Payment Guide

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How should your idea get paid?

Tell the guide what you sell and who pays you. It matches the idea against our research on 106 payment companies and writes you a plan: the processors that fit, what they cost, and the tables to build.

Or start from one

We save each idea and its answer, plus your email if you add it. We use them to follow up and to improve the guide. We never sell them.

Fee calculator

Test your numbers.

Pick how you get paid, enter a typical payment, and see what each processor keeps.

For one business that takes its own card payments.

How it's taken
Fee on each payment
$1.71
Effective rate
2.85%
Fees a month
$342.00
You keep a month
$11,658.00
  • Processor fee$1.71
  • Interchange is inside this flat rate. The processor pays it and keeps the rest.

Every option at these numbers

Published prices from our October 2026 research. Interchange and network fees are typical US estimates, not quotes. Confirm every price with the vendor.

What you get

One idea in. A whole payment plan out.

Every answer comes from our own research on processors, rails, and pricing, not from a sponsor list.

  • Processors that fit

    Three picks from 106 companies across 13 categories, matched to your industry, your size, and how your customers pay.

  • How the money moves

    Who pays the fees, when you and your sellers get paid, and how refunds, disputes, and tax forms work.

    • 106

      Payment companies researched

    • 13

      Categories

    • 3

      Picks for each idea

  • A data model to build on

    The tables and fields your app needs to track payments, built on the processor's IDs, never raw card numbers.

Fees, explained

Where every card fee goes.

Three parties take a cut of each card payment. Once you know which is which, you know what to compare.

One payment, split

A $100 online credit card payment at 2.9% + 30¢

Total fees

$3.20

  • Interchange

    $1.90

    The biggest part, paid to the bank that issued the card. Visa and Mastercard set it. It is lowest on debit cards, highest on rewards and business cards, and lower in person than online.

  • Network fees

    $0.16

    A small fee to Visa or Mastercard on every payment, about 0.14% plus a couple of cents. Every processor pays it.

  • Processor markup

    $1.14

    The part your processor keeps. It is the only part that changes from one processor to the next, so it is the part to compare.

Interchange and network fees are typical US estimates.

The fee on each payment

  • 8.9%

    of a $5 sale

  • 2.96%

    of a $500 sale

The fixed cents hit small payments hardest. At 2.9% + 30¢, a $5 sale loses 8.9% to fees. A $500 sale loses 2.96%.

01

Flat rate or interchange-plus

A flat rate like 2.9% + 30¢ bundles all three into one price. It is simple, but a cheap debit card costs you the same as a rewards card. Interchange-plus passes interchange through at cost and adds a fixed markup: cheaper at volume, but each payment costs a little differently.

02

Bank transfers (ACH)

Bank payments cost cents each, or about 1% with a low cap. They win for rent, invoices, and other large or repeat payments, but they take days to arrive and can bounce later.

Fee calculatorRun your own numbers
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