And the client has to pay a whopping 4% surcharge…
You are in business to make money. Do you believe that WalMart doesn’t include its credit card fees on the prices of every item they sell.
It ain’t 4%
Nick, FYI the “Contact” button does nothing, and there are no Terms & Conditions to be found on that site.
That’s the highest fee I’ve seen of any modern credit card processing companies, by far.
4% is insane, but the traditional 1.75% is very competitive.
From what I have seen, 4% is pretty common when the fee is being charged to the client. This is to allow the credit card company to be paid their cut and a little bit of money to be made for the administrator as well, in this case NACHI.
The 1.75% advertised if you go the traditional route (you pay the processing fee) is quite competitive though. I don’t think I’ve seen that low of rate advertised anywhere else. Most are at 2.75% or more. I didn’t read through everything yet though to see if there might be additional fees involved.
Guardian is at 1.75%. We use them and they also offer ACH or e-Check that cost $1 per transaction. We charge our clients a 3.50% convenience fee that offsets all of the charges and fees if they pay by CC. If they pay by e-Check it is free with no extra fees.
I would be curious if everyone qualifies for that rate. If it is the Guardian I linked to below, it doesn’t look like they advertise their rate. In other words, it is probably negotiated or based on your sales volume and/or time you have been with them.
Good question. I have mine through ISN and also just got an email if you use HIP they have that rate too. Honestly the rate is not that big of an issue since we charge the convenience fee and you can deduct those fees as a business expense. About 50% of our clients now use the ACH (e-Check) since we started offering it about a year ago.
Guardian was previously at 2.75% for intro rates, without negotiation.
If I was a buyer and there was a 4% fee, I would probably shop around for a company that doesn’t charge… cc fees are part of taking credit cards and although things may change in the future, it’s something we build into our inspection fee. If you’re paying more than 2% you should be negotiating a better rate.