What You Need to Know About Merchant Fees

This article submitted by: www.charge.com.

The most important part of a merchant account contract is the fee structure. Business owners should know the basic fee structure prior to opening an account. The discount rate is the most important rate on the contract. The discount rate is a percentage that is charged to you per transaction and gets paid to the processing company for the merchant account. If you only do face to face transactions, you will have a low rate but if you also sell online, the online rate is higher. The setup fee is assesses to you to set up the merchant account

This is only a one time fee and some companies will charge this setup fee whereas others will waive the fee as part of a special they may be running at the time you sign up. The equipment fee is for the credit card machine or the peripherals that go along with it. The chargeback fee is assessed to you if a customer disputes the credit card charge on their account that came from your place of business. If the credit card company sides with the consumer, you are assessed this fee for the return. The minimum monthly fee is a charge that is assessed when you do not met the minimum Visa and MasterCard requirements. This fee is to make up the difference should you sales be low for that particular month. The address verification system fee is only assessed if you manually key in the consumer’s credit card instead of swiping it.