i’ve seen a few payment companies advertise free credit card processing. how is this possible? do my customers pay the fees? i feel like it’s too good to be true and alsow ondering which payment company to go with, does anyone have any advice???

  • Effective_Law_2466@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Tons of companies offer it these days. They do it in one of three ways.

    1. They gouge you on “equipment fees” or monthly hardware costs.

    2. They set you up with a surcharge program, which is capped at 3% due to the Visa police. It covers most of your costs most of the time. How it works: you have a good/service at $100. If a customer pays cash, it stays $100. If they pay card (excluding debit cards, you CANNOT surcharge debit cards), the cost is adjusted to $103.

    3. A cash-discount/ dual-pricing system. Essentially you have a cash and a card price for any given item. The cap for the difference is set at 4%. In this case, if a customer buys an item ticket priced at $100, they pay that price with a card. If paying cash, the cost is reduced to $96 to avoid overcharging cash-paying customers.

    It’s SUPER important to make sure that you notify the card processing companies of your intention to surcharge, as a first offense is a fine of $1,000, and it scales rapidly from there if you’re found to be non-compliant. If you have any questions at all, feel free to let me know. 🙂 This is in no way solicitation or an advertisement, but I own my own small credit card processing company, and I know my way around the rules, and what a good or bad deal looks like. Best of luck!