What is your real effective rate?
Upload your last processing statement and see the rate you actually pay, every fee category behind it, and what looks high, in about a minute.
- Free, no obligation
- Results in about a minute
- Account numbers masked
What is an effective rate?
Your effective rate is the total you paid to accept cards in a month divided by the total you sold on cards that month. It is the one number that puts every plan, processor and fee structure on the same footing, because it counts everything: the percentage rate, the per-transaction fees, the monthly fees, the PCI fee and the surprises.
The formula
Effective rate = total processing fees ÷ total card volume
- Card volume
- $50,000
- All fees on the statement
- $1,750
- Effective rate
- 3.50%
A worked example with round numbers. A merchant on a contract that says 2.6% can still land here once downgrades, assessments and monthly fees are counted.
Why the quoted rate is not the effective rate. A quote usually describes one tier of transactions, often the cheapest one. Cards that downgrade, rewards cards, keyed-in sales and Amex all carry higher costs, and fixed monthly fees are spread across whatever you happened to sell that month.
Why it moves month to month. The same plan produces a higher effective rate in a slow month, because the fixed fees are divided by less volume, and in a month with more small tickets, because per-transaction fees stack up.
How to use it. Compare your effective rate against a written quote that includes every fee, not against the headline percentage. If a processor cannot tell you what your effective rate will be at your volume and average ticket, they have not priced your business.
What the analysis breaks out
Every fee on your statement lands in one of these categories, so you can see where the money goes instead of one blended number.
Processor markup
The part of your rate the processor keeps. On blended and flat-rate plans it hides inside the discount rate.
Interchange
What the card-issuing banks charge. It's set by Visa, Mastercard, Discover and Amex, not by your processor.
Card brand assessments
Network fees passed through on every transaction. Small per swipe, meaningful at volume.
Monthly and PCI fees
Statement fees, PCI compliance fees, monthly minimums and anything billed whether or not you process.
Per-transaction and batch fees
Authorization, AVS and settlement fees that add up fast when your average ticket is small.
Chargeback fees
What each dispute costs you on top of the lost sale, and whether your plan is pricing you as high-risk.
What happens to your statement
- It is stored with your inquiry in the same secure document store we use for merchant applications, so the specialist who calls you has already read it.
- Account numbers, routing numbers and merchant IDs are masked in everything shown in your browser.
- It is never sold, shared with other processors, or used for anything other than pricing your business.
- You can ask us to delete it at any time. Our privacy policy explains your right to erasure.
Read the full privacy policy.
Statement Analyzer FAQ
Everything you need to know before you upload
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