How are direct merchants priced?
Three models, and the right one depends on your volume, ticket size, and card mix, not on what's convenient for the processor. QorPay supports all three and will tell you which one the math favors for your business.
Interchange-plus (IC+)
Pay actual cost, plus one stated markup
Network cost passes through unchanged; QorPay's margin is a separate line you can audit. When a debit card costs less at interchange, you pay less.
Wins for
Steady volume (typically $5k+/month), larger tickets, B2B with Level 3/CEDP data, debit-heavy mixes. Industry analyses put the savings at 20–40% over flat rate at these profiles.
Trade-off: statements have more lines; cheapest, not simplest.
Flat rate
One rate, every card, no surprises
A single blended percentage plus a per-transaction fee, regardless of the card presented. Cost is predictable to the penny before the month starts.
Wins for
New and lower-volume merchants (under roughly $5k/month), spiky seasonal volume, and anyone who values a one-line statement and effortless budgeting over squeezing basis points.
Trade-off: the blend includes headroom; simplicity has a price at scale.
Surcharging
The credit-card fee moves to the cardholder
A disclosed checkout line item offsets acceptance cost on credit transactions, capped at 3%, never on debit. Card processing approaches a zero-cost line.
Wins for
Thin-margin verticals, B2B invoicing and services with large tickets, and merchants whose customers accept the market norm, increasingly common since networks cut the cap to 3%.
Trade-off: compliance rules are real, and customer experience is a business decision.
On interchange-plus, the model most mid-size and larger merchants should demand, the card networks' actual cost passes through unchanged, and QorPay's markup sits on top as a separate, stated line: interchange + [X] bps + [Y]¢ (TODO: verify rates for published example). Here is the shape of the math on a $100 sale:
| Line | Set by | Example on $100 |
|---|---|---|
| Interchange | Card networks / issuers, pass-through at cost | e.g. $1.65 + $0.10 (varies by card) |
| Network assessments | Card networks, pass-through at cost | e.g. $0.13 (varies by network) |
| QorPay markup | Your fee schedule, the only line we set | [X] bps + [Y]¢ |
The interchange and assessment figures above are illustrative: actual pass-through cost depends on the card presented and how the transaction is processed. The point of the model is that you can check every line: the pass-through against published network tables, the markup against your schedule. Now hold your current statement to that standard. If you cannot tell where cost ends and margin begins, that is not an accident; it is the pricing model working as designed, for someone else. Send us the statement and we will draw the line for you, on their pricing before we ever quote ours.
When does flat rate beat interchange-plus?
At low volume, and whenever predictability is worth more than the spread. The arithmetic behind that: average interchange runs roughly 1.8% + 9¢ across the networks, while typical market flat rates sit near 2.9% + 30¢ online; the gap is the simplicity premium. On $3,000 a month, that premium is lunch money and the one-line statement is worth it. On $50,000 a month, it is real payroll. Industry analyses consistently put the crossover between roughly $5,000 and $15,000 a month, with interchange-plus saving 20–40% beyond it.
Three profiles tilt the math further toward interchange-plus: debit-heavy mixes, because regulated debit interchange is capped near 0.05% + 21¢ and a flat blend quietly absorbs that saving; large average tickets, where percentage spread dominates the per-item fee; and B2B volume, where Level 3 / CEDP data qualifies transactions for lower interchange that only an unblended model passes back to you. Flat rate keeps the advantage for new merchants proving out volume, seasonal businesses that value a fixed rate through the spikes, and anyone who reads statements once a year. Both are on the menu, and switching later is a repricing, not a re-platforming. Not sure which side of the crossover you are on? That is a five-minute read of one statement, and finding out could be worth 20 to 40 percent of your processing cost. We will do the read.
What is surcharging?
Surcharging is a pricing program that adds the cost of credit-card acceptance to the cardholder's total as a disclosed line item, instead of burying it in the merchant's margin. Done correctly, it takes credit-card processing close to a zero-cost line for the merchant, which is why it has moved from fringe to mainstream in thin-margin and B2B verticals.
"Done correctly" carries rules, and QorCommerce runs them as platform controls, not merchant homework:
- Credit only, never debit. Debit and prepaid cards cannot be surcharged anywhere in the US: federal law and network rules prohibit it, even for signature debit. QorCommerce identifies card type at authorization, so the surcharge is only ever applied to credit (TODO: confirm platform enforcement description).
