How to benchmark your payment processing fees in 2026

Published "average rates" rarely help, because your cost depends on your own card mix, average sale and sales channel. The useful benchmark is your own: what you pay today, measured the same way as any offer you compare it with. This method takes about an hour with your last three statements.

Step 1: gather three months of statements

Use three recent, complete months. One month can mislead: a holiday, a slow week or a large refund changes the picture. If you have several locations or accounts, gather all of them for the same months.

Step 2: calculate your effective rate

For each month, add every fee deducted (processing fees, monthly fees, terminal fees, PCI fees, chargeback fees) and divide by total card sales. That is your effective rate. Then average the three months.

As an illustration only: $1,380 in fees on $52,000 of card sales is 2.65%. Write the number down; everything else is compared with it.

Step 3: split the cost into its parts

Next, separate what you can change from what you can't:

• Interchange and network fees: wholesale costs, the same at every processor.
• Processor markup: the percentage and per-transaction amounts above wholesale.
• Fixed monthly fees: account, statement, terminal, software, PCI.
• Event fees: chargebacks, refunds, minimum-fee top-ups.

On interchange-plus statements, these are listed separately. On flat-rate or tiered statements they are blended, which is itself a reason to ask for an interchange-plus quote. Our statement guide shows where to look.

Step 4: look at your card mix

Note the share of your sales on debit, on credit, and keyed in or online. A business with mostly debit and tapped cards has a low wholesale cost; one with many premium or business cards, or many online sales, has a higher one. Two businesses with the same effective rate can be paying very different markups.

Step 5: compare offers on the same basis

Ask each provider to quote on your actual statements, not on a sample, and to show:

• The effective rate you would have paid over the same three months.
• Every monthly and per-device fee.
• The contract term and what leaving early costs.
• Who supports you, and in which language.

SavPay does this for free: send your three latest statements and we reply in writing with your current effective rate and ours, line by line.