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Complete Merchant Account Rates & Fees

The fees mentioned below exclude the applicable transaction and monthly fee for the service you are interested in.
  1. Qualified, Mid & Non-Qual Rate

    Visa & MasterCard have several dozen rates ranging significantly in price, known as Interchange. To simplify the billing, merchant account providers group these rates into three pricing categories:

    1. Qualified Discount Rate

      The discount rate you see advertised is referred to as your qualified rate and is a percentage taken from every dollar charged.

    2. Mid-Qualified Rate

      1. Retail Merchants (Card Swiped):
        The mid-qualified rate is added to your qualified rate and will apply when you key in a transaction or process a rewards card .

      2. Internet / Mail / Phone Order Merchants:
        The mid-qualified rate is added to your qualified rate and will apply when you process a rewards card .

    3. Non-Qualified Rate

      The non-qualified rate is added to your qualified rate and applies to certain card types, such as business or corporate, as well as some consumer reward cards. Other situations will also cause your transactions to automatically downgrade to this rate, such as not using Address Verification Service (AVS) on any keyed in transactions or not batching out within 24 hours of processing a particular sale.

  2. Address Verification Service (AVS)

    AVS is a fraud prevention service that validates the cardholder's billing address provided in the order against the card issuing bank's records. You must use this service on all keyed-in transactions or they will automatically downgrade to your non-qualified rate per Visa/MasterCard rate schedule.

  3. Monthly Minimum Fee

    To help maintain a level of excellent service and support to our merchants, our accounts come with a monthly minimum. The minimum is calculated by multiplying your qualified discount rate against your total sales for the given month. This amount is then subtracted from your minimum and you are charged the difference. For example, if you had $1,000 in sales for January and are paying 2.00% as your qualified rate, you would be charged the difference of $5.00 with a $25 minimum. Ex: $25.00 - ($1,000 X 2.00%)

    On the other hand, if you processed $1,250 in charges, you would not be charged anything as it equals or exceeds the minimum. Keep in mind you are only charged the difference and not simply a flat rate.

  4. Annual Fee

    Gotmerchant.com charges NO annual fee!


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