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Credit card fees calculator

Your real cost per $100 of card sales against a fair range for your type of restaurant, so you can see whether your fees are worth questioning and what to ask.

You'll need: One month's card statement: the month's card sales, the total fees taken that month, and the number of card sales if the statement shows it.

By · Updated · How it's worked out

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Your real cost per $100 of card sales

US card fees. Nothing you type is sent to us.

Your processor is the company that runs your card payments: Square, Toast, Clover, Stripe or a bank. Its name is at the top of the monthly statement, which has every figure this needs. Your effective rate is what you really pay per $100 of card sales, every fee in.

Example numbers. Replace them with yours.

  1. Everything charged to cards that month, tips included, before fees: on the statement as total sales, gross sales or amount processed, or in your POS card report. Leave out delivery app orders: the app already paid for their card processing.

  2. Every fee the processor took that month, from the same statement: the percentage and per-sale fees, and any monthly or annual fees. Statements call it total fees, fees charged or total discount.

  3. Who processes your cards?

    The name at the top of your card statement. A bank's or a reseller's own brand counts as a bank or independent processor.

  4. What kind of restaurant is it?

    It sets the likely mix of debit and credit cards your guests pay with, which moves the fair range.

  5. How big are your card sales? (optional)

    Give one or the other. Each sale carries a few cents of fixed fees, so small sales cost more per $100: your own sale size narrows the fair range.

    On the statement as transactions, sales count or items.

    Card sales ÷ the number of card sales.

  6. How does the processor price your cards? (optional)

    Interchange is the card banks' share of every card sale, set by Visa and Mastercard. Your statement's layout usually shows the pricing: one rate for every card, interchange lines with a markup, or qualified, mid-qualified and non-qualified lines.

With the example numbers

Your card fees came to $2,810 on $80,000 of card sales: $3.51 per $100, an effective rate of 3.51%.

A fair range for a full-service restaurant with a $35.00 average card sale is about $2.36 to $2.67 per $100.

That's high: 84¢ per $100 above the top of the range. At these card sales, that's about $674 to $794 a month above a fair price (against the range's top and its middle), or about $8,088 to $9,528 a year.

What's realistic with your processor

  • A bank's or an independent processor's price can be asked about. You could ask for interchange-plus pricing, where interchange and network fees pass through at cost and the markup is stated: a competitive markup on that kind of account is about 0.15% to 0.3% of card sales plus 5¢ to 10¢ a sale, and $10 to $25 a month.
  • You could also ask for the fees to question below to come off, and get a written quote from one or two other processors to compare their cost per $100 with yours.
  • Before moving, find the contract's end date, its early termination fee and any equipment lease: a lease often runs longer than the processing contract.

What to ask your processor

Read it out on the phone, or paste it into an email or a support chat.

My card fees last month were $2,810 on $80,000 of card sales, $3.51 per $100. Please send me an interchange-plus quote, with your markup as a percent plus cents per sale and every monthly or annual fee named, and tell me which fees on my statement you can remove. Please also confirm in writing my contract's end date and any early termination fee.

Fees to question on your statement

By the names statements print them. Not every statement has them all.

PCI non-compliance fee
A monthly penalty, often $20 to $50, for not filling in the card industry's yearly security questionnaire (PCI DSS). It stops once the questionnaire is done.
PCI compliance fee or annual PCI fee
A charge for the questionnaire's website. Ask what it pays for and whether it can come off.
Statement fee
A monthly charge for the statement itself.
Regulatory, compliance or service fee
A fee with an official-sounding name that isn't on Visa's or Mastercard's published schedules: ask which rule requires it.
Annual fee
A once-a-year charge that lands in one month's statement and makes that month look dear.
Monthly minimum
A charge, often $5 to $25, when the month's fees fall short of a set amount.
Mid-qualified and non-qualified rates (M-Qual, N-Qual)
On tiered pricing, sales the processor puts in these tiers cost more than qualified ones; Visa's own non-qualified rate is 3.15% + 10¢. Ask which sales landed there and why.
A per-sale, item or transaction fee above 10¢
On interchange-plus, 5¢ to 10¢ a sale is competitive.
Dispute or chargeback fees
Stripe charges $15 a dispute (and $15 more to counter it, returned if you win); Square charges none. A bank's fee is in its contract.
A notice of a rate change
Rate increases often arrive as a line of text on the statement or an insert with it: compare this month's rates with three months ago.
Early termination fee or liquidated damages
In the contract, not on the monthly statement: often $295 to $495, or the processor's expected earnings for the rest of a term that often runs 36 months and then renews itself.
Equipment lease
Often billed by a separate leasing company, so it's not on the statement, and often longer than the processing contract: four years at $90 a month is $4,320 for a terminal worth $300 to $500.

