September 1, 2026
You signed at one rate. Months later the bill is bigger and nobody called to tell you why. That is common, it is usually explainable, and it is worth ten minutes to find out which explanation applies to you.
Almost every processing agreement quotes one number. Your statement contains many. There is the rate itself, and then there is a stack of other lines: monthly service or statement fees, a monthly minimum, PCI compliance fees, batch fees, gateway fees, equipment charges, and per-transaction charges that sit on top of the percentage.
None of that is hidden exactly. It is in the agreement. But the quoted rate is what people remember, so when the total climbs it feels like something changed when often the extra lines were always there and simply grew.
Not every card costs the same to accept. A basic debit card and a premium rewards credit card are billed at very different levels, and business or corporate cards are different again. Card-not-present transactions, where you key in a number or take payment online, generally cost more than a card physically dipped or tapped in front of you.
So your bill can rise without anything about your account changing. If more of your customers started paying with rewards cards, or you started taking more payments over the phone, your average cost per sale went up on its own.
A transaction that does not carry all the data the card network wants can be billed at a worse level than it should have been. Common causes are batching late, missing address data on keyed transactions, or a terminal that is not passing everything it should.
This one matters because it is fixable. A pattern of downgraded transactions is a settings or process problem, not a pricing problem, and no amount of renegotiating your rate will fix it.
Card networks adjust their own fees periodically, and those adjustments get passed along. Separately, plenty of agreements allow the provider to change certain fees with written notice, and that notice is often a line on a statement most people never read.
Neither of those is unusual or improper. But it does mean a bill that quietly grows year on year is normal rather than a sign somebody made a mistake.
Work out your effective rate. Take every fee on last month's statement, not just the rate line, and divide it by the total dollar volume you ran through the terminal. That percentage is what you are genuinely paying to accept money.
Then do it again for a month from a year ago. If the effective rate moved, the answer is in the difference between those two statements, and it is almost always one of the four causes above.
It takes about ten minutes and you do not need anyone's help to do it. If the number surprises you, that is the point at which a second opinion is worth having.
Most agreements allow certain fees to change with written notice, and that notice is often delivered as a message on your statement. Whether a specific increase was permitted depends on what you signed, which is why the agreement is worth rereading alongside the statement.
It is a floor. If your processing fees for the month come in under an agreed amount, you are charged the difference. Businesses with quiet months or low card volume can pay it regularly without realising.
No. A low headline rate with a long list of monthly and per-transaction fees can cost more in total than a slightly higher rate with fewer add-ons. The effective rate is the only figure that lets you compare two offers honestly.
Bring last month's statement. We will go through it line by line and tell you what it is actually costing you, in plain language. No cost to ask, and no obligation.
Starting Business Solutions