Industries
A wide range of basket sizes and a wide mix of card types is the case a blended rate handles worst. It is also the most common thing retailers are sold.
A blended rate charges the same percentage whatever the card. That is simple, and it means every cheap debit tap quietly subsidises the expensive premium credit cards — you pay an averaged price on traffic that mostly is not average.
The more your card mix varies, the more a blended rate costs you against interchange-plus. Retail varies more than most.
The number that matters is every fee on the statement divided by what you turned over. Terminal rental, monthly minimums, PCI fees and statement fees all land in it, and none of them are in the rate you were quoted.
It is common for a headline rate to look competitive and the effective rate to be half a per cent worse.
Once you run a second or third terminal, the per-device costs start to dominate and the arithmetic changes. Sizing terminals to how many payments happen simultaneously — rather than how many staff are rostered — is usually where the saving is.
Tell us what you trade as and roughly what you turn over on cards. We quote it across the panel and are straight with you about whether it is worth moving.