# Payment Processors
Source: https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors
Last updated 23 October 2026.
TL;DR
- **[Helcim](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/helcim/) is cheapest in 20 of the 24 combinations this site models.** [PayPal Zettle](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/paypal/) wins 3, all card-present at a $15 ticket. [Stax](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/stax/) wins 1, online at a $25 ticket near $20,000 a month
- **Helcim has no monthly fee. There's no volume you need to reach.** It beats Square's Free plan above roughly a **$9.23 card-present ticket** and a **$9.38 online ticket**, at any volume. The old advice was to stay flat-rate until $20,000 a month. That came from an interchange assumption that turned out to be wrong
- **Every claim above rests on an assumed interchange cost. Ours is published.** 1.03% + $0.178 card-present, 1.50% + $0.172 online, derived at [How We Compare Processor Costs](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/reference/cost-model-assumptions/). No vendor comparison states its own assumption. Stating it lets you check the maths
- **No processor verified here publishes a minimum volume requirement.** Not [Adyen](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/adyen/), not [Checkout.com](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/checkout-com/), not anyone. The "$10M a year for Adyen" and "$5M a year for Checkout.com" figures were invented
- **Five rates that get reported as unpublished are published.** Stripe and Shopify's US cards, Clover's full vertical rate card, both of Toast's processing percentages, and Lightspeed's 2.6% + 10c card-present. [Where each one actually lives](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/reference/cost-model-assumptions/#how-we-tier-every-figure)
- **Every figure on this site now carries a confidence tier**: VENDOR, REPORTED, DERIVED or NOT PUBLISHED. The source and its date sit next to the number. [The system, and why](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/reference/cost-model-assumptions/#how-we-tier-every-figure)
- Still genuinely unrankable: [Checkout.com](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/checkout-com/), Global Payments and Nuvei (nothing published, verified), Adyen (labels its own rates indicative), Stax above $250,000 a year ("$199+")
- Dispute costs vary more than processing rates do. The whole span is **$0 to $30**. Square charges nothing. Helcim charges $0 when you win. PayPal's $15 dispute fee and $20 chargeback fee hit different channels and never stack. On a dispute-prone business that spread outweighs the rate
Most businesses agonise over processor selection and then pick on brand. The arithmetic below isn't close in most cells. And the biggest single lever isn't the processor at all. It's whether your average ticket is above or below about $10. That's where fixed per-transaction fees stop dominating.
How the numbers on this page were checked
Every figure carries a **source tier**. VENDOR is from the vendor's own page, with the URL and access date. REPORTED is from a named third party, with who, when, and what kind of source. DERIVED is calculated from published figures, not a company disclosure. NOT PUBLISHED means the vendor doesn't publish it, and the page says what to ask for instead. [The full system is here](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/reference/cost-model-assumptions/#how-we-tier-every-figure).
Every cost comparison uses one published interchange assumption, set out at [How We Compare Processor Costs](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/reference/cost-model-assumptions/). You can't compare an interchange-plus processor against a flat-rate one without assuming what interchange costs. If you disagree with the assumption, the arithmetic is published. Redo it.
**A blank isn't neutrality.** Five rates here get reported as unpublished and aren't: Clover's, Toast's, Square's plan prices, Shopify's and Stripe's US cards, and Lightspeed's card-present rate. Every one is filled in below and tagged. What genuinely stays blank says what to ask for instead.
## Quick Decision Tree
The first question is your average ticket, not your volume. Below about $10 the fixed fee decides everything. Above it, the percentage does.
```mermaid
flowchart TD
A[Choose a Processor] --> B{Do you need a price
you can check today?}
B -->|Yes| C{Main channel?}
B -->|Quotes are fine| D{Multi-market with
local acquiring needs?}
C -->|In person| E{Average ticket?}
C -->|Online| F{Average ticket?}
E -->|Under 10| G[PayPal Zettle]
E -->|10 to 20| L[Zettle or Helcim.
Crossover 13 to 20
by volume band]
E -->|Over 20| H[Helcim]
F -->|Under 10| I[Square Free or Braintree]
F -->|Over 10| M{Ticket under 30
and 11K to 21K
a month?}
M -->|Yes| N[Price Stax against Helcim]
M -->|No| H
D -->|Yes| J[Adyen or Checkout.com,
and benchmark against Helcim]
D -->|No| K[Get a quote, then benchmark
against Helcim]
style G fill:#1f6f4a,color:#fff
style H fill:#1f6f4a,color:#fff
style I fill:#1f6f4a,color:#fff
style L fill:#1f6f4a,color:#fff
style N fill:#1f6f4a,color:#fff
style J fill:#3d5a80,color:#fff
```
* * *
## Compare Them Yourself
Filter by what you run. Sort by what you care about. Every rate carries its source tier, so you can see which figures the vendor publishes and which somebody else reported.
Rates verified 2026-08-02 Every figure carries a confidence tier. Vendor means we read it on the vendor’s own page. Reported means a named third party published it and we say who, when and what kind of source they are. Not published means the vendor doesn’t publish it. Open “Details” on any row for the full source list and what to ask for.
Business type:
Pricing model:
Scroll horizontally to see all columns
| Processor | CP Rate | CNP Rate | Monthly | Fraud Tools | Best For |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [PayPal / Zettle](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/paypal) Flat-rate | Vendor 2.29% + 9c (Zettle in person) | Vendor 3.49% + 49c (PayPal Checkout), 2.99% + 49c (standard card) | Vendor $0 | Seller Protection plus Fraud Management Filters. Filter pricing is not published. | PayPal wallet conversion |
| [Clover (Fiserv)](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/clover) Flat-rate | Vendor 2.3% + 10c restaurant and QSR; 2.6% + 10c retail and services entry plans Clover-direct rates. A reseller can quote you something else entirely. | Vendor 3.5% + 10c Identical across every vertical and every plan Clover publishes. | Vendor $0 Starter, $29.95 Essentials, $84.95-$129.85 Growth by vertical | TransArmor tokenization plus basic filters. Pricing depends on the reseller. | Multi-industry POS, direct rates published |
| [Toast](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/toast) Flat-rate | Vendor 2.49% Traditional, 3.09% Pay-as-you-Go Toast publishes the percentages only. The + $0.15 per transaction used for sorting is REPORTED, not published by Toast. | Reported 3.50% + 15c NerdWallet only. Toast publishes no card-not-present rate. | Vendor $0 Starter Kit, $69 Point of Sale (restaurant), $90 (retail) New customers, single locations. First hardware terminal subscription included; more devices cost more. | Not published. | Restaurants, bundled POS and payments |
| [Shopify Payments](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/shopify-payments) Flat-rate | Vendor 2.6% + 10c Basic, 2.5% + 10c Grow, 2.4% + 10c Advanced US rates. The US card carries a 10 cent fixed component; the Canadian one carries none. | Vendor 2.9% + 30c Basic, 2.7% + 30c Grow, 2.5% + 30c Advanced Plus is "most competitive rates" with no number attached. | Vendor $39 Basic, $105 Grow, $399 Advanced monthly; $29 / $79 / $299 on annual billing. Plus from $2,300 Sorted on the cheapest published entry price, Basic billed annually. | Fraud Analysis on orders, plus Shopify Protect on eligible Shop Pay orders. | Shopify stores |
| [Lightspeed](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/lightspeed) Flat-rate | Vendor 2.6% + 10c US region, USD, shown identically on all three retail plans. No rate is published for the restaurant product. | Not published No online, keyed or card-not-present rate appears anywhere on lightspeedhq.com. Ask for it in writing; this is the single biggest gap for any merchant selling online. | Vendor Retail $89 / $149 / $289. Restaurant $69 / $189 / $399 Kitchen Display System is $30 per screen per month on the restaurant product. | Not published. | Complex retail inventory |
| [Stripe](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/stripe) Flat-rate | Vendor 2.7% + 5c (Terminal) US figures, read from a US connection. Cards issued abroad add 1.5%. | Vendor 2.9% + 30c US domestic online rate, confirmed. | Vendor $0 | Radar Lite is included with Stripe Payments. Radar Standard, Plus and Pro are paid monthly subscriptions with an included screen allowance, or pay-as-you-go. US tier prices still unread. | Online, SaaS, developers |
| [Square](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/square) Flat-rate | Vendor 2.6% + 15c (Free), 2.5% + 15c (Plus), 2.4% + 15c (Premium) | Vendor 3.3% + 30c (Free), 2.9% + 30c (Plus and Premium) Square Online and invoices. Through the Payments API it is 2.9% + 30c on every plan, including Free. | Vendor $0 Free, $49 Plus, $149 Premium - per location Per location, not per account. Three sites on Plus is $147 a month, not $49. | Built-in machine learning screening, CVV and AVS checks, velocity rules. No separate fraud product is sold. | Retail, card-present, simple setup |
| [Moneris](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/moneris) CAD Flat-rate | Vendor 2.65% + 10c credit, Interac debit 12c CAD. Do not line these up against US rates without converting. Foreign cards add 0.80%, rising to 1.00% with assessments. | Vendor 2.85% + 30c credit, Interac debit $1.00 CAD. | Vendor No plan fee published for Flat Rate. Moneris Go terminal CA$34.95/mo; Moneris Online from CA$19/mo CA$5 minimum merchant discount, CA$5 Moneris Go software fee, CA$2 paper statement. | Kount, 3DS and tokenization are stated as bundled at no extra cost. | Canadian businesses |
| [Adyen](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/adyen) Interchange-plus | Vendor $0.13 + Interchange++ + 0.60% (indicative) Adyen: "The fees outlined above are indicative." Same model in both channels. | Vendor $0.13 + Interchange++ + 0.60% (indicative) Amex Global $0.13 + 3.95%. Alipay $0.13 + 3%. Klarna US/CA $0.13 + 4.29% + $0.30. SEPA Direct Debit $0.13 + EUR 0.27. | Vendor No monthly, setup, integration or closure fees A minimum invoice applies "depending on industry or business model". Amount not published by Adyen. | RevenueProtect risk engine. Pricing for it is not published. | Enterprise and global acquiring |
| Airwallex Flat-rate | Not published No card-present rate published on the US pricing page. | Vendor 2.80% + 30c domestic, 4.30% + 30c international cards Subscription and recurring card payments add a further 0.50%, stacked on top of the base rate. | Vendor $0 Explore, $12 per user Grow (plus a platform fee), Accelerate custom | Not published. | Cross-border online, published rate card |
| [Braintree](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/braintree) Flat-rate | Not published No separate in-person card is published. The 2.89% + 29c rate applies. | Vendor 2.89% + 29c | Not published No monthly fee or minimum appears on the fee page. Ask whether either applies to your account. | AVS and CVV checks, plus an optional advanced fraud add-on built on Kount, now part of Equifax. Add-on pricing is not published. | Cards plus native PayPal and Venmo |
| [Checkout.com](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/checkout-com) Flat-rate or Interchange-plus | Not published Online processor. No card-present offering and no rate published. | Not published Priced on business profile and risk category. Attack the CATEGORY before the rate. | Not published No setup or account maintenance fees are stated. No minimum is published; assume one exists and ask. | Not published. | Enterprise and scale-up, quote only |
| Global Payments Not published | Not published A real absence. Its US payments pages carry no pricing figure of any kind. | Not published Same. Typically quotes interchange-plus or membership pricing, though it does not say so publicly. | Reported $299/year account maintenance fee; $125/month PCI non-compliance fee Sorted on the annual fee spread over 12 months. The PCI fee is avoidable and is not a processing charge. | Not published. | Large multi-location merchants, quote only |
| [Helcim](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/helcim) Interchange-plus | Vendor IC + 0.40% + 8c, falling to IC + 0.15% + 6c Five published bands from $0-50K/mo up to $1M-5M/mo. | Vendor IC + 0.50% + 25c, falling to IC + 0.15% + 15c Same five bands, measured on monthly card volume. | Vendor $0 | AVS and CVV checks plus basic filters. No separate fraud product is sold. | Cost transparency at any volume |
| Nuvei Not published | Not published No rate, fee or pricing page exists on nuvei.com. Only qualitative cost language. | Not published Same. Everything routes to "Contact us". | Not published No minimum monthly invoice or platform fee published anywhere. | Not published. | High-risk and specialist verticals, quote only |
| [Stax](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/stax) Subscription | Vendor IC + 0% markup + 8c Per-transaction cents sit on top of the monthly subscription. | Vendor IC + 0% markup + 15c Per-transaction cents sit on top of the monthly subscription. | Vendor $99, $139 or $199+ by ANNUAL volume $99 up to $150,000 a year, $139 for $150,000-$250,000, $199+ above $250,000. | Basic fraud filters. Pricing for them is not published. | Predictable volume, interchange at cost |
| Worldpay GBP Interchange-plus | Vendor 0.0% markup + 4.5p authorisation fee UK only, indicative. 0.0% is a MARKUP of zero, not a total cost of zero. Interchange and scheme fees still apply on top. | Vendor 0.0% markup + 4.5p authorisation fee Same card covers online and phone. No US rate card is published. | Vendor GBP15 minimum monthly service charge, GBP5 PCI DSS fee, GBP20 per terminal GBP. Not sorted against USD rows. | Not published. | UK card-present and online, indicative card published |
## Processor evidence and sources
### Stripe
The US card is now confirmed and the gap that used to sit here is closed. The finding worth carrying: two Stripe fees are INVERTED between the US and Canada. International cards add 1.5% in the US and 0.8% in Canada. Currency conversion adds 1% in the US and 2% in Canada. Anyone who copied Stripe's Canadian card into a US table got both of those backwards. Online, Terminal, keyed and dispute pricing are structurally identical across the two countries.
