Key findings
Year-one edition — compiled from published sources
This first edition doesn't yet have our own dataset behind it, so we say that up front: everything below comes from published sources, not from our client audits. We'll add our own numbers when the sample is big enough to be honest about.
Average effective rate, Visa/Mastercard, 2025
2.36%
The Merchants Payments Coalition put the 2025 average Visa/Mastercard effective rate at 2.36% — the headline number for what "average" processing costs look like across the board.
Source: Merchants Payments Coalition, via KoronaPOS — Understanding merchant statements.
A worked restaurant example
2.07%
KoronaPOS's worked example walks a restaurant through its own statement math and lands at 2.07%. Useful as an illustration of how the calculation works — not a benchmark for what your business should pay.
Source: KoronaPOS — Understanding merchant statements. Illustrative example, not a target rate.
The interchange settlement
−0.10 pts, 1.25% cap — preliminary
In April 2026 the interchange settlement received preliminary court approval: roughly a 0.10-percentage-point cut with a 1.25% cap on covered interchange. Preliminary means exactly that — not final, not yet in your statement, and the details can still move.
Status: preliminary approval only. We'll update this finding if and when it becomes final.
To be published when our data supports it
These are the sections we're building toward. They'll appear here — and in the annual PDF — only once we have enough real submissions to back them honestly. We publish medians with sample sizes, never cherry-picked figures.
Effective rates by sector
Retail, restaurants, quick-service, hotels, grocery, salons — what comparable businesses actually pay, reported anonymously through our transparency wall. Each cell needs enough reports to be statistically honest before it goes live.
Effective rates by processor
Same data, cut by processor rather than sector. Published only when individual processors have enough independent reports that the median can't be skewed by a handful of unusual accounts.
Fee-trend analysis
Are rates actually moving year over year, or just reshuffling between line items? This needs multiple years of comparable data — it starts appearing in the 2027 edition at the earliest.
Our sample-size rule: public aggregates appear only where we have enough independent reports that the median is meaningful — at minimum, cells with fewer than three reports stay hidden, and bigger claims need bigger samples. A figure without a sample size next to it is a rumor, not data.
Methodology: how the audit reads a statement
The same method behind our audits is the method behind this report. No magic — just careful reading.
- Pull total fees and total volume. We take every fee on the statement — interchange, assessment, processor markup, monthly fees, terminal fees, the lot — and divide by total card volume for the period. That's the effective rate: the single number that tells you what you're really paying.
- Separate the three cost layers. Interchange (goes to the card-issuing banks), card-brand assessments (Visa/Mastercard/Amex), and processor markup (the part your processor actually controls). You can't negotiate interchange — it's set by the card brands — but the markup is where overcharges hide.
- Check the markup against pricing tier. We compare what the processor kept against published interchange-plus and flat-rate pricing for your sector and volume band, to see whether the markup is competitive or padded.
- Scan for junk fees. Line items that have no card-brand equivalent and add no value — "statement fees," "PCI non-compliance fees" charged to compliant merchants, duplicated monthly charges. These come out one by one.
- Verify against multiple months. Three to six months of statements, so seasonal swings and one-off spikes don't skew the picture. The baseline we negotiate from is a documented average, not a lucky month.
- Document the savings formula. The audit fee is computed from documented monthly savings — baseline effective rate × current volume minus actual fees, spelled out as a written exhibit — so every number in this report, and in our client work, traces back to real statements.
Get the 2027 edition by email
When our own dataset is big enough to publish, it goes out to subscribers first — plus alerts when published fee schedules change. Free, obviously.
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