Understanding Credit Card Fees, Part 2: Merchant Account Fees and Charges

In “Understanding Credit Card Fees, Part 1: The Basics,” I outlined the information you need to know to receive the best rates from your merchant account provider.

This article is "Part 2" of that series where I help you understand your credit card fees. In this installment, I address merchant account statements, and identify key fees and charges on them. I sympathize with merchants when it comes to reading their statements. I decipher statements every day, and there are times when I want to pull my hair out trying to understand their rates and charges.

The legitimacy of various fees and charges is hard to know without looking at a specific statement. To be sure, I've seen fees that are fair and reasonable. But, I've also seen bogus fees, inflated fees, questionable fees, and even nonsensical fees. For example, I recently analyzed an ecommerce merchant’s statement that had a "terminal support fee" on it. Terminals are for physical retailers, of course, not pure-play ecommerce merchants. In this case, the merchant account provider apparently had a cookie-cutter approach to processing, regardless of whether the merchant was brick-and-mortar or online.

The important point here is that not all merchant account providers are competent with ecommerce. If you see a questionable fee on your statement, ask your provider about it.
Fees and Charges

    PCI Fees. The first fee you should look for in your statement is a “PCI Noncompliant Fee,” or words to that effect. Not all merchant account providers isolate this fee in their statements. If your merchant account provider does, you will probably find it at or near the bottom of the last page of fees. If you see this fee, you have a severe issue. PCI — Payment Card Industry — compliance is critical. Noncompliance could end up costing you your job or your company if you are breached and card holder information is stolen. Your merchant account provider should insist that your company become compliant. Unfortunately, some merchant account providers use noncompliance as just another income stream by charging merchants a higher monthly fee — say $25 — versus the more common monthly PCI rate of $5 to $10.

    You may see a monthly — or yearly — “PCI Fee” on your statement. Some merchant account providers have not started charging a PCI fee, yet. Those that do typically charge $5 to $10 per month — or up to $99 per year. This fee covers the cost of conducting certain functions to help them ensure you are compliant. Merchants should ask their merchant account provider specifically what it is doing for the amount it charges you.

    Annual Membership Fee. Many merchant account providers charge an "annual fee" or "membership fee." This is typically around $100, and it's usually charged to smaller merchants who process less than $250,000 per year in card volume. However, I have seen much larger merchants charged this fee. What is the purpose of the "annual fee" or "membership fee"? In my view, it's simply to increase profits of the merchant account providers. Merchants should view this fee as a red flag about how the merchant account provider views its business relationships.

    Supply; Merchant Club; Terminal Support Fee. These fees all apply to physical merchants. No ecommerce company should be paying them.

    Monthly Minimum Fee. Very small merchants — those processing less than $50,000 a year in card volume — need to be aware of the monthly minimum fee. Moreover, merchants with fluctuating monthly card volume should pay attention to this fee. Some merchant account providers may quote very low discount rates to small merchants because they know the merchants will end up paying the much higher monthly minimum fee. I have seen these monthly minimum fees as high as $75.

    Monthly Gateway Fees. Ecommerce merchants may be charged both a monthly gateway fee and a per-item (per-transaction) gateway fee. Every ecommerce merchant needs a payment gateway, which links the shopping cart to the merchant account. However, remember that the monthly gateway fee is negotiable.