Keyed / manual
Manually entered cards add 0.5%. Cards issued outside the US add 1.5%. Currency conversion adds 1%. ACH Direct Debit 0.8%, capped at $5.00. All US figures.
Dispute or chargeback fee
$15.00 to receive a dispute, never returned. A further $15.00 to counter it, returned only on an outright win. On a partial win neither fee comes back, so fighting and partly winning costs $30 either way.
Instant payout
1.5% of the payout in the US, with a $0.50 minimum and a $9,999 per-payout maximum. The 50 cent minimum binds on any payout under $33.33. The 1% figure that circulates is the Canada, EU, UK, Singapore, Norway, Hong Kong and Malaysia rate.
Volume minimum
No volume threshold, no discount schedule and no negotiated rate band is published. Stripe states it charges no setup fees, monthly fees or other hidden fees.
Contract
No contract or minimum published.
POS / hardware
Stripe Terminal plus partner hardware
**Ask the vendor for:** Which Radar tier your account sits on and what it costs in USD, and whether interchange-plus is available at your volume. Stripe publishes no discount schedule, so the only way to find out is to ask with a competing quote in hand.
**Sources**
- [Stripe pricing page](https://stripe.com/pricing) · vendor page, retrieved via a US-located connection · 2026-08-02
- [Merchant Maverick, Stripe review](https://www.merchantmaverick.com/reviews/stripe-review/) · review site with a stated rating methodology; discloses referral commissions from processors including Stripe · updated 2024-11-18
Checked 2026-08-02.
### Square
The load-bearing phrase is "per location", and most comparison tables drop it. Two locations on Plus is $98 a month, not $49. The other nuance worth knowing is that Free plan merchants integrating through the Payments API pay 2.9% + 30c online, the same as Premium. Plus and Premium buy a lower card-present rate and software features, not a lower API rate.
Keyed / manual
Keyed or card on file 3.5% + 15c. ACH through Square Invoices 1%, $1 minimum, $10 cap, on Plus and Premium. Afterpay 6% + 30c on every plan.
Dispute or chargeback fee
$0. Square states it outright: "There are no fees for dispute management services for chargebacks - we cover the fee for every dispute that we work together to challenge." Its Payment Terms separately reserve the right to recover network fines and penalties, which is not the same as a per-dispute fee.
Instant payout
1.95% per transfer, no minimum stated.
Volume minimum
No floor. The only published threshold points upward: above $250,000 a year Square invites you to talk about custom pricing.
Contract
No contract. Paid plans carry a free 30-day trial and can be cancelled or switched at any time.
POS / hardware
Full first-party POS ecosystem
**Ask the vendor for:** Which plan tier your card-present rate is billed on, how many locations you are being billed for, and whether any network fine or monitoring program fee can be passed through to you despite the $0 dispute fee.
**Sources**
- [Square pricing page](https://squareup.com/us/en/pricing) · vendor page, retrieved through a rendering proxy because plan prices are client-side rendered · 2026-08-02
- [Square fee schedule and help centre](https://squareup.com/us/en/payments/our-fees) · vendor page · 2026-08-02
- [Merchant Maverick, Square review](https://www.merchantmaverick.com/reviews/square-review/) · review site; discloses referral partnerships. Confirms $49 and $149 including the per-location qualifier · updated 2025-10-29
Checked 2026-08-02.
### Shopify Payments
The US card is now confirmed. The working US path is the bare shopify.com/pricing served to a US IP; shopify.com/us/pricing does not resolve, which is what produced the earlier 404. Two regional differences matter and neither is a currency conversion. The US in-person rate carries a 10 CENT fixed component where the Canadian one carries zero, which on an $8 ticket is 1.25 points of effective rate. And US online rates run 0.1 points ABOVE Canadian at every tier. The third-party gateway fee is identical in both countries at 2% / 1% / 0.6% / 0.2% by plan, and on Basic that 2% exceeds the entire monthly cost of moving up a plan for most merchants. That fee, not the card rate, is the lock-in.
Keyed / manual
Not published separately.
Dispute or chargeback fee
$15.00 in the US, and returned to you if you win. It is in the help centre country table rather than on the pricing page. Shopify attributes the fee to your bank, not to Shopify: "When a chargeback is filed, your bank charges a processing fee. If you win the chargeback, then the fee is returned to you."
Instant payout
Not published. Ask Shopify support.
Volume minimum
No floor published. No negotiation path is published below Plus, and Plus rates are not published either.
Contract
No processing contract. The cost is the plan subscription plus the third-party gateway fee if you route payments elsewhere.
POS / hardware
Shopify POS
**Ask the vendor for:** The instant payout fee and the keyed-in rate, neither of which is published. The chargeback fee is published at $15 US and refunded on a win, but Shopify attributes it to your bank, so confirm nothing else is billed on top.
**Sources**
- [Shopify pricing page](https://www.shopify.com/pricing) · vendor page, retrieved via a US-located connection · 2026-08-02
- [Merchant Maverick, Shopify Payments review](https://www.merchantmaverick.com/reviews/shopify-payments-review/) · review site; discloses referral partnerships. Adds that Plus is $2,300/mo on a three-year term or $2,500/mo on a one-year term · updated 2024-12-23
Checked 2026-08-02.
### Helcim
Helcim publishes five real volume tiers plus a custom band, and the $1M-$5M band is published openly at 0.15% + 6c in person. Negotiation starts above $5M a month.
Keyed / manual
Keyed transactions bill at the online rate. ACH and EFT 0.5% + 25c capped at $6. Canadian Interac 9c, or 12c for tap.
Dispute or chargeback fee
$0 if the case resolves in your favour, $15 if you lose. This is the only win-is-free chargeback policy among the processors here.
Instant payout
Not published on the pricing page. Ask.
Volume minimum
No floor. Bands are published openly up to $5M a month. Custom pricing starts above $5M a month, not above $1M.
Contract
No contract. No setup, PCI, cancellation or statement fees.
POS / hardware
Terminals, virtual terminal and invoicing
**Ask the vendor for:** Which band you land in, and whether the band is reassessed every month as your volume moves.
**Sources**
- [Helcim pricing page](https://www.helcim.com/pricing/) · vendor page · 2026-08-02
Checked 2026-08-02.
### Stax
The Stax volume bands are annual. A shop doing $20,000 a month is $240,000 a year, which lands in the $139 tier, not a custom quote. Reading those bands as monthly overstates the cost by roughly twelve times.
Keyed / manual
Keyed bills as card-not-present: interchange + 15c.
Dispute or chargeback fee
Base chargeback fee not found on the pricing page. An optional chargeback protection add-on runs $25 per chargeback.
Instant payout
Not published on the pricing page. Ask.
Volume minimum
No floor published. The subscription tiers are set by ANNUAL processing volume, not monthly.
Contract
Not published beyond the monthly subscription.
POS / hardware
Terminals and virtual terminal
**Ask the vendor for:** Written confirmation that the bands are annual, what the $199+ tier actually costs at your volume, and the base chargeback fee.
**Sources**
- [Stax pricing page](https://staxpayments.com/pricing/) · vendor page · 2026-08-02
Checked 2026-08-02.
### Clover (Fiserv)
Clover gets reported as publishing nothing. It publishes a full vertical-by-vertical rate card. What the rate card does not settle, and Clover says so on its own pricing page, is that your actual deal is reseller-dependent: "Contract terms and any termination fees can vary based on your service provider, whether Clover Direct or among our trusted partners including Citi, PNC, Wells Fargo." Treat the published direct rates as your anchor and anything above them as reseller markup. Hardware is published two ways per bundle, outright or on a 36-month subscription, and the subscription premium runs $227 to $3,622 depending on bundle. Clover's own FAQ confirms you do not own the hardware at term end.
Keyed / manual
Keyed and online both bill at 3.5% + 10c.
Dispute or chargeback fee
Not published. Clover publishes no per-dispute fee on any pricing, vertical or FAQ page, and no third party quotes a Clover-direct figure. Ask for it in dollars and ask whether it is refunded on a win.
Instant payout
Rapid Deposit is 1.75% per transfer.
Volume minimum
No volume floor published, and no volume discount schedule either.
