01
The variables that move interchange — and your income
Each one is set by the card networks — not your processor, and not you
↑ Pushes rates higher
Rewards & premium cards
+0.3–0.8%
That 2% cashback someone earns? It comes from interchange — you’re funding your customer’s reward program every time they pay you.
Chase Sapphire Reserve, Amex Platinum, any airline miles card
Card-not-present
+0.15–0.30%
Online and keyed transactions carry higher fraud risk — no chip, no PIN, no physical verification. The issuer charges more to cover potential losses.
Every SaaS subscription, e-commerce purchase, or phone order
Business & corporate cards
+0.5–1.2%
Not covered by the Durbin Amendment. Plus, issuers value the spend data — corporate cards generate richer purchase intelligence, so they charge more.
B2B SaaS companies: most of your customers pay with these
High-risk merchant category
+0.2–1.5%
Your MCC code follows you. Merchant categories with historically high chargebacks — travel, gaming, certain subscriptions — carry surcharges baked into every transaction.
Travel booking, digital goods, subscription boxes
↓ Pushes rates lower
Regulated debit cards
Capped at $0.21 + 0.05%
The Durbin Amendment caps interchange for debit cards from banks over $10B in assets — by law. This created a two-tier debit market: regulated vs. unregulated.
Debit cards from Chase, Wells Fargo, BofA — most large bank customers
Card-present + chip auth
−0.15–0.25%
In-person chip transactions carry lower fraud risk than online — full authentication means the issuer is confident the cardholder is physically present. No card-not-present surcharge applies.
Retail POS, restaurant, field service, in-person payments
Passing verification data
−0.05–0.20%
Submitting CVV, billing address, and zip code alongside a transaction signals to the issuer that the cardholder is legitimate — reducing fraud risk and qualifying for lower rates. The more verification data passed, the better.
Any card-not-present transaction — online checkout, recurring billing, SaaS subscriptions
Network tokenization
−0.05–0.10%
Replacing raw card numbers with network-issued tokens reduces fraud risk and improves authorization rates. Visa and Mastercard both offer interchange discounts for tokenized transactions — a small but real edge at scale.
Recurring billing, stored payment methods, subscription SaaS
02
What different cards actually cost
Interchange rates by card type — before any processor markup, on a $100 transaction
Lowest cost
Highest cost
Card Type
Rate
On $100
Debit card
~0.05–0.80% + flat fee
$0.26–$0.95
Basic consumer credit
~1.51% + $0.10
$1.61
Rewards credit
~1.80% + $0.10
$1.90
Signature / premium credit
~2.10% + $0.10
$2.20
Corporate / business card
~2.50% + $0.10
$2.60
American Express
2.5–3.5% no flat fee
$2.50–$3.50
02b
Why your take rate moves even when your price doesn’t
Your list price is fixed. Your underlying cost — interchange — is not.
What is take rate?
You charge merchants a flat rate — say, 2.9% + 30¢ — so it feels like your payments margin should be stable. In reality, the portion of each transaction you actually keep as income jumps around month to month. That’s your take rate.
Take rate is the net revenue you keep per transaction after paying interchange, network fees, and PSP fees.
Take rate = What you charge merchants − (Interchange + network fees + PSP fees)
Same pricing. Two different months. Two completely different margins.
Month A — Favorable mix
Merchant price2.90%
IC + network fees1.94%
PSP fees0.10%
Take rate0.86%
Month B — Heavy rewards + corporate
Merchant price2.90%
IC + network fees2.38%
PSP fees0.10%
Take rate0.42%
Your public pricing didn’t change. Your take rate dropped from 0.86% to 0.42% — a 51% compression.
Anatomy of a payment — where your 2.9% actually goes
~2.00%
Interchange + network
Paid to card issuers + networks
~0.10%
PSP fees
Platform + processor
~0.80%
Your take rate
What you actually keep
What causes interchange to move month to month
↑ More rewards or corporate cards in the mix
↑ Higher card-not-present transaction volume
↑ Incomplete verification data passed at transaction time
↑ Seasonal shifts in how merchants’ customers pay
These mix shifts are why your take rate moves — even when your pricing grid doesn’t. If you’re not instrumenting and managing take rate, you’re flying blind on your payments P&L.
03
Why your payments income never matches what you modeled
You priced at 2.9%. Your actual take rate is a weighted average of every card type your merchants use — and that mix shifts every month
