How we compare payment processing in the US
We list 13 card processors selling into the US market, and a published rate card exists for 9 providers. Where a company will not publish a rate we show that it quotes, rather than printing a figure invented on its behalf.
The calculator runs on four inputs: monthly card volume, average transaction, your current rate, and the share of sales taken in person rather than online. Those decide the answer, because a percentage and a fixed cents charge pull against each other as the ticket size moves, and almost every provider here prices each channel separately.
Ranking is arithmetic on the published rates at the volume and mix you enter. A provider's commercial relationship with us never moves it, we do not sell placement, and the cheapest row is whatever the numbers say it is.
Rates are what each provider publishes to a US merchant. Some are blended figures with interchange already inside them, some are a markup quoted on top of interchange, and that structural difference matters more than the decimal places.
Four ways payment processing gets priced, and where each one wins
Almost every US quote you will receive is one of four shapes.
Flat rate. One published percentage plus a fixed cents charge, the same for every card, with interchange folded in. Square lists 2.6% + 15c in person and 3.3% + 30c online. Stripe lists 2.7% + 5c and 2.9% + 30c. PayPal lists 2.29% + 9c and 2.99% + 49c. You never see interchange, and you never benefit when a customer pays with a cheap card.
Interchange-plus. Interchange is passed through at cost and the processor adds a stated markup. Helcim publishes IC + 0.40% + 8c in person and IC + 0.50% + 25c online. Adyen publishes IC++ + 0.60% + $0.13 as the same structure at the enterprise end.
Subscription or membership. A flat monthly fee buys interchange at cost with little or no percentage markup on top. Stax charges $99/mo and lists 0% markup + 8c in person and 0% markup + 15c online.
Quote only. No published rate at all until you apply and are underwritten. That applies to 4 providers here, including the high-risk specialist PaymentCloud, whose rate row reads Get quote.
The crossover between these shapes is the only calculation that matters. A monthly fee is a fixed cost that shrinks as a share of turnover the more you process, while a percentage markup grows in a straight line, so below some volume the flat-rate account wins and above it the subscription does. Your average ticket moves that crossover too, because a fixed cents charge is a heavy tax on a small sale and a rounding error on a large one. Enter your own numbers rather than reading the percentages.
One thing makes this more consequential in the US than in most markets: there is no regulatory cap on credit card interchange here, and the Durbin Amendment caps debit interchange only for issuers above a size threshold. What a card costs to accept therefore varies widely with the card itself, and on a shared blended rate a business whose customers pay with regulated debit is subsidizing one whose customers pay with premium rewards credit.
Direct or reseller: who you buy payment processing from changes the fees
Same brand, different contract. Several of these platforms are sold both directly by the vendor and through banks, ISOs and independent resellers, and the reseller channel is where the contract terms live.
Clover is the clearest example, and the reason its fees are asked about more than anyone else's. Its contract row reads Varies by reseller, its early termination fee ~$295-595 (reseller), its PCI compliance fee ~$9.95/mo (reseller), its setup fee Varies and its refund fee Varies. Those are reseller decisions rather than one national price list, so merchants running identical hardware can be on very different terms. Read the paper you are handed, not the brand.
Toast sells direct and still carries term structure: its contract reads 2-3 years, early termination $150/mo remaining, setup ~$250 and PCI ~$9.95/mo.
At the other end, some providers publish one set of terms and hold to it. Helcim's contract reads No contract with early termination at None, Square's Month-to-month, Stripe's No contract and Chase Payment Solutions' Month-to-month.
How a provider lets you sign up is a decent proxy for how it prices its fees. Square's signup model is Self-serve (custom pricing over $250K/yr is sales-led) and Helcim's is Self-serve online signup, where PaymentCloud's is Application and underwriting (not self-serve) and Adyen's is Contact sales (no self-serve). Anything that goes through a person is a negotiation, which cuts both ways: the rate is not fixed, and nor are the fees around it.
Settle five things before you sign: whether the term is month to month or fixed, whether early termination is a flat amount or a charge per month remaining, whether PCI is included or billed monthly, whether a separate penalty applies if you miss the annual questionnaire, and who owns the hardware when you leave.
Square and Clover payment processing, compared where they actually differ
This is the head-to-head US merchants run most often, and the useful version is dimension by dimension: the two are close on some rows and structurally different on others.
Rate by channel. Square lists 2.6% + 15c in person and 3.3% + 30c online. Clover lists 2.6% + 10c and 3.5% + 10c. Compare the channels separately and weight them by your own split: a counter-heavy business and a web-heavy business buy different numbers from the same brand.
Monthly software fee. Square's reads Free and Clover's reads From $0-135/mo. Clover's software plan is part of what the seller configures, so confirm this row in writing rather than assuming it from the website.
Compliance and dispute fees. Square's PCI fee reads Included free and its chargeback fee Free. Clover's read ~$9.95/mo (reseller) and ~$20-50.
Refunds and instant access to funds. Square's refund fee reads Free and Clover's Varies. For same-day money, Square charges 1.95% per instant/same-day transfer and Clover charges 1.75% Rapid Deposit fee.
Hardware outlay. Square's published devices run Free reader; Reader $59, Terminal $299, Register $799. Clover's run Go ~$49-199, Flex ~$599-749, Mini ~$799-849, Station ~$1,499+.
