Plain-English breakdowns of fees, pricing models, and industry practices so you can make smarter decisions for your business.
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Industry Insights Yuki Tanaka runs a reformer pilates studio in suburban Atlanta. Six reformers, two instructors plus herself, classes every weekday from six in the morning to eight at night. About 180 active members, most of them on recurring monthly packages at $189 a month. Her studio does roughly $52,000 a month in card volume. […]
Read Article →Source comparison: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau guidance on merchant agreement terms and standard payment processor disclosures. Fees & Interchange You scan your processing statement and find a line you do not recognize. PROCESSING COMMITMENT FEE — $50. Or maybe it shows as VOLUME COMMITMENT or PROCESSING SHORTFALL with the same kind of number next to […]
Read Article →Human Nature Marisol Vega closes her optometry practice in Tampa at six on Wednesdays. Last patient, last frame fitting, last lens order. By six-thirty she is at her desk in the back office, scrolling through the stack of envelopes that piled up while she was seeing patients all week. Insurance EOBs. A vendor invoice for […]
Read Article →Source: discovermerchantsettlement.com · CAPP Inc. v. Discover Financial Services, Case No. 1:23-cv-04676 (N.D. Ill.) The claim window has closed. The Discover merchant settlement closed on May 18, 2026. The $1.225 billion fund is now being distributed to the merchants who filed. This page is a retrospective — what the settlement was, who qualified, what filers […]
Read Article →Fees & Interchange You see the line on your processing statement. BATCH FEE — $7.50. Or maybe it shows up as BATCH SETTLEMENT or DAILY BATCH with the same kind of small number next to it. You already feel the answer before you ask the question: it’s small enough to ignore. Whatever it is, it’s […]
Read Article →Fees & Interchange On May 18, 2025, Capital One closed its $35.3 billion acquisition of Discover Financial Services. The combined company is now the sixth-largest U.S. bank by assets and one of the three largest credit card issuers in the country. The headlines focused on the size of the deal. The thing that affects merchants […]
Read Article →Fees & Interchange On April 17, 2026, Visa officially retired its Level 2 interchange program. The Visa Level 2 sunset ended a B2B savings tool that thousands of contractors, wholesalers, professional service firms, and government suppliers had relied on for over a decade. It was announced a year in advance. It was rolled out in […]
Read Article →Fees & Interchange Most merchants reviewing a processing statement for the first time can identify the interchange line. They can identify the processor’s discount rate. The line that almost nobody can identify — and the one your processor will not explain unless you ask — is the credit card assessment fees line. And it appears […]
Read Article →Industry Insights Kevin Walsh runs a residential roofing company in Columbus, Ohio. Eight employees, about $38,000 a month in card volume — mostly Visa and Mastercard, a few American Express cards from commercial property managers. A North American Bancard rep found him through an independent sales agent in 2023. The pitch was good. The first […]
Read Article →Industry Insights Paul Ostrowski has run Vecchio’s, a casual Italian restaurant in Milwaukee, for eleven years. Sixty seats, a bar, dinner service six nights a week. He does about $62,000 a month in card volume. The pitch for Clover POS for restaurants came through a Fiserv rep in early 2022 — table management, a clean […]
Read Article →Merchant Tips Beth Parsons runs a kitchen supply store in Raleigh. Good knives, cast iron, specialty cookware — the kind of shop where the staff has actually cooked with everything on the shelf. She does about $28,000 a month in card volume. Her merchant services contract renewal notice arrived on a Tuesday in February. Envelope […]
Read Article →Industry Insights Luis Vargas runs an HVAC company in Albuquerque. Four technicians, residential and light commercial work, about $45,000 a month in card volume during the summer peak. ServiceTitan runs his business — scheduling, dispatch, invoicing, customer history. When ServiceTitan rolled out its built-in payments feature, Luis enabled it. The integration was seamless. He never […]
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