for a new business

A new business may not have historic statements.

Use:

• Expected monthly turnover
• Expected transaction count
• Expected average transaction
• Product prices
• Customer profile
• Sales channel
• Domestic and international split
• Consumer and business-customer split
• Refund policy
• Fulfilment period
• Forecast seasonality

Create at least three scenarios:

Lower case

The business achieves less turnover than forecast.

Expected case

The central business forecast.

Higher case

Turnover grows faster than expected.

This reveals how:

• Fixed monthly charges affect a quiet start
• Percentage fees affect growth
• Minimum commitments operate
• Pricing changes at volume thresholds

Do not select a provider solely because it is cheapest under the most optimistic forecast.

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Comparing quotations for a seasonal business

A seasonal business should not rely on one peak-month statement.

Use a full annual profile showing:

• Peak months
• Quiet months
• Refund periods
• Customer fulfilment
• Settlement
• Reserve
• Terminal use
• Monthly minimums

A provider with no monthly minimum may suit the quiet season.

Another may offer better peak transaction pricing.

Compare the full twelve-month cost.

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Comparing quotes for a high-turnover business

A high-turnover merchant should normally go beyond a simple rate comparison.

Consider:

• Transaction-level repricing
• Scheme-fee treatment
• Interchange qualification
• Acquirer markup
• Authorisation performance
• Routing
• Tokenisation
• Account updater
• Reconciliation
• Multi-acquirer setup
• Resilience
• International acquiring
• Settlement
• Treasury and currency management

A small improvement can be valuable at scale.

For example:

0.05% of £50 million = £25,000

But the rate should still be considered alongside payment performance and operational cost.

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Provider quotation tools and summary information

The PSR directed significant card-acquiring providers to give merchants clearer summary information and online quotation tools. The measures were designed to make prices and service features easier to compare and to prompt merchants to consider switching or renegotiating. 

A summary box can help identify:

• Key charges
• Contract details
• Service features
• Current pricing

However, it may not capture the complete requirements of a merchant with:

• Multiple merchant IDs
• Complex IC++ pricing
• Several currencies
• Separate gateway contracts
• Marketplace payments
• Rolling reserves
• Bespoke integration

Use it as a starting point rather than the complete commercial analysis.

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Does the cheapest quote always save money?

No.

A lower-priced provider may produce a poorer result if it causes:

• More declined transactions
• Slower settlement
• Greater reserve requirements
• Loss of payment tokens
• Reduced payment-method support
• More manual reconciliation
• Integration problems
• Longer customer-service delays
• Higher refund friction
• Unexpected contract costs

The correct question is:

Which arrangement produces the best total payment outcome at an acceptable cost and level of risk?

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MAS insight: Compare cost per successfully collected pound

Suppose:

Provider A

• Monthly payment cost: £8,000
• Successfully collected revenue: £1,000,000

Cost relative to collected revenue:

0.80%

Provider B

• Monthly payment cost: £7,500
• Successfully collected revenue: £970,000

Cost relative to collected revenue:

0.77%

Provider B is cheaper as a percentage of collected revenue.

But the business collected £30,000 less.

That difference requires investigation before deciding the lower-cost provider produced the better result.

Possible causes could include:

• Customer mix
• Authentication
• Fraud settings
• Issuer declines
• Technical errors
• Retry strategy
• Checkout performance

Do not assume correlation proves that the provider caused the revenue difference.

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Red flags in a card-processing quote

Be cautious where:

• The provider will not explain what the rate includes.
• Only the cheapest card category is highlighted.
• Commercial and international rates are missing.
• The quote uses monthly turnover but ignores transaction count.
• Authorisation charges are not shown.
• The gateway is described as free but another charge replaces it.
• The reserve is described verbally but not in writing.
• Settlement is promised but absent from the agreement.
• The salesperson promises approval before underwriting.
• Contract and terminal terms are unclear.
• Savings are quoted without showing the calculation.
• The provider does not understand the integration.
• Early termination fees are dismissed rather than confirmed.
• A temporary introductory rate is presented as permanent.
• The legal contracting entity is unclear.