American Express. Square's Amex row reads No separate Amex rate and Clover's reads No separate Amex rate ("Consistent Rates"). Where a provider does quote Amex separately, that is a real cost rather than a footnote.
Payment processing when the card is not in the room
Most small businesses now take money in several ways at once, and the price is not the same for all of them. Start with the two rate rows side by side. Square: 2.6% + 15c against 3.3% + 30c. Stripe: 2.7% + 5c against 2.9% + 30c. Helcim: IC + 0.40% + 8c against IC + 0.50% + 25c. The difference between a provider's two figures is what a remote sale costs you over a tapped one, and it is what catches a counter business that grew a web side without renegotiating anything.
Payment links. A hosted URL you send by text or email, no website required. Most of this table supports them, which makes the exceptions worth knowing. Toast's payment links row reads No and its hosted checkout reads No, which is what a platform built around a guest who is physically present looks like.
Invoicing. Square's invoicing row reads Yes, Stripe's Yes and Helcim's Yes. Toast's reads Existing Toast customers only, a good example of why the tick in a feature column is worth reading rather than counting.
Recurring billing. Square's row reads Yes, Stripe's Yes and Helcim's Yes. Presence is not the interesting question, since nearly everyone offers it. Ask instead whether failed cards are retried automatically, whether the stored card vault can be migrated out if you leave, and whether a stored-card charge is priced as card-present or card-not-present.
Keyed and phone orders. A virtual terminal is a web form your staff type a card into. Square's reads Yes, Helcim's Yes and Toast's No. Budget a keyed sale at the online rate or worse: as far as the card networks are concerned, nobody proved the card was there.
Cards issued outside the US. This is an added percentage on top of the normal rate, and sometimes a further charge if the currency has to be converted. Square lists +1.5% international transaction fee, Stripe lists +1.5% for international cards (+1% more if currency conversion required), PayPal lists Additional 1.50% on international/commercial transactions and Airwallex lists +1.50% (International Cards vs Domestic Cards). If you sell overseas regularly, that row moves more money than a tenth of a point on your domestic rate.
Chargebacks, refunds and payout speed on a payment processing account
Three lines on a statement have nothing to do with your rate and can outweigh a rate difference over a year.
Dispute fees. Stripe charges $15 per dispute, PayPal $20, Square Free, Stax ~$25, Toast ~$15-25, Clover ~$20-50 and Chase Payment Solutions ~$25-100. Helcim's row reads $0 won / $15 lost, which is a different structure rather than a different number: the charge depends on the outcome, not merely on the dispute being raised. Multiply whichever applies by a realistic dispute count for your category before dismissing it.
Refund fees. The question is whether your original processing fee comes back when you refund a customer. Square's row reads Free, Stripe's Free, Helcim's Free, Airwallex's $0.30 and Chase Payment Solutions' Fee not returned. In apparel, footwear or anything else with a high return rate, read that row before the rate.
Payout timing. Helcim settles Next business day, Square Next business day, Stax 1-3 business days and Chase Payment Solutions Same-day (Chase account), which is the one genuine advantage of keeping processing with your own bank.
Instant deposit. Paying to move money you already earned a day or two earlier is short-term financing, and the percentages read cheap only because they are quoted per transfer rather than annualized. Stripe charges 1.5% (US rate), PayPal 1.50% of amount transferred, minimum $0.50, Square 1.95% per instant/same-day transfer, Clover 1.75% Rapid Deposit fee and Toast 1.75% Instant Deposit fee (excludes Amex Direct transactions). Work out what that costs across a year of daily transfers before leaving it on by default. If cash flow really needs it daily, the cheaper fix is usually a provider that settles faster as standard.
Surcharging, and who pays for payment processing in your state
Passing the cost of card acceptance on to the customer is permitted in most US states, subject to conditions. That is unusual, it is a real lever for a thin-margin business, and it is also the area where merchants most often get themselves into trouble.
Two rule sets apply at once, and the stricter governs. The card networks set requirements for merchants who surcharge, typically including registration before you start, a cap on the amount, clear disclosure at the entrance, at the point of sale and on the receipt, and a general exclusion of debit and prepaid cards even when run as credit. Separately, state law applies, and a small number of states restrict or prohibit the practice or attach their own conditions. We will not tell you what your state allows: confirm your own state's current position and the current network rules first, and get your processor's answer in writing.
Cash discounting is the related mechanism, where the posted price already includes card acceptance and a customer paying another way receives a discount. It is treated differently in both state law and network rules, and the difference lies in how the price is presented rather than in the economics.
Your pricing model decides whether you can even calculate a fair surcharge. On interchange-plus or a subscription account, interchange and markup arrive as separate lines, so you know what a particular sale actually cost you: Helcim's IC + 0.40% + 8c and Stax's 0% markup + 8c both itemize that way. A flat rate such as Square's 2.6% + 15c is one blended number by design, which is simpler to reconcile and tells you nothing about the cost of the individual card in front of you.
Confirm the plumbing too. Not every provider supports surcharging, and several that do require their own tooling so the cap, the disclosure and the debit exclusion are enforced automatically rather than by staff remembering.
One last thought, and it is the honest one. If your margin is thin enough that surcharging looks necessary, price the interchange-plus and subscription options properly first. Lowering your own cost of acceptance carries none of the customer-facing risk of adding a line to the receipt.