About this site
Processing Fee Calc is an independent calculator for US card processing costs. It exists because the arithmetic that decides whether a processor quote is good or bad is simple, and almost nobody does it.
What it does
You enter monthly card volume, average ticket, and the terms of two quotes. It returns your effective rate on each, the difference in dollars per year, and — the part that is usually missing — the average ticket at which the comparison reverses.
That last number is why the site exists. Interchange-plus pricing is genuinely better for most merchants and genuinely worse for some, and which one you are is determined by ticket size. A calculator that only shows savings is not a calculator.
Who runs it
An independent operator. No processor, ISO, bank, or payments company has any ownership, editorial control, or approval over what appears here. The site is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting on behalf of any payment provider.
Where the site earns money, it is disclosed on the page where it happens and in full on the disclosure page. That is a legal requirement and also the only arrangement under which this kind of content is worth reading.
Where the numbers come from
| Input | Source |
|---|---|
| Interchange ranges | Published US interchange rate cards, republished twice yearly in April and October |
| Assessment rates | Visa and Mastercard published assessment schedules |
| Flat rates | Published list prices of the large flat-rate processors |
| Ancillary fee ranges | Published fee schedules and reported merchant statements |
| Benchmark effective rates | Industry reports on aggregate US card processing costs, cited in the relevant guides |
Every rate in the calculator is editable. That is a deliberate design decision: the defaults describe a common US card mix, not your card mix, and a tool that hides its assumptions behind fixed values is worse than a spreadsheet.
What this site does not do
- It does not know your actual interchange — only the card networks and your processor's statement do.
- It does not account for chargebacks, PCI penalties, termination fees, or contract rate increases. Those are covered qualitatively in the statement guide because they cannot be computed without your contract.
- It does not tell you that a switch will save money. It tells you what the arithmetic says, including when the answer is no.
Corrections
If a rate or a figure here is wrong, it should be fixed. Corrections are welcome at the address on the contact page, and substantive ones are noted with the page's review date.
Last reviewed 30 October 2026.