Contract
Hardware promotions state "Requires a 3-year contract". Hardware subscriptions are quoted on 36-month terms and auto-renew at the same monthly charge unless you give 30 days notice. Early termination fees on reseller plans are reported at roughly $295-$595, and a PCI fee of about $9.95/month is reported on reseller plans (SMB Compare, comparison site, July 2026).
POS / hardware
Station, Mini, Flex and Go, plus an app marketplace
**Ask the vendor for:** Who the merchant of record is, Clover Direct or a bank or ISO. Your effective rate on a real month of your own statements. The keyed and card-not-present rate, since 3.5% + 10c is the direct rate. The per-dispute fee in dollars. Contract length, auto-renewal terms and the ETF as a dollar figure. Whether hardware is subscribed or purchased, and whether you own it at term end. Every PCI, statement, regulatory and gateway monthly fee, which is where reseller deals diverge most.
**Sources**
- [Clover pricing and vertical pricing pages](https://www.clover.com/pricing) · vendor pages (restaurant, quick-service, retail, personal services, home and field services, professional services), retrieved with JavaScript rendering · 2026-08-02
- [SMB Compare, Clover provider page](https://smbcompare.com/providers/payment-providers/clover) · comparison and review site. Source of the reported reseller ETF range and PCI fee only · updated July 2026
- [NerdWallet, POS pricing coverage](https://www.nerdwallet.com/business/software/reviews/toast-pos) · personal finance publisher that earns partner referral revenue. Cross-check only; its Clover figures are slightly stale against the live page but directionally confirming · 2026-01-13
- [Fiserv FY2025 Form 10-K](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/798354/000079835426000009/fi-20251231.htm) · regulatory filing. Checked for a Clover take rate; it discloses no Clover payment volume or revenue figure, so none can be derived · filed 2026
Checked 2026-08-02.
### Toast
Toast gets reported as publishing nothing because pos.toasttab.com/pricing says "Simple, flat rate" and then gives no figure at all. The percentages live on the shop pages instead. Critically, 2.49% and 3.09% are vendor figures but the "+ $0.15" is reported only, so never present them as one vendor-published rate. Toast's FY2025 10-K gives a useful sanity check: $195.1B of gross payment volume against $5,037M of financial technology solutions revenue is a 2.58% gross take, up from 2.55% in FY2024. That is an UPPER BOUND on the blended card rate across roughly 164,000 locations, not a rate you can demand, and it says nothing about one restaurant. A quote materially above 3.09% is above the sticker price of Toast's most expensive published plan.
Keyed / manual
Not published. The reported card-not-present rate is 3.50% + $0.15.
Dispute or chargeback fee
$15.00 per chargeback notification, on Toast's support site rather than its pricing page: "charged regardless of whether you dispute the chargeback, and regardless of whether you win or lose." Toast also warns that the networks may charge up to $500 for contesting a dispute they treat as near-indisputable, meaning Visa 10.1 and 10.2 and Mastercard 4870 and 4871.
Instant payout
Not published.
Volume minimum
No floor published. Published plan pricing is limited to "new customers and single locations only".
Contract
Toast's own FY2025 10-K: "Our contracts with customers are generally for a term ranging from 12 to 36 months." The ETF amount is not found at any tier. Merchant Maverick reports two to three years and that processing fees can increase over a contract's life; that is a question to ask, not an established fact.
POS / hardware
Restaurant-specific POS platform
**Ask the vendor for:** The full rate including the fixed cents component, since Toast publishes only the percentage. The card-not-present rate. Whether the rate can change during the term, with a written cap or fixed-rate commitment. The contract term and ETF as a dollar figure, pushing for 12 months since Toast's own filing says 12 to 36 is the range. Confirmation that the per-dispute fee is the published $15. Hardware price and whether it is financed. And whether payments are contractually tied to the POS.
**Sources**
- [Toast shop pages](https://pos.toasttab.com/shop/starter-kits) · vendor pages. Source of the 3.09% and 2.49% processing rates, restated in the same pages' FAQ · 2026-08-02
- [Toast pricing page](https://pos.toasttab.com/pricing) · vendor page, stamped "last updated July 8, 2026". Source of the plan prices · 2026-08-02
- [Toast FY2025 Form 10-K](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1650164/000165016426000057/tost-20251231.htm) · regulatory filing. Source of GPV, revenue, location count and the contract-term range · filed 2026-02-18
- [NerdWallet, Toast POS review](https://www.nerdwallet.com/business/software/reviews/toast-pos) · personal finance publisher that earns partner referral revenue. Sole source of the 3.50% card-not-present rate · 2026-01-13
- [Merchant Maverick, Toast POS review](https://www.merchantmaverick.com/reviews/toast-pos-review/) · review site; discloses it earns referral fees. Source of the contract length and mid-contract rate increase reports · updated 2026
- [Restaurantify and CheckThat](https://restaurantify.com/toast-pos-pricing-explained/) · SEO content sites with no stated methodology. Corroborate the $0.15 cents component only · 2026-06-24 and 2026-03-30
Checked 2026-08-02.
### Lightspeed
The bare "1.5%" that circulates for Lightspeed is not a vendor figure and not a partial rate. The string "1.5" appears nowhere on the pricing page. The real card-present rate is 2.6% + 10c, which sits alongside Square and Clover and clears interchange comfortably, which a 1.5% card-present rate could not. The restaurant pricing page genuinely publishes no processing rate, unlike the retail page, and that is a real product-line difference. Lightspeed's own Q1 FY2027 filing shows a blended gross take of about 1.90% of GPV, well below the 2.6% + 10c US list price. That gap is informative rather than contradictory, because transaction revenue includes merchant cash advances and referral revenue and the volume skews European, but it does tell you there is headroom below list.
Keyed / manual
Not published. Ask.
Dispute or chargeback fee
$15, stated twice on lightspeedhq.com/payments: "The only thing you can expect is a $15 chargeback fee" and "You will be charged a single $15 fee and we will fight tooth and nail to dispute the claim on your behalf." That wording implies no separate representment fee, which is a meaningful contrast with Stripe. Confirm it in writing.
Instant payout
Not published.
Volume minimum
No floor published.
Contract
Not published. Ask about the term, the billing frequency and any early termination fee. Monthly-quoted plans usually imply an annual-versus-monthly billing choice that Lightspeed does not disclose.
POS / hardware
Retail and restaurant POS with deep inventory
**Ask the vendor for:** The online, keyed and card-not-present rates, published nowhere. A card-present rate below 2.6% + 10c, since Lightspeed lists "Negotiate a competitive rate" as a bullet on its own payments page. Confirmation that the $15 chargeback fee is the only dispute cost. The contract term, billing frequency and any ETF. Hardware cost, which matters more than usual because Lightspeed states existing terminals cannot be reused. And the processing rate for the restaurant product specifically.
**Sources**
- [Lightspeed retail pricing](https://www.lightspeedhq.com/pos/retail/pricing/) · vendor page, US region, USD. Source of 2.6% + 10c and the retail plan prices · 2026-08-02
- [Lightspeed restaurant pricing](https://www.lightspeedhq.com/pos/restaurant/pricing/) · vendor page. Source of the restaurant plan prices. Publishes no processing rate · 2026-08-02
- [Lightspeed Payments page](https://www.lightspeedhq.com/payments/) · vendor page. Source of the $15 chargeback fee · 2026-08-02
- [Lightspeed Commerce Q1 FY2027 earnings release, Form 6-K](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1823306/000182330626000037/earningsreleasefy27q1.htm) · regulatory filing, quarter ended 30 June 2026, USD under IFRS. Source of the derived 1.90% blended take rate · filed 2026-07-30
Checked 2026-08-02.
### PayPal / Zettle
PayPal is the only processor verified here that charges both a dispute fee and a separate, higher chargeback fee. Set against Stripe's $15 plus $15 and Square's nothing, that changes the dispute economics considerably.
Keyed / manual
Keyed 3.49% + 9c. Invoicing 3.49% + 49c through Checkout or 2.99% + 49c by card. ACH 1% capped at $10. International adds 1.50%.
Dispute or chargeback fee
Two fees that never both apply to one dispute. $15.00 standard dispute fee on PayPal-account and Guest Checkout transactions, not charged when the case is decided in your favour. $20.00 chargeback fee on card transactions that went through neither, charged regardless of whether the buyer is successful. Above a 1.5% dispute ratio with more than 100 sales in the prior three months, the dispute fee becomes $30.00 and the win exemption disappears.
Instant payout
Instant Transfer to bank 1.50% with a $0.50 minimum. Standard Payout 2% capped at $1.00.
Volume minimum
Not published. No monthly fee for standard commercial accounts.
Contract
No contract published for standard commercial accounts.
POS / hardware
Zettle card readers
**Ask the vendor for:** Whether your account bills at the 3.49% Checkout rate or the 2.99% standard card rate, and your current dispute ratio against the 1.5% High Volume Dispute Fee trigger, since crossing it doubles the fee and removes the exemption on disputes you win.
**Sources**
- [PayPal business fees](https://www.paypal.com/us/business/paypal-business-fees) · vendor page · 2026-08-02
Checked 2026-08-02.
### Braintree
Braintree's card rate lands within 0.01% and one cent of Stripe's confirmed US online rate. That's about a penny on a $50 order and six cents on a $500 one, so there is no meaningful price difference between the two. Choose on features instead: Braintree gives you native PayPal and Venmo, Stripe gives you a broader product surface.
Keyed / manual
Not published separately. Non-USD currency adds 1%. Cards issued outside the US add 1%. Venmo 3.49% + 49c. ACH 0.75% capped at $5, same-day ACH 1.5% + 10c, ACH returned or disputed $5.
Dispute or chargeback fee
$15. Not stated to be refunded if you win.
Instant payout
Not published.
Volume minimum
Not published.
Contract
Not published.
POS / hardware
None. Online and in-app platform.
**Ask the vendor for:** Whether any monthly fee or minimum applies to your account, and the price of the advanced fraud add-on.
**Sources**
- [PayPal Braintree fees](https://www.paypal.com/us/enterprise/paypal-braintree-fees) · vendor page · 2026-08-02
Checked 2026-08-02.
### Adyen
Adyen's own reporting is the most useful number available. Its FY2025 annual report puts the full-year take rate at 17.0 basis points, up from 15.5 bps in 2024, on net revenue of EUR 2,364.2M over EUR 1,394.3bn of processed volume. H1 2025 was 16.8 bps. So the 0.60% indicative markup is 60 bps against a blended company take rate of 17.0 bps, meaning Adyen earns roughly 28% of its own list price on average. That makes 0.60% an opening position, not a rate. The caveat is real: take rate is company-wide net revenue over processed volume, including POS hardware, issuing, platform fees and FX, so it is not the same measurement as one merchant's card markup. It shows the direction and scale of the gap, not a number you can demand.
Keyed / manual
Not published separately. Every transaction carries the $0.13 processing fee whatever the method.