- Capped at 3%, the network ceiling since Visa lowered it in 2023, and never more than your actual cost of acceptance.
- Disclosed everywhere: signage at the point of entry, notice at the point of sale, and a separate line item on every receipt.
- Registered in advance: networks require roughly 30 days' notice before surcharging begins, handled during program setup (TODO: confirm QorPay handles network notification).
- Not legal everywhere: as of 2026, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, and Puerto Rico prohibit it, and a few states add their own disclosure rules. Where a merchant can't surcharge, the fallback is one of the two models above.
Whether to surcharge is a business decision: your customers see the line. The platform's job is to make the compliant version the only version that can happen. And if your margins are thin enough that three percent is the difference between a good month and a bad one, this model is worth a call all by itself; ask us what it would return on your last quarter's credit volume.
How are platforms priced?
Two models, and the choice is the platform's. Buy rate: QorPay quotes the platform a wholesale cost per transaction; the platform sets merchant pricing above it and keeps the difference. Simple to model, and the platform owns its pricing strategy. Revenue share: merchant pricing is set on a shared schedule and the platform receives an agreed percentage of the processing revenue, line-itemed in reporting. Less pricing work for the platform, full transparency on what each merchant generates.
Either way, the economics are written into a schedule attached to the platform agreement (the "Schedule A"), so what the platform earns per transaction is a document, not a promise. Because QorPay is the processor, the wholesale layer is ours to set: there is no upstream buy rate underneath yours compressing the spread. If payments is a revenue line for your platform, model both structures against your actual merchant base before you renew anywhere; bring the merchant count and volume mix and we will run the comparison with you.
How are ISOs priced?
ISOs get buy rates directly from the processor, because QorPay is the processor. You board merchants above your buy rate, and residuals are calculated line by line (per merchant, per fee category) in reporting you can audit, not a monthly lump-sum you take on faith. Splits are negotiated per portfolio based on volume, vertical mix, and the support model.
The structural difference from reselling: an ISO working through a middle processor earns the spread left over after two other parties take theirs. Here there is one party between you and the networks, and you are talking to it. Run that math on your own book: the layer between you and the processor keeps basis points on every transaction you sold, every month, forever. Bring your current Schedule A and your volume, and compare the residual line by line. See ISOs & portfolio operators for the portfolio tooling behind the residual reporting.
What fees should you watch for?
The honest answer to "what fees don't you charge?" is: read the schedule, ours and anyone else's. Processing statements hide margin in junk lines, so here are the ones to check on any quote, including a quote from us:
- Setup and application fees. If one applies to your account type, it belongs on the schedule before signing. A setup fee that first appears on a statement is a red flag anywhere.
- PCI non-compliance fees. Charged when a merchant fails annual PCI validation. The fix is not a promise from the processor; it is validating, which our hosted and embedded integrations make a short questionnaire rather than a project.
- Statement, batch, and "regulatory" fees. Small recurring lines that add up to real basis points. Every recurring fee on a QorPay schedule is itemized by name; if you cannot map a statement line back to the schedule, that is a support ticket we expect to answer.
- Blended-rate padding. Not a fee line at all: margin hidden inside a flat rate. Interchange-plus removes the hiding place, which is why we quote it.
We are deliberately not printing a "fees we never charge" list here until every item on it is verified against the current standard schedule (TODO: verify standard fee schedule and publish the explicit list). What we will commit to in writing: the schedule you sign is the complete fee list, and statement lines reconcile to it. Notice which processor is telling you to read the schedule. The one that wants it read is the one that is not afraid of it.
Why does owning the processor change pricing?
Because margin stacks. In a typical resold arrangement, the money on a transaction splits at least three ways above interchange: the processor takes its wholesale margin, the ISO or gateway reselling it takes a markup, and the party selling to the merchant takes another. Each layer needs to eat, and each layer's cost becomes the floor for the next one's pricing.
QorPay collapses that stack. We process on QorCommerce, the platform we built, under our own bank sponsorships: Pathward for the PayFac program, Synovus and Chesapeake as ISO registrations. Above interchange there is one margin, ours, and it is the line item on your schedule. That is also why the pricing holds up over time: a reseller squeezed by an upstream price increase passes it down; we would be raising our own price, on the record, on a schedule you can compare against the one you signed. One margin, in writing, from the company that runs the rails. That is the whole pricing pitch, and it only takes a statement to test it.