[ABCLAW]

No, it isn't? Those are the prices for two providers that aren't even close to lowest-cost providers in the space. They compete on service, not price.

I can get .9 to 2.0% (depending on the industry of my business) off the shelf from at least 6+ sources.

And that's before any interchange rebate programs, volume discounts, or specially negotiated interchange waivers past a certain fee per quarter.

[rbres]

And if you provide us a quote for that rate, we'll 100% match it. We can go as low as anyone else, and are trying to avoid the insanity of negotiating processing rates.

[leesalminen]

Good plan. This is exactly what we do. Keeps us out of the race to the bottom.

[ABCLAW]

Cool, thanks for the reply. That makes more sense.

How much volume do you guys handle?

[Cyberdog]

So your complaint is that a payment processor competing on service, not price, is priced similarly to other processors competing on service?

[ABCLAW]

I didn't start with a complaint, just an observation.

The CEO made it clear those rates are essentially a tax paid by unsavvy engineers that haven't shopped for rates because they aren't actually interested in setting competitive rates.

The real market rate for interchange is FAR lower than those described here, and from the replies you'll see that even here on HN there are a lot of tech smart, finance dumb engineers that didn't know that they're throwing away a big chunk of their revenue by taking the shelf rate for payment processing.

[rbres]

Exactly :-) We're here to compete on revenue lift + value-add. If we do not generate significantly more revenue than we charge, our customers turn us off.

[adrr]

2.0% blended pricing wouldn't cover the interchange for Amex, VISA Signature Cards or Mastercard World Elite. 0.9% wouldn't cover anything except durbin debit cards.

If you're big enough you do interchange plus pricing where the interchange is passed through and small processing fee is added. Blended rates are for small companies.

[ABCLAW]

Smallco can do interchange plus too. It's more daunting, but almost always a better option.

2.0% blended does actually cover premium segment cards on a per transaction basis even at the top-end shelf rate depending on how you've structured your payment processing pipeline. Fully international transfers on high-end cards often cost less than intra-jurisdictional premium card purchases. Shelf rate, you're looking at 2.7 in the worst case without negotiation or any work on the part of the merchant.

But even if didn't - premium card penetration isn't very high.

So why are you paying for the full premium card interchange on every transaction?

Your merchant agreement restricts how you can do it, but you can provide incentives to use different payment venues. You don't have an incentive to push people towards low-interchange channels if you're getting fleeced on every channel.

Given the difference for a 10% margin product purchase between a 1.0 and 3.0 blended rate processor is literally a 28% difference to your bottom line, getting on top of the minutiae of your agreement is tremendously important.

[Artemis2]

Very true, interchange plus is the way to go outside of Europe or Durbin-regulated customer bases.

[ohitsdom]

Can you share a few companies that are that low? Stripe and Paypal would be my go-tos for adding any online purchasing to a site, so I thought the 2.9% was unavoidable (for small revenue sites).

[leesalminen]

.9% in the US? That would only cover some debit cards. I’m not aware of any credit card with an interchange rate that low.