Dispute or chargeback fee
Not published at any tier. Not on the pricing page, not in the annual report, and no credible third party publishes an Adyen chargeback fee. Ask for it per scheme and per payment method.
Instant payout
Not published.
Volume minimum
No volume floor is published. There is no $10M a year minimum. A minimum invoice is not a volume floor. Merchant Maverick reports the minimum invoice as "$120/month or 1,000 transactions/month" (review site, discloses referral commissions from Adyen, last updated 2024-12-10) - a single affiliate-compensated source roughly 18 months stale, whose Amex figure is demonstrably wrong against the live vendor page. Verify in writing.
Contract
Not published beyond the stated $0 early termination fee, which is genuinely unusual in this tier and worth protecting in the contract.
POS / hardware
Adyen POS terminals
**Ask the vendor for:** The minimum monthly invoice in dollars and whether the $0.13 counts toward it. This is the one number Adyen deliberately leaves open and it decides whether Adyen is cheap or expensive for you. Then: the volume step-down schedule written into the contract rather than promised verbally; written confirmation that interchange and scheme fees pass through at cost, plus a sample settlement file showing all three components separated BEFORE signing; the chargeback fee per scheme and per method; and the FX spread.
**Sources**
- [Adyen pricing page](https://www.adyen.com/pricing) · vendor page · 2026-08-02
- [Adyen Annual Report 2025](https://investors.adyen.com/financials/2025) · vendor financial reporting. Source of the 17.0 bps FY2025 take rate. Arithmetic check: EUR 2,364.2M / EUR 1,394.3bn = 16.96 bps · FY2025
- [Adyen H1 2025 Shareholder Letter](https://investors.adyen.com/financials/h1-2025) · vendor financial reporting. Source of the 16.8 bps H1 2025 take rate · 2025-08-14
- [Merchant Maverick, Adyen review](https://www.merchantmaverick.com/reviews/adyen-review/) · review site; discloses referral commissions from Adyen. Sole source of the reported $120/month minimum invoice. Its Amex figure conflicts with the live vendor page · updated 2024-12-10
Checked 2026-08-02.
### Checkout.com
This is a real absence rather than a rate card that is merely hard to find, which is worth distinguishing because several others in this table are the latter. Checkout.com's pricing page carries no percentage, currency amount or pence value anywhere in it. Its full 1,552-URL sitemap contains only /pricing and two cost-optimization pages, with no fee schedule and no regional pricing page. Third-party coverage is empty too: Merchant Maverick has no Checkout.com review, Merchant Cost Consulting 404s, and TrustRadius carries a Checkout.com pricing page with no Checkout.com figures on it. What IS published: two pricing models, fully flat-rate and Interchange++, and the basis - "We price based on your business profile and risk category, nothing else."
Keyed / manual
Not published.
Dispute or chargeback fee
Not published.
Instant payout
Not published.
Volume minimum
Not published. No minimum volume or revenue commitment is published.
Contract
Not published. Quote only.
POS / hardware
None published. Online and in-app.
**Ask the vendor for:** Which risk category you are in, what the boundaries are, and what evidence moves you to a better one. If your chargeback rate, refund rate and MCC sit near a boundary, that is worth more than haggling basis points. Then demand BOTH quotes, flat-rate and Interchange++, modelled against your last 12 months of actual volume and mix, because flat rate looks better on a spreadsheet and costs more if you take a lot of regulated debit. Ask for a sample settlement file showing interchange, scheme fees and markup as three separate lines before signing: a vendor that sells transparency but will not demonstrate it pre-signature has answered you.
**Sources**
- [Checkout.com pricing page](https://www.checkout.com/pricing) · vendor page. No figures of any kind · 2026-08-02
- [Checkout.com sitemap](https://www.checkout.com/sitemap.xml) · vendor sitemap. All 1,552 URLs scanned for a fee schedule or regional pricing page. None exists · 2026-08-02
- [Companies House](https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/search?q=checkout+ltd) · regulatory register. UK operating entity confirmed as CHECKOUT LTD, company number 08037323 · 2026-08-02
Checked 2026-08-02.
### Airwallex
Airwallex is the exception that proves the point at this end of the market: it publishes a complete rate card where Checkout.com, Global Payments and Nuvei publish nothing. "International" means the CARD WAS ISSUED outside the US, not that you sold abroad, so the 150 basis point gap between 2.80% and 4.30% applies to whatever share of your customers hold foreign-issued cards. And the 0.50% recurring surcharge STACKS on the base rate rather than replacing it, so a subscription business on domestic cards pays 3.30% + $0.30. Published rates changed on 2025-06-01 and customers who joined before then keep their existing pricing, so older comparisons may be stale.
Keyed / manual
Not published separately. Local payment methods are $0.30 plus the payment method fee. Local transfers are free to 120+ countries; SWIFT transfers are $15 to $25.
Dispute or chargeback fee
Not published. Ask.
Instant payout
Not published.
Volume minimum
No floor published, and no threshold published for where Accelerate custom pricing beats the published card. Ask.
Contract
Not published.
POS / hardware
None published.
**Ask the vendor for:** The chargeback fee and refund fee, neither published. The volume at which Accelerate custom pricing beats the published card. Whether an Interchange++ option exists at your volume, since flat-rate pricing means you stop benefiting from cheap regulated debit interchange. Count what share of your volume is foreign-issued cards, then negotiate the 4.30% line specifically. If you run subscriptions, negotiate the 0.50% recurring surcharge, which is the line most likely to be waived at volume.
**Sources**
- [Airwallex US pricing](https://www.airwallex.com/us/pricing) · vendor page. Note that /us/payments/pricing and /us/pricing/payments-pricing both 404; the live path is /us/pricing · 2026-08-02
Checked 2026-08-02.
### Worldpay
Worldpay DOES publish an indicative rate card, but only for the UK and only behind a cross-host redirect from www.worldpay.com/en-gb/pricing to go.worldpay.com/pricing, which is why it gets reported as unpublished. Read the 0.0% carefully: Worldpay earns from the 4.5p authorisation fee, the GBP15 minimum monthly charge, the GBP5 PCI fee and GBP20 per terminal. The 4.5p auth fee is regressive by ticket size - 0.09% on a GBP50 ticket but 0.9% on a GBP5 one - so low-ticket merchants must model it carefully. The page does NOT state whether interchange and scheme fees pass through at cost as separate line items, so get the pass-through mechanics in writing before you sign. Worldpay is now part of Global Payments, which completed the acquisition per Global Payments' Q1 2026 earnings release.
Keyed / manual
Billed as card-not-present on the UK indicative card.
Dispute or chargeback fee
GBP20.00 per chargeback on the UK indicative card.
Instant payout
Not published. Settlement is stated as 24 hours.
Volume minimum
No floor published. The UK page generates a personalised quote from annual card turnover, average transaction value and MCC.
Contract
Not published by Worldpay. Merchant Maverick reports a three-year initial term with automatic one-year renewals and an early termination fee prorated at $295 per location in year one, $195 in year two and $95 in year three (review site, discloses referral commissions from Worldpay, last updated 2025-01-14). Note that the ETF is PER LOCATION, so ten sites is a $2,950 exit.
POS / hardware
Worldpay terminals
**Ask the vendor for:** Whether it is three years with automatic one-year renewals, and what the written notice window is to prevent renewal. The trap is the notice window, not the renewal. Interchange-plus, itemised, refusing tiered or blended pricing. On the UK structure, whether 0.0% means interchange and scheme fees pass through at cost as separate lines. The minimum monthly service charge and what counts toward it. And, now that Global Payments has completed the acquisition, who owns the contract and whether that triggers any repricing right for you.
**Sources**
- [Worldpay UK pricing](https://go.worldpay.com/pricing) · vendor page, UK, reached via cross-host redirect from www.worldpay.com/en-gb/pricing. Page states pricing is "indicative only" · 2026-08-02
- [Merchant Maverick, FIS Worldpay review](https://www.merchantmaverick.com/reviews/worldpay-review/) · review site; discloses referral commissions from Worldpay. Source of the US contract term and ETF schedule · updated 2025-01-14
- [Global Payments Q1 2026 earnings release](https://investors.globalpayments.com/) · regulatory and investor reporting. Confirms completion of the Worldpay acquisition · 2026-05-06
Checked 2026-08-02.
### Global Payments
Global Payments publishes no rate anywhere on its own site. One quirk worth knowing if you go looking yourself: its en-us URL can serve Canadian French content, so it geo-resolves aggressively and you should check which region you were actually served before concluding anything about the page. No take-rate anchor is possible the way it is for Adyen, because the company describes its scale only as "trillions in payments volume", which is not a number you can divide by. Its Q1 2026 release does give adjusted net revenues of $2.86 billion, up about 29.5%, and confirms the Worldpay acquisition and the sale of Issuer Solutions.
Keyed / manual
Not published.
Dispute or chargeback fee
Not published.
Instant payout
Not published.
Volume minimum
Not published.
Contract
Reported as a three-year initial term with automatic one-year renewals and an early termination fee of $100 to $500 (Merchant Maverick, review site, discloses referral commissions from Global Payments, last updated 2024-11-19). Single-source, affiliate-compensated and roughly 20 months stale.
POS / hardware
Terminals and integrated POS through multiple brands
**Ask the vendor for:** The annual account maintenance fee and whether it can be waived. Exactly what triggers the PCI non-compliance fee, the deadline and the submission method in writing, then calendar it with a 30-day warning: that fee is charged when you fail to complete your self-assessment questionnaire, not when you process, so a merchant paying it is losing $1,500 a year for a form. Interchange-plus, not tiered, and not membership pricing until you have seen both modelled against your actual twelve months. The three-year term, the auto-renewal notice window, and whether they will do one year. And the ETF waived or capped.
**Sources**
- [Global Payments US payments page](https://www.globalpayments.com/en-us/payments) · vendor page, checked in full including its sitemap · 2026-08-02
- [Global Payments Q1 2026 earnings release](https://investors.globalpayments.com/) · regulatory and investor reporting, quarter ended 2026-03-31 · 2026-05-06
- [Merchant Maverick, Global Payments review](https://www.merchantmaverick.com/reviews/global-payments-review/) · review site; discloses referral commissions from Global Payments and states editorial independence via its rating system. Sole source of the annual fee, PCI fee, contract term and ETF range · updated 2024-11-19
Checked 2026-08-02.
### Nuvei
You negotiate with Nuvei on less public information than any other row here, and that is a reason to demand MORE in writing rather than less. The one anchor available is derived from its final filings: Q2 2024 revenue of $345.5M on total volume of $61.7bn is a blended 56.0 basis points, and H1 2024 gives 55.9 bps. That figure is DERIVED - Nuvei never uses the phrase "take rate" - and it is NOT comparable to Adyen's 17.0 bps, because Adyen reports "net revenue" under a specific definition while Nuvei reports "revenue" and the word "interchange" appears nowhere in its Q2 2024 release. The roughly 80% gross margin suggests interchange is largely excluded rather than grossed up, but that is an inference. Nuvei's mix skews to high-risk, high-margin verticals, which explains a blended rate several times a mainstream acquirer's, so a low-risk retail merchant should expect nothing like 56 bps. One loose end flagged honestly: nuvei.com carries language about a proposed Payoneer acquisition and asserts a Nasdaq and TSX listing that its own delisting filings contradict, so that page appears to contain stale content. Verify before relying on it.
