Every provider quotes a percentage, and every percentage is true. The reason two shops with identical turnover pay different amounts is simple. The percentage covers one line out of six. The other five depend on what you sell, where your buyers are and how often something goes wrong.
Working out your real cost takes about an hour with last month’s orders in front of you. It is the only way to compare offers honestly, and it usually changes which offer looks best.
The six lines on a payments bill
The percentage rate. Charged on every successful transaction. This is the number in the pitch, and for middle-risk retail it starts from 1.8%.
The fixed fee per transaction. A small amount applied regardless of the order size. On a ten-euro basket a twenty-cent fee is another two percent. Low-ticket shops should look at this line first.
Currency conversion. Applied when the buyer pays in one currency and you settle in another. Easy to overlook and significant for shops selling across Europe.
Chargeback handling. A fixed charge per dispute, usually payable whether you win or lose. Shops with a one-percent dispute rate pay this more often than they expect.
Refunds. Some setups return the original percentage, others keep it and add a fee. For a business with seasonal returns this line alone can decide the comparison.
Monthly minimums and account fees. Irrelevant at volume and painful below it, since a minimum turns a quiet month into a loss.
The cost nobody puts on the invoice
Declined payments are the largest hidden expense in the list. A shop with an approval rate of 85% loses fifteen orders in a hundred. Most of those buyers do not try again. They buy elsewhere.
Compare that with the fee difference between providers. Moving from 2.4% to 2.0% saves four euros on a thousand. Recovering three declined orders out of a hundred on a fifty-euro basket adds a hundred and fifty. Approval rate is worth more attention than the rate card, which is exactly why it is rarely quoted.
How routing and the second-attempt cascade work on our side is described under processing.
How to calculate your own number
Take one real month. Count the orders, the average basket, the share paid in foreign currency, the number of refunds and the number of disputes. Then run that through each provider’s structure and compare the total, not the headline.
Two details make the comparison fair. Use gross orders rather than net revenue, since fees apply to attempts as well as sales in some models. Include the fixed fee explicitly. It is the line that most often flips the result for shops with small baskets.
Our structure is published on the pricing page rather than given as a single figure. The figure depends on this calculation.
What actually reduces the bill
Three things work, and none of them is negotiating the headline rate.
Raising approval rate pays more than any discount. Send complete transaction data. Apply authentication selectively. Keep a second route for declines. Reducing disputes removes both the fee and the ratio pressure that leads to worse terms later. Matching the payment mix to your markets cuts conversion costs. Local methods often settle cheaper than cards, and the ones we support are listed under payment methods.
Where the fee lands in your pricing
Once you know the real cost, the next question is who pays it. Adding a surcharge at checkout is legal in some markets and forbidden in others. Even where it is allowed, it reliably reduces conversion. The buyer sees the price change at the worst possible moment.
Building the cost into the price works better. If payments cost you two and a half percent, the margin has to carry it the same way shipping or packaging does. Shops that treat processing as an unexpected tax tend to discover the truth at the end of the year. The cheapest-looking provider cost them more in lost orders than the expensive one would have in fees.
Where the money finally settles matters too, especially when you sell in several currencies. A business IBAN keeps conversion visible instead of hidden inside a transfer.
Questions merchants ask most often are collected in our FAQ.
When renegotiation is reasonable
Rates are not fixed forever. Six to twelve months of clean processing changes the picture. Volume higher than projected, disputes under control. Asking for a review is then normal and usually productive.
Bring numbers rather than a complaint: processed volume, dispute ratio, growth trend. A provider that can see a lower-risk merchant than the one it onboarded has a reason to move. One facing an argument about fairness does not. What the account includes is set out on the merchant accounts page, and connection takes from 5 days.
If you do only one thing after reading this, build the comparison table once with your own month in it. Every provider presents costs differently. A table in your own format is the only way to see them side by side, and it stays useful for years.
Connection from 5 days. Fees from 1.8% — transparent terms, no hidden charges. Leave a request or book a consultation and we will put together the right setup for your niche and risk profile.
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