Before you act on it

  • Fair ranges are estimates, not published prices: what a competitive interchange-plus account would cost, worked out from Visa's published restaurant rates (effective April 18, 2026), network fees and processor markups as consultants report them, and an assumed mix of debit and credit cards for this type of restaurant.
  • One month can mislead: annual fees, rate changes and month-end corrections (Toast posts one every month) land in single months. Compare three months before deciding.
  • Online orders cost more: Visa's online restaurant rates are 2.2% and 2.7% against 2.1% and 2.6% in person, and flat-rate plans charge more online (3.3% + 30¢ on Square's Free plan). A big share of online orders raises the cost per $100.
  • Tips are added after the card is run, and the fee is charged on them too: use card sales with tips in, or the cost per $100 reads higher than it is.
  • Leave delivery app orders out of card sales: the app's commission already covers their card processing.
  • Passing card fees on to guests: credit card surcharges are banned in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Maine, capped at 2% in Colorado and at 3% by Visa's rules, and never allowed on debit cards. Check your state's rule before any sign goes up.
  • The Visa and Mastercard settlement is pending the court's final approval. If approved, it would cap interchange on standard consumer credit cards at 1.25%, which would lower these ranges; every range here is dated so it can be updated.
How we worked it out
Cost per $100
$2,810 ÷ $80,000 × 100 = $3.51
Average card sale
$35.00 as given: about 2,286 card sales on $80,000
Fair range
interchange + network fees + a fair markup = $2.36 to $2.67 per $100 (Visa's rates effective April 18, 2026)
Middle of the range
($2.36 + $2.67) ÷ 2 = $2.52
Above the top
$2,810 − 2.67% of $80,000 = $674 a month
Above the middle
$2,810 − 2.52% of $80,000 = $794 a month
A year
$674 × 12 = $8,088; $794 × 12 = $9,528

How the cost per $100 works

Every card sale pays three fees stacked together: interchange, the card banks' share, set by Visa and Mastercard; network fees to Visa and Mastercard themselves; and your processor's markup, the part you can ask about. Add up everything taken in a month and divide it by the month's card sales, and you have your effective rate: what you really pay per $100.

Cost per $100 of card sales
Cost per $100 = total card fees ÷ card sales × 100

One full month: every fee the processor took, monthly and annual fees included, and card sales with tips in.

The fair range is an estimate, not a published price: what the same card sales would cost on a competitive interchange-plus account, worked out from Visa's published restaurant rates (effective April 18, 2026: 2.1% on most credit cards in person, 2.6% on premium ones), network fees, a competitive markup and an assumed mix of debit and credit cards for your type of restaurant. A flat-rate plan near its published rate is the price of that plan, not a fee to question.

The three layers, the cap on debit card fees and where surcharges are limited are explained in full in credit card fees for restaurants: what you pay and why.

Common questions

Where do I find my card sales and fees?

On your processor's monthly statement. Card sales may be called total sales, gross sales or amount processed; fees may be called total fees, fees charged or total discount. Use the same month for both, with tips in and delivery app orders out, and compare three months before you decide: one month can mislead.

Why do small sales cost more per $100?

Most card fees are a percentage of the sale plus a few cents a sale. On a $10 sale, 15 cents is 1.5% of the sale; on a $35 sale it's under half a point. Give the number of card sales from your statement and the fair range uses your own sale size.

I'm on Square or Toast. Can I get a lower rate?

Square charges everyone on a plan the same published rate, and offers custom rates to sellers with annual sales above $250,000. Toast requires Toast Payments, so its card processing can't be moved on its own, though larger restaurants are sometimes quoted below the standard rate. The result says what's realistic for yours.

Can I add a surcharge to cover card fees?

Check your state first. Credit card surcharges are banned in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Maine, capped at 2% in Colorado and at 3% by Visa's rules, and never allowed on debit cards. The card fees post has the details.

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