Keyed / manual
Not published.
Dispute or chargeback fee
Not published.
Instant payout
Not published.
Volume minimum
Not published. Nuvei stopped filing: Form 25-NSE (delisting) was filed 2024-11-15 and Form 15F-12B (deregistration) 2024-11-25, so it ceased to be a public reporting company in November 2024. The last usable filing is Q2 2024.
Contract
Not published.
POS / hardware
Terminals available; pricing not published.
**Ask the vendor for:** Interchange-plus with interchange and scheme fees itemised at cost, since an itemised statement is the only way you will ever verify what you pay. Your all-in effective rate on your last twelve months: make them compute total fees divided by total volume. What risk category you are in and what it adds - if you are low-risk, say so loudly. And THE RESERVE QUESTION, which matters most with a high-risk-weighted acquirer and is absent from every public source: rolling, fixed or capped, at what percentage, held how long, and what releases it. A 5-10% rolling reserve held 180 days is a working capital event, not a fee.
**Sources**
- [Nuvei corporate site](https://www.nuvei.com/) · vendor site. No pricing page of any kind. Contains apparently stale listing claims · 2026-08-02
- [Nuvei Form 6-K, Q2 2024 press release](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1765159/000176515924000028/a2024_q2xpressrelease.htm) · regulatory filing. Source of the volume and revenue figures behind the derived 56.0 bps · filed 2024-08-06
- [SEC EDGAR, Nuvei Corp filing history (CIK 0001765159)](https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&company=nuvei&type=&dateb=&owner=include&count=40) · regulatory register. Confirms the going-private, delisting and deregistration filings · 2026-08-02
Checked 2026-08-02.
### Moneris
Moneris is a Canadian acquirer and every figure here is CAD. If you go looking yourself, note that /en/plans-and-pricing and /en/plans-pricing are both broken and only /en/pricing works.
Keyed / manual
Bills as card-not-present at 2.85% + 30c CAD.
Dispute or chargeback fee
CA$25, plus a separate authorization chargeback handling fee of CA$80. That second fee is unusual and worth checking against your dispute volume. Both apply to the flat-rate product and may be negotiable on a custom agreement.
Instant payout
Not published.
Volume minimum
Not published. Moneris Simplified Pricing (interchange-plus) separates interchange, network assessment and a transaction fee but attaches no numbers to any of them.
Contract
Not published. Ask about term and termination.
POS / hardware
Moneris terminals and Moneris Go
**Ask the vendor for:** For Simplified Pricing (interchange-plus): the per-transaction markup in basis points AND cents over interchange, stated separately from interchange and from assessments; whether the markup varies by card type or only by volume; the volume bands and the rate at each; and the chargeback fee, since the published CA$25 covers flat rate only. Aim at a markup meaningfully below the roughly 1.0-1.2 points that flat rate implies over typical Canadian interchange, because that spread is the entire reason to leave flat rate. If Moneris will not state the markup separately from interchange, the quote is not interchange-plus in any useful sense.
**Sources**
- [Moneris pricing page](https://www.moneris.com/en/pricing) · vendor page. All figures CAD · 2026-08-02
- [Moneris homepage](https://www.moneris.com/) · vendor page. Source of the Moneris Go terminal and Moneris Online plan prices · 2026-08-02
Checked 2026-08-02.
**How to read this table.** Vendor is the vendor’s own published page, with the exact URL and access date in the Details panel. Reported is a credible third party: the source, its date and what kind of source it is are named, and where sources disagree we publish the range and say who says what. Reported figures are **indicative** and they **do participate in sorting**, because a dated, attributed number is more use to a merchant building a budget than an empty cell. They are shaded so you can see at a glance which half of the table you are trusting. Not published means the vendor doesn’t publish it, and the cell says what to ask for. It is never permission to assume a number.
Sorting uses the effective rate on a $100 sale, which is nothing more than arithmetic on the published percentage plus the fixed cents. Interchange-plus and subscription processors publish a markup over interchange rather than a headline rate, so they can’t be ranked on that axis and they sort last. That isn’t a verdict on cost: on a steady card mix a markup model often beats a flat rate, but you need an effective-rate statement to know. Currency badges mark the rows quoted in something other than US dollars; those rates are shown for structure, not for ranking against the USD rows.
Your real cost depends on card mix, ticket size, volume and dispute rate. Confirm every figure with the provider before you sign. This site sells nothing and takes no vendor money.
## At-a-Glance Comparison
The same data as a static table, if you'd rather scan than filter.
| Processor | Online | Card-present | Chargeback | Monthly | Ranked on cost here? |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **[Helcim](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/helcim/)** | IC + 0.50% + $0.25 down to IC + 0.15% + $0.15 | IC + 0.40% + $0.08 down to IC + 0.15% + $0.06 | **$0 if you win**, $15 if you lose | $0 | **Yes** |
| **[Square](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/square/)** | 3.3% + $0.30 Free | 2.6% + $0.15 Free | **$0** | $0 on Free | **Yes**, Free plan only |
| **[PayPal](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/paypal/)** | 3.49% + $0.49 wallet, 2.99% + $0.49 card | 2.29% + $0.09 Zettle | $15 wallet ($0 if you win), $20 card, $30 above a 1.5% ratio | $0 standard | **Yes** |
| **[Braintree](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/braintree/)** | 2.89% + $0.29 | Not separately published | $15 | Not published | **Yes**, online |
| **[Stax](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/stax/)** | IC + **0%** + $0.15 | IC + **0%** + $0.08 | Not published. $25 protection add-on | $99 to $199+, by **annual** volume | Only to $250K/year |
| **[Stripe](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/stripe/)** | **2.9% + $0.30** | Terminal **2.7% + $0.05** | $15 to receive + $15 to counter | $0 | **Yes** |
| **[Shopify Payments](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/shopify-payments/)** | **2.9% + 30c** Basic | **2.6% + 10c** Basic | Not published | $29 to $2,300+ | **Yes** |
| **[Clover](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/clover/)** direct | **3.5% + 10c** | **2.3% + 10c** restaurant, **2.6% + 10c** retail entry | Not published | $0 to $129.85 | Yes, at direct rates only |
| **[Toast](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/toast/)** | 3.50% + 15c _reported_ | **2.49%** Traditional, **3.09%** Pay-as-you-Go. Cents _reported_ at 15c | Not published | $0 to $90 | Yes, with a reported input |
| **[Lightspeed](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/lightspeed/)** | Not published | **2.6% + 10c** retail | **$15** | $69 to $399 | Card-present only |
| **[Moneris](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/moneris/)** | 2.85% + $0.30 CAD | 2.65% + $0.10 CAD. Interac $0.12 | CA$25 **plus** CA$80 handling | CA$5 software fee | No. Canadian, CAD |
| **[Adyen](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/adyen/)** | Not published. IC++ plus $0.13, indicative 0.60% | Not published. Same model | Not published | No monthly fee. Undisclosed minimum invoice | No. Rates are indicative |
| **[Checkout.com](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/checkout-com/)** | Not published | None. Online only | Not published | Not published | **No** |
Tier key: unmarked figures are VENDOR, from the vendor's own page. _Italicised_ figures are REPORTED by a named third party, and the source sits on that vendor's page here. "Not published" means the vendor doesn't publish it.
**Toast's card-present cell is the one to read carefully.** The percentages are Toast's own. The "+ 15c" is reported by NerdWallet and two content sites, not published by Toast. Don't quote the two as a single vendor rate.
Square Plus and Premium are **$49 and $149 a month per location**, now confirmed. All three Square tiers can be modelled. Per location matters: three sites on Plus is $147 a month.
Nobody publishes a minimum volume
Every processor above was checked for a published volume floor. **None of them has one.**
Adyen publishes no annual minimum. Nor does Checkout.com. Square publishes only an upward threshold. It invites custom pricing conversations above $250,000 a **year**, a much lower bar than most merchants assume.
You'll find claims that Adyen requires $10 million a year and Checkout.com $5 million. Both are invented, and neither appears on either vendor's site. If you think you're too small for an enterprise processor, ask. Don't assume.
* * *
## What $100 Actually Costs
One transaction, $100, on the blended card mix described at [How We Compare Processor Costs](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/reference/cost-model-assumptions/). Pass-through is **$1.67 online** and **$1.21 card-present**. Every processor pays it. Only the markup differs.
**Online, $100 transaction:**
| Processor | Model | Fee on $100 | Effective |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **Stax** | IC + 0% + $0.15, plus subscription | **$1.82** plus your share of the subscription | 1.82%+ |
| **Helcim**, $100K-$500K band | IC + 0.35% + $0.20 | **$2.22** | 2.22% |
| **Adyen**, indicative | IC++ + 0.60% + $0.13 | **$2.40** | 2.40% |
| **Helcim**, first band | IC + 0.50% + $0.25 | **$2.42** | 2.42% |
| **Braintree** | 2.89% + $0.29 | **$3.18** | 3.18% |
| **PayPal**, standard card | 2.99% + $0.49 | **$3.48** | 3.48% |
| **Square**, Free plan | 3.3% + $0.30 | **$3.60** | 3.60% |
| **PayPal**, wallet | 3.49% + $0.49 | **$3.98** | 3.98% |
**Card-present, $100 transaction:**
| Processor | Model | Fee on $100 |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **Stax** | IC + 0% + $0.08, plus subscription | **$1.29** plus subscription |
| **Helcim**, $100K-$500K band | IC + 0.25% + $0.07 | **$1.53** |
| **Helcim**, first band | IC + 0.40% + $0.08 | **$1.69** |
| **Adyen**, indicative | IC++ + 0.60% + $0.13 | **$1.94** |
| **PayPal Zettle** | 2.29% + $0.09 | **$2.38** |
| **Square**, Free | 2.6% + $0.15 | **$2.75** |
| **Clover Direct**, restaurant | 2.3% + 10c | **$2.40** |
| **Shopify**, Basic | 2.6% + 10c | **$2.70** |
| **Stripe Terminal** | 2.7% + $0.05 | **$2.75** |
| **Lightspeed**, retail | 2.6% + 10c | **$2.70** |
| **Moneris** (CAD) | 2.65% + $0.10 | **CA$2.75** |
The Moneris row is in a different currency. It isn't comparable to the USD rows above it. It's there so the structural difference shows, not so you can rank the column end to end.
