Three things decide which processor is cheapest for you
- Ticket size. A per-sale fee of 15¢ is 1.9% of an $8 coffee but 0.2% of a $75 haircut. Small tickets favor a low fixed fee; big tickets favor a low percent.
- Card mix. On interchange-plus you pay what each card costs. A basic Visa credit card is 1.51% + 10¢ in person and a Visa Infinite card is 2.30% + 10¢ [7]. A customer base full of premium rewards cards narrows the gap with flat rates.
- In person or online. Online sales carry higher interchange and higher flat rates. Square Free charges 3.3% + 30¢ online, against 2.6% + 15¢ in person [1].
Interchange-plus or a subscription model usually wins for larger tickets and higher volume, as long as monthly fees and your card mix do not erase the gap. Monthly fees decide the rest. A $149 plan is cheap at $100,000 a month and expensive at $5,000. Below, we run every published price through three businesses with different shapes.
Profile 1: a coffee counter, $8,000 a month in $8 sales
1,000 in-person sales a month at $8 each. For interchange-plus and subscription prices we show a range: every customer on a basic Visa credit card (low) to every customer on a Visa Infinite card (high) [7]. Network fees are extra on those rows.
| Price | Processing | Monthly fee | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stripe, 2.7% + 5¢ [2] | $266 | $0 | $266 |
| Clover Basic, 2.6% + 10¢ [3] | $308 | Device: $16 for 36 months or $349 once [3] | $308 to $324 |
| Helcim, interchange + 0.40% + 8¢ [5] | $333 to $396 | $0 | $333 to $396 |
| Shopify POS Basic, 2.6% + 10¢ [4] | $308 | $39 | $347 |
| Square Free, 2.6% + 15¢ [1] | $358 | $0 | $358 |
| Stax, interchange + 8¢ [6] | $301 to $364 | $99 | $400 to $463 |
Small tickets turn the usual advice upside down. The per-sale fee is most of the cost, so Stripe's 5¢ wins. Interchange-plus loses ground because interchange itself has a fixed part: on an $8 sale, even a regulated debit card costs 22.4¢ in interchange (0.05% + 21¢ + 1¢) [7], which is 2.8% of the sale.
Profile 2: a shop, $30,000 a month in $60 sales
500 in-person sales a month at $60 each, or $360,000 a year. That volume puts Stax in its $199-and-up tier [6].
| Price | Processing | Monthly fee | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Helcim, interchange + 0.40% + 8¢ [5] | $663 to $900 | $0 | $663 to $900 |
| Stax, interchange + 8¢ [6] | $543 to $780 | $199+ | $742 to $979 |
| Clover Standard, 2.3% + 10¢ [3] | $740 | $84.95 software after buying hardware for $1,899 [3] | $825 |
| Stripe, 2.7% + 5¢ [2] | $835 | $0 | $835 |
| Square Free, 2.6% + 15¢ [1] | $855 | $0 | $855 |
| Shopify POS Basic, 2.6% + 10¢ [4] | $830 | $39 | $869 |
| Square Plus, 2.5% + 15¢ [1] | $825 | $49 | $874 |
Here interchange-plus usually wins, but not always. If most customers pay with basic cards or debit, Helcim's total sits near the low end of its range and beats the cheapest flat rate in the table by about $160 a month. If most customers carry premium rewards cards, the interchange-plus totals rise to about the flat-rate level. Clover's lower percent is real, but it comes with $1,899 of hardware or a 36-month subscription [3].
Profile 3: an online store, $20,000 a month in $80 orders
250 online orders a month at $80. Online interchange is higher: Visa's card-not-present rate is 1.89% + 10¢ on a basic card and 2.60% + 10¢ on a Visa Infinite card [7].
| Price | Processing | Monthly fee | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Helcim, interchange + 0.50% + 25¢ [5] | $566 to $708 | $0 | $566 to $708 |
| Stripe, 2.9% + 30¢ [2] | $655 | $0 | $655 |
| Shopify Basic, 2.9% + 30¢ [4] | $655 | $39 | $694 |
| Square Plus, 2.9% + 30¢ [1] | $655 | $49 | $704 |
| Square Free, 3.3% + 30¢ [1] | $735 | $0 | $735 |
Online, the published flat rates bunch together at 2.9% + 30¢, so plan fees decide the order. On Square, the $49 Plus plan saves $80 a month on these online sales against the Free plan, more than paying for itself here [1]. Shopify's higher plans lower the online rate (2.7% + 30¢ on Grow, 2.5% + 30¢ on Advanced) but cost $105 and $399 a month [4], which only pays off at much higher volume.
The cheapest rate can be the most expensive to leave
A processor that saves you $100 a month is not cheaper if leaving it later costs $2,000. Before you compare monthly totals, compare what each one says about contracts, cancellation and hardware. These are the processors' own words on their pricing pages today.
| Processor | Contract and cancellation | Hardware |
|---|---|---|
| Square | "No hidden fees or locked-in contracts. Cancel or switch anytime." [1] | Bought outright |
| Helcim | No contracts, leases, termination fees or cancellation fees [5] | Not priced on the pricing page |
| Stax | Lists "No cancellation fees (long term contracts)" among subscription features [6] | Compatible terminals sold separately [6] |
| Clover | Hardware subscriptions run 36 months [3]; Clover's FAQ calls them non-cancelable [9] | Subscription or purchase [3] |
| Stripe | "No setup fees, monthly fees, or hidden fees" on standard pricing [2] | Readers bought outright |
If you already have a contract, find its exit fee and any lease buyout first. Divide that number by the monthly savings you expect. If the answer is more than 12 months, switching may not pay this year, and you may do better asking your current processor to lower its markup.
"No fee" processing is not cheaper. It moves the cost to your customers
Programs sold as zero-fee add a surcharge to credit card sales or post a higher card price with a discount for cash. The processing fee still exists; your customer pays it. Visa does not allow a surcharge on debit or prepaid cards [8], so a debit-heavy business cannot pass all of its cost along.
In New Jersey, a credit card surcharge may not exceed your actual cost to process the payment, and the notice rules are specific. Read merchant services in NJ and the surcharge laws by state before you turn one on.
Find your own cheapest option in 10 minutes
- From last month's statement, write down card sales, number of sales and total fees.
- Divide sales by number of sales to get your average ticket. Under about $15, look first at low per-sale fees. Over about $50, look first at the percent.
- Run the numbers in the fee analyzer, which compares your bill with interchange plus a published benchmark.
- Ask any processor you consider for its markup, monthly fees, contract term and exit fee in writing, then put its price into the same month of sales.
Prices change. Every figure here comes from the processor's own page on Oct 20, 2026. BatchOut is our own processing service and is not in the tables above; if we show it to you, we label it as ours.