Frequently Asked Questions

For high-volume merchants (over $1M monthly), Helcim's published interchange-plus margin of 0.15% is the cheapest with a verifiable number on the open web. For SMB merchants, the answer depends on basket size and channel: Square Free wins in-person at 2.6% + $0.15; Stripe and PayPal Advanced share the cheapest online tier at 2.89-2.90% + $0.30-0.49. Eight enterprise vendors do not publish a rate at all.

Two levers: (1) Volume - every quote-only acquirer (Adyen, Worldpay, Checkout.com, Fiserv, Chase, Elavon, Global Payments) will discount the margin once you exceed a threshold (usually $250K-$1M monthly). (2) RFP with a Helcim quote - Helcim's published interchange-plus margin is the natural anchor; bring it to any quote-only acquirer and ask them to beat it on a like-for-like card mix.

Interchange-plus pricing passes through the wholesale interchange (set by Visa/Mastercard, paid to the card issuer) and only charges a margin on top. A typical US blended interchange is ~1.65%; a published interchange-plus margin like Helcim's 0.15-0.50% puts total cost at 1.80-2.15% on a typical mix. Flat-rate gateways (Stripe 2.9% + $0.30) hide the same stack behind one number. Full explainer here.

The vendor does not publish a rate card on their open public website. To get a number you have to start a sales conversation. We flag every such vendor on every page they appear on, and we do not infer rates from secondary sources or industry estimates. Full quote-only list here.

Every 90 days as a baseline, with out-of-cycle refreshes when a vendor changes pricing materially (e.g. the Stripe 17 June 2025 dispute restructure). Each page carries a 'Last verified' date stamp at the bottom.

Because that is what Stripe publishes for US standard online cards. Stripe will offer custom interchange-plus above roughly $80K monthly volume, but only under NDA, so it does not appear on any public comparison page.

Partially. From 17 June 2025 Stripe restructured to a two-tier model: the $15 receipt fee is non-refundable even on a win, plus an optional $15 counter fee that is refunded on win. Smart Disputes waives the counter fee and replaces it with a 30% success fee on the recovered amount. Full chargeback fee table here.

No. Both are pass-through wallets that ride on the underlying card gateway. The merchant pays only what the gateway charges for the underlying card transaction. Apple takes its cut from the card issuer's interchange share, not the merchant.

Across published rate cards in our matrix, the simple-mean flat-rate online card sits around 2.85% + $0.30. The effective rate a merchant actually pays depends on card mix, dispute rate, international share, and FX, and is usually 30-80 basis points higher than the headline.

Klarna's published standard rate is 5.99% + $0.30, dropping to ~3.29% on negotiated $5M+ revenue contracts. Afterpay's merchant rate is currently quote-only on the open web (the canonical merchant URL returns 404). BNPL economics are justified by AOV uplift, not by per-transaction cost.