rfp template
Payment Gateway RFP: 27 Questions Every Quote Should Answer
Especially useful for quote-only vendors. Without a structured RFP you cannot compare an Adyen quote to a Worldpay quote.
27
Total questions
8
Pricing questions
7
Technical questions
12
Ops + contractual
How to use this template
Send the full 27-question template to every shortlisted vendor at the start of week 3 of your procurement cycle. Demand structured answers (a table, not a Word document). Compare answers in a side-by-side spreadsheet. The vendors who push back on the format are usually the ones who hide their margin in operational fees.
“The RFP made it impossible for the incumbent to dodge the question. They came back with an interchange-plus offer that saved us 60bps a year. They had it all along.”— Anonymous mid-market merchant, $40M/yr GMV, after switching from a tiered vendor to interchange-plus
Pricing (8 questions)
- What is your headline rate for our domestic online card mix, with the per-transaction fixed fee?
- What is your interchange-plus rate at our projected volume, broken into IC, assessment, markup, and per-tx?
- Do you charge a monthly minimum, statement fee, or batch fee? If so, what amount?
- What is the dispute fee, and is it refundable on win?
- What is the cross-border surcharge for international cards?
- What is the FX margin on currency conversion, expressed in bps over mid-market?
- Do you charge PCI compliance fees? Are they waivable on SAQ-A?
- Are there setup fees, integration fees, or training fees?
Technical (7 questions)
- Do you offer a hosted checkout (Stripe Checkout-style), embedded UI (Elements-style), and direct API (Payment Intents-style)?
- What is your SDK coverage for our stack (Node, Python, Ruby, PHP, Go, Java, .NET, mobile)?
- How do you handle SCA / 3DS for European cards?
- What is your authorisation rate by issuer and geography? Can you share a benchmark vs the industry?
- What is your webhook retry policy and dead-letter behaviour?
- Do you support multi-currency settlement? Which currencies and where do you hold balances?
- Do you support split payments / Connect-style marketplace flows, and what is the per-account fee?
Operational (6 questions)
- What is your KYB / underwriting timeline from contract signature to first live transaction?
- What is your settlement schedule and can it be accelerated?
- What level of dispute and refund tooling is available in the dashboard?
- What is your support model (24/7, business hours, premium tier)?
- What SLAs do you commit to for uptime and webhook delivery?
- How are reconciliation reports delivered (daily file, API pull, dashboard)?
Contractual (6 questions)
- What is the contract term and the auto-renewal clause?
- What is the early-termination fee?
- Do you require a rolling reserve, and if so what percentage and hold period?
- What is the data-portability commitment if we leave (token export, customer migration)?
- What change-of-control / parent-company provisions exist?
- What indemnities cover us in a PCI breach scenario?
Related
verified Last verified June 2026