How to Pay Lower Fees for Credit Processing

You will pay lower fees to process credit cards after you read this guide.

Credit card machines are an essential part of the modern business, and businesses are basically forced to use them if they don’t want to go “cash only”. The good news is that these terminals do serve a valuable function: providing a secure method to transmit payment information from one bank to another, and to talk between many credit card companies. You can also use some tricks to pay lower fees for your transactions, and this guide will help.

Negotiation Tactics

If you’re a small business, you can try pitting payment processors against one another with some comparison shopping. The processor you may want might not reduce rates, but they can help in other ways. They might cut the installation fees for your credit swipe machine, or offer reduced rates in other areas.

If you sell in high volume, you can often set the rate yourself by arguing the volume of transactions will make up the difference. You won’t know what’s possible until you talk to the company.

DIY

If you can do without full support, such as installation or basic troubleshooting, then you can probably save by going with a flat fee. Support costs are usually made up in the fee structure using other means. Just make sure you follow protocol when you’re setting up your credit card machine, or the rates you’ve negotiated may not work out. There are three things to keep in mind: type of business, type of transaction and frequency.

Set protocol in your business to process transactions within 24 hours, which reduces the number of transactions you have for that period (and ultimately reduces the fees that you’ll pay).