**A $100 ticket is one point on a curve, not a ranking.** Each of these carries a condition.
- **PayPal Zettle publishes 2.29% + $0.09 card-present.** Stripe Terminal's 2.7% + $0.05 is cheaper below ($0.09 - $0.05) / (2.7% - 2.29%) = **$9.76**; Zettle is cheaper above it, before other costs. Zettle beats Helcim's entry band below a **$19.53** ticket, and Helcim's $500K-$1M band below **$13.96**
- **Helcim beats Zettle above those tickets, with no subscription to earn back.** At $100 it's $1.69 against $2.38
- **Stax's $1.29 excludes the subscription, and the subscription is the whole question.** Against Zettle at a $100 card-present ticket, Stax saves $1.09 a transaction. So the $99 tier is earned back at about **91 transactions a month**, or $9,100 of volume. Against Helcim the advantage is $0.40 a transaction on the entry band. That needs 248 transactions, or $24,750 a month. And $297,000 a year is not the $99 tier. See [Stax](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/stax/) for why that matters
- **Shopify's US in-person rate is 2.6% + 10c.** Stripe Terminal's 5c and Zettle's 9c fixed fees are lower. Against Helcim's entry band at 1.43% + $0.258, the crossover is `0.026A + 0.10 = 0.0143A + 0.258`, so **A = $13.50**. Below a $13.50 ticket Shopify Basic is cheaper in person. Above it, Helcim is. The zero-cents claim you'll see for Shopify in person is Canada only. It would push the crossover out to $22.05. That's why using the Canadian card on a US merchant matters
The debit point is the one people miss. These tables use a blended card mix. Regulation II caps regulated US debit interchange at 0.05% + $0.21, plus a $0.01 fraud-prevention adjustment. On one of those cards Helcim's entry band costs about **$0.91** on a $100 card-present sale. Zettle costs $2.38. On a premium rewards credit card Helcim costs about **$2.84**, which is worse than Zettle. Flat rate is insurance against your card mix. Interchange-plus is a bet on it.
* * *
## Cost by Volume
Online, $100 average ticket, on the pass-through assumption of 1.50% + $0.172. Your card mix will differ. Trust the ranking more than the absolute numbers.
### $150,000/Month, 1,500 Transactions
Pass-through is $2,508 for everyone. The table shows total cost.
| Processor | Markup | Total | Effective |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **Helcim** ($100K-$500K band) | $825 | **$3,333** | 2.22% |
| **Braintree** | flat rate | **$4,770** | 3.18% |
| **PayPal**, standard card | flat rate | **$5,220** | 3.48% |
| **Square**, Free plan | flat rate | **$5,400** | 3.60% |
| **PayPal**, wallet | flat rate | **$5,970** | 3.98% |
| _Adyen (indicative, not rankable)_ | _$1,095_ | _$3,603_ | _2.40%_ |
| _Stax at the "$199+" floor (not rankable)_ | _$424_ | _$2,932_ | _1.95%_ |
### $1,500,000/Month, 15,000 Transactions
Pass-through is $25,080 for everyone.
| Processor | Markup | Total | Effective |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **Helcim** ($1M-$5M band) | $4,500 | **$29,580** | 1.97% |
| **Braintree** | flat rate | **$47,700** | 3.18% |
| **Square**, Free plan | flat rate | **$54,000** | 3.60% |
| _Adyen (indicative, not rankable)_ | _$10,950_ | _$36,030_ | _2.40%_ |
| _Stax at the "$199+" floor (not rankable)_ | _$2,449_ | _$27,529_ | _1.84%_ |
Why two rows are in italics, and what that costs Stax and Adyen
The italic rows are arithmetic, not verdicts.
**Stax** publishes "$199+" for everything above $250,000 a year. $1.8 million and $18 million a year both sit in that band. The plus sign has no ceiling. Computing Stax at exactly $199 assumes the friendliest possible answer. This site won't rank a processor on its own best case. If Stax gives you a written number, put it in the table yourself. It may well win.
**Adyen** captions its own rate table: "The fees outlined above are indicative; please get in touch to discuss pricing options." It also has "a minimum invoice depending on industry or business model", with no amount published. An indicative rate plus an undisclosed floor isn't a price.
The indicative figure still deserves an honest read, and it gets read wrong in both directions. **No published number supports** Adyen rates of 1.2 to 2.2%, or a 0.8 to 1.5 point saving for merchants over $10 million a month. Nor is the reverse claim true, that Adyen's 0.60% + $0.13 is higher than Helcim's markup in every band. Card-present it's higher than every Helcim band on both components. Online it's **lower** than Helcim's entry band below a $120 ticket, because Adyen's 13 cents undercuts Helcim's 25. See [Adyen](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/adyen/) for the full crossover table.
**Where that leaves it:** single-market, comparing on cost, Helcim wins on published numbers. Adyen has to prove otherwise with a written quote. Multi-market with real cross-border volume, Adyen's case is strong. It's a local-acquiring case, not a markup case. That saving lands in the interchange line, which is identical across every row above.
* * *
## When to Use Each Processor
### Helcim: Cheapest in 20 of 24 Modelled Scenarios
**Choose Helcim if:**
- Your average ticket clears roughly $9.23 card-present or $9.38 online against Square Free. Against PayPal Zettle the bar is $19.53 card-present, which is the harder test. No volume threshold, because no monthly fee
- You have real dispute volume. Helcim charges **$0 for a chargeback you win**, which nobody else here does
- Your volume moves month to month, so a subscription would be dead weight
**Pricing:** five published monthly bands. Card-present runs from interchange + 0.40% + 8c down to interchange + 0.15% + 6c. Online runs from interchange + 0.50% + 25c down to interchange + 0.15% + 15c. No monthly fee, no setup fee, no PCI fee.
**Where it loses:** card-present at a small ticket, to [PayPal Zettle](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/paypal/). That's below about a $19.53 ticket in the entry band, $13.96 in the $500K-$1M band. It also loses online at a $25 ticket, to [Stax](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/stax/), between roughly $11,000 and $20,800 a month. There's a gap in the middle. From about $12,500 to $15,400 Stax's subscription steps up to $139 and Helcim retakes the lead. So the interval sawtooths rather than running straight. Ticket size creates it, not volume.
**[Read full Helcim profile](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/helcim/)**
* * *
### PayPal Zettle: The Small-Ticket Card-Present Answer
**Choose Zettle if:**
- You're in person with an average ticket under about $19.53, or under $13.96 once Helcim reaches its $500K-$1M band
- You don't need a POS ecosystem
- You want one flat rate you can predict, with no interchange statement to read
**Pricing:** 2.29% + $0.09 card-present. That 9-cent fixed fee is the lowest published by any US flat rate here. At a $15 ticket it beats Helcim by $52 a month on $20,000 of volume.
**Where it loses:** above about a $19.53 ticket, and at higher volumes where Helcim's bands step down. PayPal's dispute pricing is also the most expensive verified here.
**[Read full PayPal profile](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/paypal/)**
* * *
### Stax: One Cell, and It's a Narrow One
**Choose Stax if:**
- You're online at roughly a $25 ticket, doing $11,000 to $12,500 a month on the $99 tier, or $15,400 to $20,800 on the $139 tier. That's where its 15-cent online charge and zero percentage beat Helcim. In between, the subscription steps up and Helcim is cheaper again
- Your annual volume is under $250,000, so the subscription you'd pay is a published number
**Pricing:** interchange + 0% + $0.08 card-present, interchange + 0% + $0.15 online, plus $99 to $199+ a month set by **annual** volume.
**Two things everyone gets wrong.** First, the volume bands are annual. $99 covers up to $150,000 a **year**. So a merchant doing $20,000 a month is at $240,000 a year, which is the $139 tier. Second, fixing that error doesn't make Stax cheapest. Helcim charges the same 8 cents card-present with no subscription. **Stax never beats Helcim card-present at a volume where Stax still publishes its price.**
**[Read full Stax profile](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/stax/)**
* * *
### Square: Best Card-Present Default If You Want a POS
**Choose Square if:**
- You're primarily in person and need POS as well as payments. The POS is the reason, not the rate
- You need to start today with no technical work
- You want a price you can check completely before signing anything
**Pricing:** 2.6% + $0.15 card-present and 3.3% + $0.30 online on the Free plan. Plus and Premium publish lower rates, at $49 and $149 a month per location. Only Free is ranked here.
**Note the 15 cents.** Square's card-present fixed fee is 15 cents, not the 10 cents that circulates widely. On a $10 ticket that's the difference between 3.6% and 4.1%.
**On cost, Square Free loses to Helcim above a $9.23 card-present ticket and a $9.38 online ticket.** At $20,000 a month card-present with a $50 ticket the gap is $190.80 a month, or $2,290 a year. That's larger than most comparisons show, and the difference is the interchange assumption, not the rates.
**[Read full Square profile](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/square/)**
* * *
### Braintree: Cards, PayPal, and Venmo in One Integration
**Choose Braintree if:**
- You want cards, PayPal, and Venmo in one integration
- You need the full Venmo checkout, which PayPal Checkout alone doesn't give you
- You take large ACH payments. 0.75% capped at $5 is cheap
**Pricing:** 2.89% + $0.29 for cards and digital wallets, 3.49% + $0.49 for Venmo, $15 per dispute.
**Don't choose between Braintree and Stripe on price.** Stripe's confirmed US online rate is 2.9% + $0.30. Braintree's is 2.89% + $0.29. One hundredth of a point and one cent, $50 x 0.01% + $0.01 = 1.5 cents on a $50 order. There's no breakeven ticket to compute. Choose on features.
**[Read full Braintree profile](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/braintree/)**
* * *
### PayPal Online: Two Rates, and Most Comparisons Show the Wrong One
**Choose PayPal online if:**
- Your customers ask for it, as a second method alongside cards
- You invoice large amounts. ACH at 1% capped at $10 is excellent
**Pricing:** 3.49% + $0.49 through the PayPal wallet, but **2.99% + $0.49 for standard card payments**. Most comparisons only show the first.
**The catch is disputes, but only above a 1.5% ratio.** The $15 dispute fee and the $20 chargeback fee cover different channels. They never both apply to one dispute. Below 1.5% PayPal is mid-pack, and a dispute you win costs $0. Cross 1.5% with 100+ sales in the prior three months and every dispute costs $30, wins included.
**[Read full PayPal profile](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/paypal/)**
* * *
### Stripe: Best Developer Experience, and Now a Readable Price
**Choose Stripe if:**
- You have developers and are building custom checkout
- You need subscription billing with real complexity
- You're expanding internationally
**Pricing:** **2.9% + $0.30 online and 2.7% + $0.05 on Terminal**, US figures confirmed from a US connection on 2 August 2026. No setup or monthly fee. Keyed adds 0.5%. **Cards issued abroad add 1.5%, and currency conversion adds 1%.** Both are roughly the inverse of Stripe's Canadian card. Check which country any Stripe rate you read came from.
**Against Square card-present**, 2.7% + 5c crosses Square Free's 2.6% + 15c at exactly a **$100 ticket**. Stripe below, Square above, by cents either way.