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How to negotiate a payment-provider quote

A stronger negotiation uses evidence.

Provide:

• Current statements
• Actual card mix
• Volume growth
• Transaction count
• Refund and dispute history
• Competing written quotation
• Contract end date
• Required services
• Future growth
• Technical requirements

Ask the provider to improve specific items.

For example:

• Acquirer margin
• Fixed transaction fee
• Authorisation charge
• Monthly minimum
• Gateway price
• Terminal rental
• PCI administration
• Refund fee
• Chargeback fee
• Contract length
• Termination cost
• Settlement premium
• Reserve cap or review terms

Do not simply ask:

Can you make it cheaper?

Ask:

Can you reduce the fixed authorisation charge from 4p to 2p based on 100,000 monthly attempts?

That gives the provider a specific commercial request.

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When should you stay with the current provider?

The correct result of a quote comparison may be to stay.

That can make sense where:

• Existing pricing remains competitive
• Migration costs exceed the saving
• The integration is performing well
• Tokens would be difficult to move
• Settlement is suitable
• Support is good
• The current provider agrees improved terms
• The alternative offer introduces a reserve
• Switching would create unnecessary operational risk

The purpose of comparing providers is not automatically to move.

It is to decide whether to:

1. Stay unchanged
2. Renegotiate
3. Add another provider
4. Migrate fully

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When might using two providers make sense?

A second provider can potentially offer:

• Operational resilience
• Different geographic coverage
• Specialist payment methods
• Alternative risk appetite
• Better pricing for a particular channel
• Backup processing

But it can also introduce:

• Two contracts
• Two integrations
• Split reporting
• More complex reconciliation
• Separate refunds
• Token-management issues
• Multiple reserves
• Higher minimum charges

Do not add a second provider purely because one transaction rate is lower.

Define which transactions it will process and why.

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The final decision checklist

Before signing, confirm:

Price

• All card categories priced
• Fixed fees included
• Authorisations included
• Gateway included
• Terminals included
• Monthly and minimum charges included
• Refund and chargeback fees included
• International costs included

Cash flow

• Settlement confirmed
• Cut-off times confirmed
• Reserve confirmed
• First payout understood
• Currency settlement confirmed

Contract

• Legal provider identified
• Initial term confirmed
• Notice confirmed
• Termination charges confirmed
• Price-variation rights understood
• Terminal contract checked
• Gateway contract checked

Technical

• Integration tested
• Required features confirmed
• Token migration planned
• Reporting available
• Refund route tested
• Recurring payments tested
• Support route confirmed

Underwriting

• Legal entity approved
• Products approved
• Countries approved
• Transaction values approved
• Payment channels approved
• Final reserve and settlement confirmed

A sales quotation is not the same as final provider underwriting and a live, tested merchant account.

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Find Your New Processor

Comparing card-processing quotes?

Tell Merchant Advice Service:

• Current provider
• Monthly and annual card turnover
• Transaction count
• Authorisation count
• Average transaction value
• Maximum transaction value
• Card-present, online and MOTO split
• Consumer, commercial and international-card mix
• Current statements
• Proposed quotations
• Gateway
• Card terminals
• Settlement
• Rolling reserve
• Refunds and chargebacks
• Contract end date
• Integration requirements
• What you want to improve

MAS can help you:

• Identify differences between the quotations
• Normalise charges into a like-for-like comparison
• Calculate indicative monthly and annual costs
• Identify missing pricing or contractual information
• Consider how settlement, reserve and functionality affect the decision
• Explore potentially relevant provider arrangements

Merchant Advice Service cannot guarantee:

• A particular saving
• A specific transaction rate
• Provider approval
• An improvement in authorisation performance
• A reserve-free account
• That switching will produce a better outcome

Final pricing, underwriting, contracts and service terms remain with the relevant payment provider.