Credit card processing for Canadian businesses

The three layers of every card fee

Interchange goes to the card issuing bank and is set by the card networks, but it is not one number. The rate on each sale depends on the card type, how the card was accepted, your business profile and industry, and your volume. Network assessments go to Visa, Mastercard and their peers. The acquirer margin is the layer your agreement sets, and blended pricing exists to keep you from seeing it.

The setup behind your account matters too. The industry code it carries, the data sent with each transaction, such as Level 2 and Level 3 detail on corporate cards, and security steps such as 3DS all decide which interchange category a sale lands in. The same business can pay more interchange with one provider than another because of how the account was configured. Businesses in industries the card networks and processors treat as higher risk usually pay more to accept cards than businesses in standard categories.

Interchange plus pricing shows all three layers separately on the statement. That transparency is not cosmetic: it is the only structure under which you can verify what you pay, compare providers honestly, and see each card type priced as what it is instead of as an average.

Premium cards are the quiet expense

Basic consumer cards sit at the bottom of the interchange tables. Travel, infinite and corporate cards sit meaningfully higher, and their share of Canadian wallets keeps growing. On blended pricing, the processor either absorbs that spread or, far more commonly, sets the blend high enough to cover it, and every basic card you take is then priced as something it is not.

Surcharging, set up to the rules

Canadian merchants outside Quebec have been permitted to surcharge credit card transactions since late 2022, within card brand caps and disclosure rules. It is a real lever: it recovers the cost of accepting credit cards at the till, and every customer sees it. We model it against a fitted structure so you can decide, and where it fits, we set it up to the card brand rules. More on how we set up surcharging.

Credit card fees for merchants, itemized

When a merchant asks what credit card fees actually consist of, the honest itemization is short: an interchange amount that varies with the card presented and the channel it arrives through, a small network assessment, the acquirer's margin, and then the per item and monthly lines around the edges, from batch fees to statement fees to PCI programs. The margin and the edge fees are set by your agreement, and how your account is set up decides which interchange categories your sales land in.

That is why comparing providers by headline rate misleads: the headline blends the layers precisely so it cannot be compared. Comparing the visible margin on a fitted, interchange plus structure is the comparison that means something, and the review does it against your own statement rather than a rate card.

Hidden fees: what to look for on a statement

The headline rate is rarely the whole cost. These are the lines that sit outside it, and the ones we look for first in a review.

Any one of them can be legitimate. The trouble starts when a fee is not itemized, was never explained, or arrives after the first year. The statement review lists every one of these lines on your statement, and what we propose is quoted in writing before anything is scheduled. If a terminal lease is on the list, read why we recommend renting first.