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Getting information on what you’ll be charged to process credit cards will help you manage the expenses associated with this important part of your business. Most merchants don’t give too much thought to this after they’ve setup their accounts. Business owners that are overpaying can very easily reduce their fees and those just getting setup for the first time can use the information in this article to make sure they’re not overpaying.

The discount rate is probably the one component of the merchant account pricing that represents the largest percentage of the fees you’ll pay as a merchant. A competitive discount rate for qualified retail transactions is about 1.29% for check or debit cards and about 1.69% for regular credit cards. Internet discount rates are typically considered competitive at 2.15% to 2.25%.

Your discount rate is also based in part on what category you are placed in as a merchant. Some transaction types are considered lower risk than others. For instance, a McDonald’s cheeseburger combo meal where the credit card is swiped is very low risk where a transaction for a future travel reservation done online may be a much higher risk.

You’ll also have a per transaction fee for each transaction. The lower your average ticket or average transaction, the greater percentage of the overall fees the per transaction fee represents. For instance, if your average ticket item is $10, a $.25 per transaction fee represents a 2.5% “effective rate”. If you add a traditional discount rate of 1.3% or so, your total effective rate would be 3.8% which is high, or at least higher than it could be.

If you have a per transaction of $.17, the same $10 transaction would have a 1.7% transaction rate which would reduce your overall effective rate on those smaller ticket items. Your goal should be to get your effective rate as low as you possibly can.

You will typically have a monthly fee associated with any merchant account. This is sometimes referred to as a customer service fee, statement fee, or monthly account maintenance fee. You shouldn’t be paying too much for this fee. It shouldn’t be more than about $10 per month.

There is also a monthly minimum that is usually charged on merchant accounts as well. This is a $25 minimum fee based on the discount rate. Any given month, the $25 worth of discount fees is charged. So, if you process $1000 per month at 1.7%, you’ll be assessed $17 worth of discount fees. If your minimum is $25, you’d pay the extra $8 worth of fees to equal the $25.

These fees represent the typical fees charged by merchant providers. There are usually other fees that will show up on your merchant account application, so be sure to ask your merchant account sales representative about any fees that you don’t recognize or know. These fees must be disclosed, even if the sales rep doesn’t tell you about them. When it comes to pricing, trust what’s written on the application because this is what you’ll be agreeing to when it comes to processing.

Find a good sales representative that you can trust. Your ability to establish a good working relationship with a reliable, trustworthy account manager will insure that you’ll be able to keep your processing costs low for the duration of the account.

Brian’s expertise is in internet merchant accounts and he offers free merchant accounts price quotes to both existing and new merchants looking to save money on their merchant accounts.