**Watch the disputes.** $15 to receive a dispute, never returned, plus $15 to counter it, returned only on an outright win. A partial win costs $30, the same as losing.
**[Read full Stripe profile](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/stripe/)**
* * *
### Shopify Payments: Mandatory If You're on Shopify
**Choose Shopify Payments if:**
- You're on Shopify. Use anything else and Shopify charges a third-party gateway fee: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced, 0.2% on Plus. That fee is the real lock-in
- You take in-person payments. The fixed fee is **10 cents in the US and zero in Canada**, lowest of the flat-rate options either way. That's real money at a low ticket
**Pricing, US:** Basic **2.9% + 30c** online and **2.6% + 10c** in person, at $39 a month or $29 billed annually. Grow 2.7% / 2.5% at $105 or $79. Advanced 2.5% / 2.4% at $399 or $299. Plus from $2,300 with rates described only as "most competitive rates".
**Watch the geography.** "Shopify charges no per-transaction cents in person" is Canada only. The US charges 10 cents. US online rates run 0.1 points above Canadian at every tier. shopify.com/us/pricing 404s because there's no US path. Shopify resolves country by connection.
**[Read full Shopify Payments profile](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/shopify-payments/)**
* * *
### Moneris: Canadian, and Interac Cuts Both Ways
**Choose Moneris if:**
- You're a Canadian business with heavy in-store volume
- Interac Debit is a big share of your in-store baskets. At $0.12 flat it beats credit on essentially every purchase
**But check your online mix.** Online Interac Debit is $1.00 CAD flat. It only beats credit above about a $25 order. Below that it's your most expensive method.
**Pricing:** 2.65% + $0.10 CAD in person, 2.85% + $0.30 CAD online, all CAD. Chargebacks are CA$25 plus a separate CA$80 authorization chargeback handling fee. That's the most expensive dispute structure verified here.
**[Read full Moneris profile](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/moneris/)**
* * *
### Adyen: Global Acquiring, and the Markup Claim Needs Splitting by Channel
**Consider Adyen if:**
- You sell across many markets and want local acquiring rather than cross-border routing
- You want online, in-store, and mobile on one platform
- You have developers and months of runway
**Pricing:** not published. Adyen publishes a model: Interchange++ plus a $0.13 processing fee, with an indicative 0.60% card markup. Then it caveats that the figures are indicative. No monthly fee, but a minimum invoice with no published amount. **No annual volume floor.**
**On the indicative figure:** card-present, Adyen's markup is higher than every published Helcim band, on both the percentage and the cents. So it costs more at every ticket. Online it depends on ticket size, because Adyen's 13 cents undercuts Helcim's 25. Adyen is lower than Helcim's entry online band below a $120 ticket, higher above it.
**Ask for:** the minimum monthly invoice in dollars, the full method-by-method schedule, whether the $0.13 applies to declined attempts, and the chargeback fee.
**[Read full Adyen profile](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/adyen/)**
* * *
### Checkout.com: Quote-Only, Online Only
**Consider Checkout.com if:**
- You need global acquiring with Stripe-quality developer tooling
- You're prepared to run a sales process to find out what it costs
**Pricing:** nothing published. It offers a flat-rate model and an Interchange++ one, priced "based on your business profile and risk category." It states no setup fees and no account maintenance fees. No volume floor is published.
**[Read full Checkout.com profile](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/checkout-com/)**
* * *
### Clover: The Reseller Sets Your Price
**Consider Clover if:**
- You need the widest POS hardware range in the SMB market
- You're prepared to negotiate a reseller contract properly
**Pricing, Clover Direct:** **2.3% + 10c** card-present for restaurants and quick service, **2.6% + 10c** on entry retail and services plans, **3.5% + 10c** keyed and online. Software $0 to $129.85 a month. Rapid Deposit 1.75%.
**What's still true:** the reseller sets your actual rate. Clover says so on its own pricing page. Treat the published direct rates as your anchor. Anything above them is markup.
**Ask for:** who the merchant of record is, the effective rate on your card mix, the chargeback fee (the one figure Clover doesn't publish at any tier), the contract term and termination fee, and whether hardware is **subscribed or bought**. Clover publishes both prices per bundle. Its own arithmetic puts the 36-month subscription premium at $227 to $3,622, with no ownership at term end. **That's where the cost hides. Now you can check it.**
**[Read full Clover profile](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/clover/)**
* * *
### Toast: Restaurant-Specific, Bundled, Quote-Only
**Consider Toast if:**
- You run a full-service restaurant and would genuinely use kitchen displays, tableside ordering, and commission-free online ordering
**Pricing:** **2.49% on Traditional and 3.09% on Pay-as-you-Go**, both published by Toast on its shop pages. The **\+ $0.15 fixed component is reported, not published**. Never quote the two as one vendor rate. Software $0 Starter Kit, $69 Point of Sale.
**The plan choice is arithmetic.** The 0.60 point gap breaks even at about **$11,500 a month** ignoring hardware, or about **$25,300** including an illustrative $2,000 of hardware over 24 months. Below that, Pay-as-you-Go, which Toast says includes hardware you own from day one. Above it, Traditional.
**Toast's own blended gross take is 2.58%** on $195.1bn of volume across 164,000 locations, from its FY2025 10-K. That's an upper bound on the blended card rate across Toast's whole book, not a ceiling for your quote. Toast's shop pages listed a 3.09% Pay-as-you-Go percentage when checked on 2 August 2026. Compare that with the percentage in your card-present quote, then add fixed charges and check plan eligibility.
**Ask for:** the fixed cents component. The card-not-present rate, which Toast publishes nowhere and is reported at 3.50% + $0.15. Whether the rate can rise mid-contract. The term, which Toast's own filing puts at 12 to 36 months, so push for 12. The chargeback fee and the hardware price. And **whether payments are contractually locked to Toast**. That last one is still the critical term.
**[Read full Toast profile](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/toast/)**
* * *
### Lightspeed: Inventory Depth, Card-Present Priced, Online Still Dark
**Consider Lightspeed if:**
- You need matrix inventory, purchase orders, or serialised tracking. That's the reason to buy it
**Pricing:** **card-present is 2.6% + 10c** and the **chargeback fee is $15**, both published. Retail software is $89, $149 and $289 a month; restaurant is $69, $189 and $399, plus $30 per kitchen display screen.
The bare "1.5%" that turns up for Lightspeed appears nowhere on Lightspeed's page. It's an artefact. The real rate matches Shopify Basic exactly in person. So the choice between them is a software decision, not a rate one.
**Still not published:** the online, keyed and card-not-present rates, on either product line. Nor the processing rate for the restaurant product at all. Lightspeed's own filing shows a blended take of about 1.90% against a 2.6% + 10c list price. Its payments page lists "negotiate a competitive rate" as a bullet. There's headroom.
**Ask for:** the online rate, a card-present rate below 2.6% + 10c, confirmation that $15 is the whole dispute cost, the contract term, hardware cost, and the restaurant rate specifically.
**[Read full Lightspeed profile](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/lightspeed/)**
* * *
## Disputes Cost More Than People Model
Processing rates cluster within a point of each other. Dispute pricing doesn't.
| Processor | Dispute you win | Dispute you lose |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **[Helcim](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/helcim/)** | **$0** | $15 |
| **[Square](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/square/)** | **$0** | **$0** |
| **[Authorize.net](https://www.authorize.net/en-us/sign-up/pricing.html)** | **$0.00** on cards, $25.00 on eCheck.Net | Same. Gateway fee only |
| **[Braintree](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/braintree/)** | $15 | $15 |
| **[Shopify Payments](https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/payments/chargebacks/chargeback-process)** | **$0**, the $15 is returned on a win | $15 |
| **[Toast](https://support.toasttab.com/en/article/Chargeback-FAQ)** | $15 | $15 |
| **[Stripe](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/stripe/)** | $15 outright win, **$30 partial win** | $30 |
| **[PayPal](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/paypal/)** | **$0** on a wallet dispute, $20 on a card chargeback | $15 wallet, $20 card |
| **[PayPal](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/paypal/)** above a 1.5% dispute ratio | **$30** | $30 |
| **[Moneris](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/moneris/)** | CA$25 plus CA$80 handling | Same |
| **[Lightspeed](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/lightspeed/)** | **$15**, described as a single fee covering the defence | $15 |
| **Adyen, Checkout.com, Clover, Worldpay, Global Payments, Nuvei, Stax** | Not published | Not published |
All read 2 August 2026. Lightspeed's payments page states "the only thing you can expect is a $15 chargeback fee". It also says "you will be charged a single $15 fee and we will fight tooth and nail to dispute the claim on your behalf." That wording implies no separate representment charge. It would put Lightspeed between Helcim and Stripe. Confirm it in writing.
**The whole published span is $0 to $30.** Nothing here reaches the "$100 a chargeback" you'll read elsewhere. [That figure traces to one unsourced sentence in a vendor marketing article](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/total-cost-model/#step-2-chargeback-costs-often-underestimated). Two caveats on the zeros. Authorize.net is a gateway, so the merchant account behind it charges its own fee. That one isn't on Authorize.net's schedule. Shopify says the returned fee is charged by "your bank", not by Shopify.
**Clover is now the interesting absence.** It publishes a full rate card and no dispute fee, at any tier. Toast turned out to publish one after all, at $15, on its support site rather than its pricing page.
**Worked example, with an assumed 60% win rate:** At 20 disputes a month with a 60% win rate, the annual dispute fee bill runs **$1,440 on Helcim** and **$0 on Square**. On PayPal it's **$1,440 on wallet traffic, $4,800 on card traffic, and $7,200 if you're over the 1.5% line**. For a merchant with $2 million of annual volume, that spread is larger than a 0.15 point difference in processing rate. Use your own win rate when you run the comparison.
Two specifics:
- **Stripe never returns the dispute received fee**, and returns the countered fee only on an outright win. Winning partially costs the same as losing
- **Square charges $0 per dispute and states it outright.** Its Payment Terms separately reserve the right to recover network fines and penalties, which is a different thing from a dispute fee
If your business runs disputes, model this before you model the rate. See [Chargeback Prevention](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/chargebacks/prevention/).
* * *
## Common Processor Combinations
### 1\. A Published-Rate Processor Plus a PayPal Button
**Best for:** online businesses that want PayPal's conversion effect without PayPal's cost as a primary
**How it works:** run cards through [Helcim](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/helcim/) or [Braintree](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/braintree/), and offer PayPal as a second method.
**Cost at $150,000 a month, $100 average ticket, 20% of customers choosing the PayPal wallet:**
| | Volume | Rate | Cost |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Cards via Helcim ($100K-$500K band) | $120,000 | IC + 0.35% + $0.20 | $2,666.40 |
| PayPal wallet | $30,000 | 3.49% + $0.49 | $1,194.00 |
| **Blended** | $150,000 | | **$3,860.40 (2.57%)** |
Compare all-Helcim at $3,333.00. The PayPal button costs you **$527.40 a month**. So the question is whether it adds more than $527 of margin in incremental sales. Measure that, don't assume it. The answer also moves with your primary processor. On Braintree the same button costs about $240 a month, because Braintree's own rate is closer to PayPal's.
