Card fees and how to reduce them

The three layers, briefly

1. Interchange. Paid to the card-issuing bank. Set by Visa/Mastercard. UK consumer debit caps at 0.2%, credit at 0.3%. Commercial cards uncapped, much higher.
2. Scheme fees. Paid to Visa/Mastercard themselves. Typically 0.05 to 0.15%, plus per-transaction fixed fees.
3. Acquirer markup. What your processor charges on top. This is the only layer that's actually negotiable, and where most operators are quietly overpaying.

UK processor lineup

• Square, flat rate (typically 1.75% in-person). Predictable, no contract, but becomes expensive once you're processing £15k+/month versus a tiered acquirer.
• Dojo, custom pricing, no flat rate publicly. Strong on next-day settlement. Negotiable hard once you're past £20k/month.
• Worldpay, incumbent. Pricing varies wildly by what you signed. Almost always worth re-quoting after 18 months.
• Stripe, 1.5% + 20p UK cards online. Premium pricing for premium dev experience worth it if you're API-integrated, expensive if you're not.
• Zettle (PayPal), 1.75% in-person, similar to Square. Strong for very small operators, less competitive at scale.
• SumUp, 1.69%, strong on no-contract simplicity. Same scaling problem as Zettle.

Five ways to reduce your bill

1. Re-quote annually. Get two new quotes every 12 months. Even if you don't switch, the threat of switching is the most reliable lever for lowering an existing rate.
2. Move off flat-rate at scale. Once you're past £15 to 20k/month in card takings, flat-rate processors become the most expensive option for predictable transaction mixes.
3. Question every "non-qualified" surcharge. Many tiered acquirers quietly bucket commercial-card and corporate-card transactions at much higher rates. Audit a recent statement.
4. Use the right terminal for the right transaction. Card-not-present is always more expensive than chip & PIN. If you're taking phone orders, a virtual terminal often costs less than keying through your countertop.
5. Don't buy what you don't need. Loyalty modules, insurance add-ons, gift cards the per-month subscriptions add up. Audit annually.

One real number: a typical pub doing £35k/month in card takings, switching from a 2.1% blended rate on Worldpay to 1.55% on a re-negotiated Dojo deal, saves £2,310/year. That's roughly the cost of a small MCA at 1.25 fixed cost paid back in 6 months, gone, every year, in pure margin. Worth an afternoon of negotiation.