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Naming Every Merchant Account Fee on the Sheet

A pricing page reads like fine print until you can name each fee. Here is the full list, with Authorize.net's own published numbers as the worked example.

A merchant account fee is any charge tied to taking cards. Some scale with your sales. Some are flat amounts per sale. Some hit monthly whether you sell or not. Name each fee and a pricing page turns into a short list you can check off.

Authorize.net's page says learning merchant account fees and gateway costs is one of the first jobs for a small business. Its page lists these fee types. They include percentage-based fees, fixed per-transaction fees, monthly service or gateway fees, batch or settlement fees, cross-border surcharges, and PCI compliance fees. That list is the map for this article. Authorize.net's page says these fee types together shape the total cost of payment acceptance.

The three fees on almost every sale

Three fee types do most of the work on a pricing page.

A percentage-based fee is a cut of each sale. Sell more, pay more. It scales with your volume, so it is the fee that grows with your business.

A fixed per-transaction fee is a flat amount on each sale, no matter the size. On a small ticket it bites harder than the percentage does. For a fuller walk through how these two numbers act on one sale, see a forty dollar sale at the counter.

A monthly service or gateway fee pays for gateway access and account upkeep. That is how Authorize.net's pricing page puts it. It arrives every month whether you sold a little or a lot.

Authorize.net's page shows how these combine. Its All-in-One plan is $25 per month plus 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction. Its Gateway Only plan is $25 per month plus 10 cents per transaction and a 10 cent daily batch fee. The monthly fee is the same. The per-sale math is not. One plan bundles processing. The other covers the gateway alone.

The smaller fees in the fine print

Past the headline numbers sit the account-service fees. Each has a trigger, and each is small until the trigger fires.

The batch or settlement fee is charged when the day's sales are sent in for funding. Authorize.net's pricing page says so. Authorize.net's page says its batch fee is $0.10 per settled credit card transaction batch. It also says businesses taking both credit cards and ACH pay a daily batch fee.

The credit card monthly minimum fee is the least you pay for processing each billing cycle. If your sales are too thin to reach it, you pay the floor anyway. Authorize.net's pricing page says its credit card monthly minimum fee is $0.00.

The returned payment fee is charged if a bank sends back an ACH or credit card debit attempt for Authorize.net billing. Its page says that fee is $25.00.

The late payment fee is assessed in the event of a late payment for account fees. Authorize.net's page says it is $20.00.

The service reactivation fee is charged to reopen a closed gateway account. Authorize.net's page says it is $0.00.

The abandoned account fee applies when the company can no longer reach the merchant. Authorize.net's pricing page says it is $10.00.

One more from the fine print: Authorize.net's page says its credit card transaction fee is $0.10 and applies to charges, refunds, voids and declines. That means on Authorize.net, a refund or even a declined card carries that $0.10 fee.

What the monthly fee buys you

A monthly fee is only a cost until you ask what it returns. Authorize.net's page says the monthly fee includes fraud protection and recurring billing. The same fee also includes digital invoicing, customer data management, support, and AI-powered reporting. Its page also says the gateway monthly fee is $25.00 and is prorated if the service is set up mid-month.

The habit worth building is to read the bundle, not just the price. Two gateways with the same monthly fee can include very different feature lists. A shop that lives on recurring billing gets more from that line than one that runs one-time counter sales.

Fees you should not have to pay

Some fees are avoidable, and a good pricing page shows it. The gateway setup fee is the fee charged for the creation and setup of a new gateway account. Authorize.net's page says its gateway setup fee is $0.00, and its pricing page says its sign-up fee is $0.

What about leaving? Authorize.net's pricing page says the gateway has no contract and no early termination fees. There are no setup fees either. You can cancel your gateway plan at any time without penalty. Its page adds a note on the All-in-One plan. A merchant account applied for there may have separate terms. You can read them at signup. So even on a clean sheet, read the terms for the account part, not just the gateway part.

How to read a pricing page in five minutes

Here is the checklist, built from the taxonomy above. Run it on any processor's sheet.

  1. Find the percentage. That is the fee that scales with your sales.
  2. Find the per-transaction fee. That flat amount hits every sale, and per Authorize.net's page, it can hit refunds and declines too.
  3. Find the monthly fee, then list what it includes. Cost without the bundle is half the picture.
  4. Hunt the fine print. Look for batch fees, monthly minimums, and returned payment fees. Also check for late payment fees, reactivation fees, and abandoned account fees.
  5. Check for setup and termination fees. Ask whether you can cancel without penalty.

Then do the math on your own numbers. A small-looking percentage can beat a monthly fee fast. A monthly fee weighs more when your sales are thin. Speed has its own price tag too, as paying to be paid tonight shows.

Published prices change. Verify each figure on the processor's own page before you commit to signing.

Sources

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