### 2\. Square In Store, Something Else Online
**Best for:** omnichannel merchants where in-person is the bulk and the POS is the reason to be on Square
**Why:** Square's POS is strong. Its Free-plan online rate at 3.3% + $0.30 is the worst on this page. Splitting channels avoids paying it.
**The honest caveat:** you're paying for the POS, not the rate. Above a $9.23 card-present ticket Helcim is cheaper in store too. At $20,000 a month with a $50 ticket the difference is $190.80. If you'd genuinely use Square's POS, that's a fair price for it. Decide it as a software purchase, not a payments one.
### 3\. Braintree Alone for Multi-Method Checkout
**Best for:** online merchants who need cards, PayPal, and Venmo without three integrations
**Why:** one SDK. The saving is engineering time, not processing cost. Braintree costs about $1,437 a month more than Helcim at $150,000 a month with a $100 ticket.
### 4\. Interchange-Plus From Day One
**Best for:** anyone whose average ticket clears about $10
**Why:** Helcim has no monthly fee. There's no volume at which you "graduate" to it. The old advice here was to stay flat-rate until $20,000 a month. It came from an interchange assumption that overstated pass-through by 79 basis points card-present. Corrected, the saving at $20,000 a month card-present with a $50 ticket is $190.80. Not the roughly $10 the old model implied.
* * *
## Switching Costs Reality Check
Switching costs include development, testing, downtime risk, team training and card data migration. None of it is free. A saving has to clear it.
**The calculation:**
```text
Monthly saving = (current effective rate - new effective rate) x monthly volume
Switching cost = (developer hours x your rate) + testing + training
Payback months = switching cost / monthly saving
```
Get the switching cost scoped by whoever would do the work. Don't use a number from an article. A plugin swap and a custom integration are nothing alike.
**Rules of thumb that survive the corrected arithmetic:**
- **At $20,000 a month card-present with a $50 ticket**, Square Free to Helcim saves **$190.80 a month**, or $2,290 a year. That pays for a plugin swap immediately and a modest custom job inside a year
- **At $20,000 a month online with a $25 ticket**, Square Free to Helcim saves **$162.40 a month**. Braintree to Helcim saves $72.40. The second one is close enough that a painful migration probably isn't worth it
- **At $150,000 a month online with a $100 ticket**, Square Free to Helcim saves **$2,067 a month** and Braintree to Helcim saves **$1,437**. That pays back most integrations inside a year
- **At $1,500,000 a month**, the same moves save **$24,420** and **$18,120** a month. At that point the switching cost is a rounding error. Staying on flat-rate is the expensive decision
**Worth it for reasons other than cost:** better dispute economics, better support, better developer tooling, or getting off a contract you can't audit.
* * *
## Test to Run
**Processor decision audit, whether you're choosing or reconsidering:**
**Week 1: Usage analysis**
1. Calculate your transaction mix: card-present \_\_\_\_%, online \_\_\_\_%, keyed \_\_\_\_%
2. Calculate monthly volume and monthly transaction count
3. Calculate your average ticket. It matters more than volume. It decides whether fixed fees or percentages dominate
4. Pull your blended interchange from your statement. If your processor won't give it to you, that itself is informative. If you can't get it, use [this site's assumption](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/reference/cost-model-assumptions/) and mark the result an estimate
**Week 2: Cost modelling** 5. Model at least one flat-rate processor and both interchange-plus options ([Helcim](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/helcim/) and [Stax](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/stax/)), all from published rates 6. Include the subscription for Stax and the plan fee for anything that has one. If Stax quotes you "$199+", get the real number before modelling it 7. Add your annual dispute cost to each. This line frequently reorders the ranking
**Week 3: Feature comparison** 8. List must-haves: subscription billing, multi-currency, API depth, POS features, specific payment methods 9. Eliminate anything that fails a must-have, regardless of price
**Week 4: Close the unpublished gaps** 10. For any quote-only vendor still in the running, get the missing numbers in writing: rate, minimum, chargeback fee, contract term, termination fee 11. If a vendor won't put those in writing, remove them
**Decision matrix:**
| Factor | Helcim | Stax | Square | PayPal | Quote-only option |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Effective rate | \_\_% | \_\_% | \_\_% | \_\_% | \_\_% |
| Annual dispute cost | $ | $ | $ | $ | $ |
| Monthly fees | $ | $ | $ | $ | $ |
| Switching cost | $ | $ | $ | $ | $ |
| Has must-haves? | Y/N | Y/N | Y/N | Y/N | Y/N |
| **Total annual cost** | $ | $ | $ | $ | $ |
**Success criteria:** a total annual cost for at least four options, built from published rates and your own statement. Every figure carries the ticket size and volume it assumes. And the winner wins on arithmetic, not on brand.
* * *
## Recommendations by Ticket Size and Volume
Volumes are monthly. Every line carries its channel and ticket, because a recommendation without them isn't one.
### Card-present, ticket under about $19.53
**Recommended:** [PayPal Zettle](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/paypal/) at 2.29% + $0.09.
**Why:** its 9-cent fixed fee is below Helcim's combined fixed cost. Stripe Terminal's 5-cent fixed fee is lower still, so compare it for tickets below $9.76. At a small ticket the fixed fee is most of the cost. At a $15 ticket Zettle beats Helcim at $5,000, $20,000 and $100,000 a month, by $13.00, $52.00 and $43.33. The gap narrows as Helcim's bands step down. At $500,000 a month Helcim takes the lead.
**Watch for:** the crossover. It's a $19.53 ticket in Helcim's entry band, $15.64 in the $100K-$500K band, $13.96 in the $500K-$1M band. If your average is drifting up, recheck.
### Card-present, ticket above about $19.53
**Recommended:** [Helcim](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/helcim/), with no volume threshold to reach first.
**Why:** it wins every card-present cell above a $19.53 ticket in the model, from $5,000 a month to $500,000. At a $50 ticket and $20,000 a month it's $389.20 against Square Free's $580.00 and Zettle's $494.00. There's no monthly fee to earn back, so there's nothing to wait for.
**Also:** [Stax](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/stax/) never beats Helcim card-present at a volume where Stax publishes a price. In the entry band both charge 8 cents. The only difference is Helcim's 0.40% against Stax's subscription. Above $50,000 a month Helcim drops to 7 cents and takes a cent-per-transaction advantage too. **Above roughly $58,000 to $70,000 a month, depending on your ticket, get a Stax quote.** Stax would overtake Helcim there at its published $199 floor. But above $250,000 a year that floor is "$199+" with no ceiling. So it's the earliest possible crossover, not a price. The crossover falls as the ticket rises: about $70,200 at a $15 ticket, $60,300 at $50, $58,500 at $100 and $58,000 at $150.
### Online, ticket under about $10
**Recommended:** [Braintree](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/braintree/) or [Square](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/square/) Free.
**Why:** below a $9.38 ticket Square Free's 30-cent fixed fee beats Helcim's combined 42.2 cents. Below $14.83 Braintree's 29 cents does. At a $10 ticket Braintree is $0.58 against Helcim's $0.62 and Square's $0.63.
### Online, ticket around $25, volume $11,000 to $20,800 a month
**Recommended:** price [Stax](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/stax/) against [Helcim](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/helcim/). This is the one modelled cell Stax wins.
**Why:** Stax's 15-cent online charge undercuts Helcim's 25 cents by enough to pay a $99 or $139 subscription at that transaction count. At $20,000 a month it's $696.60 against $737.60. The window closes at $20,833 a month, where Stax's subscription becomes "$199+".
**Caveat:** it's ticket-sensitive, and it sawtooths with the subscription tiers. Treat it as two windows, not one range. On the $99 tier Stax wins from about $11,000 to $12,500 a month. From $12,500 to about $15,400 the subscription is $139 and Helcim is cheaper again. From $15,400 to $20,833 Stax wins again. Then the subscription becomes "$199+" and Helcim leads until about $22,100. At a $50 ticket the only window is about $19,900 to $20,800 a month. At a $100 ticket there's no rankable window at all.
### Online, ticket above about $15, most volumes
**Recommended:** [Helcim](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/helcim/).
**Why:** it wins every online cell modelled at $75 and $200 tickets, and every $25-ticket cell except the Stax window. At $100,000 a month with a $75 ticket it's $2,346 against Braintree's $3,277.
### Over $5,000,000/Month, or Multi-Market at Any Volume
**Recommended:** run two processes in parallel.
1. Negotiate with [Helcim](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/helcim/). Its pricing genuinely goes custom above $5 million a month, so anchor on the published $1M-$5M band
2. Get quotes from [Adyen](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/adyen/) and [Checkout.com](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/checkout-com/). Judge them on local acquiring in your markets, not on headline rate
**The deciding question isn't volume, it's geography.** A large single-market merchant is usually better off with a transparent domestic processor. Real cross-border volume is where the global platforms earn their integration cost. They earn it in interchange, not in markup.
* * *
## Next Steps
**Choosing your first processor?**
1. Work out your average ticket first. It decides more than your volume does
2. Use the [decision tree above](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/#quick-decision-tree)
3. Read the full profile for your top choice
4. Check [the interchange assumption](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/reference/cost-model-assumptions/) against your own statement
**Reconsidering your current processor?**
1. Run the [processor decision audit](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/#test-to-run)
2. Model [Helcim](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/helcim/) and [Stax](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processors/stax/) from their published schedules. Neither needs a sales call
3. Add your dispute costs to the comparison
4. Read [Processor Switch Checklist](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/playbooks/processor-switch-checklist/) if you're switching
**Want to optimise what you've already got?**
1. [Auth Optimization](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/auth-optimization/) - improve approval rates, which is usually worth more than a rate cut
2. [Chargeback Prevention](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/chargebacks/prevention/) - reduce disputes, which is worth more than winning them
3. [Fraud Detection](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/fraud/detection/) - better screening
* * *
## See Also
- [How We Compare Processor Costs](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/reference/cost-model-assumptions/) - The interchange assumption behind every number here
- [Buying Payments](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/buying-payments/) - Full processor selection framework
- [Processor Comparison](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/processor-comparison/) - Detailed comparison table
- [Processor Switch Checklist](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/playbooks/processor-switch-checklist/) - How to switch
- [Payment Ecosystem](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/payment-ecosystem/) - Processors versus acquirers
- [Provider Types](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/reference/provider-types/) - PayFac, ISO, and acquirer
- [Gateway Basics](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/reference/gateway-basics/) - Gateway versus processor
- [Interchange Reference](https://paymentsandrisk.com/docs/payments/reference/interchange/) - The cost every processor passes through