How much are you really paying for credit card processing? It's a confusing process for many with ever changing rates, hidden fees and inferior customer service. To solve this ongoing issue for many industry companies, SAGE has teamed up with Merchant Focus and Authorize.Net to create a payment processing solution that is simple and easy to understand.
What rates apply?
The discount rate is the percentage rate that you are charged to process a particular transaction. Normally, credit card processing companies charge a discount rate plus a fixed transaction fee. There may also be fixed monthly fees, statement fees, gateway fees, and other hidden charges. With SAGE Payment Processing, we've simplified the typical credit card rate structure. Click on the Pricing tab to see our rates. Note that customers who process more than $250,000 per year in MasterCard/Visa transactions can get interchange-plus pricing. This means you pay a fixed amount above whatever the transaction “costs”. Interchange-plus pricing is typically reserved for only very large companies. SAGE Payment Processing is the only industry payment processing solution offering this great pricing to the industry!
What are Interchange Rates?
MasterCard and Visa credit card transactions are categorized by card type. There are many different card types, such as basic MC/Visa cards, rewards cards, corporate cards, purchasing cards, etc. Each card type has a specific cost associated with it. This is the percentage rate charged by the MasterCard or Visa association to process the transaction. It's called the "interchange rate". All banks pay the same interchange rate to actually process a particular card type. The interchange is the part of the discount rate that you pay to process a transaction. The rest is the markup that the bank and processors receive.
What is a Qualified vs. Non-Qualified Rate?
Different MasterCard/Visa card types can have different rates. Most payment processing services categorize the various card types into two groups – qualified and non-qualified. Each group has a rate associated with it. The qualified rate is lower and the non-qualified rate is higher. For example, a regular consumer credit card and most reward cards will typically receive the qualified rate. However, there are many card types (especially in a B2B industry such as ours) that will not receive the qualified rate. For example, corporate cards and purchasing cards typically receive the non-qualified rate. A non-qualified rate can sometimes be significantly higher than a qualified rate, and sometimes the non-qualified rate is either not disclosed or not promoted by the payment processor. As you can see, looking at just the qualified rate when comparing payment processing services is a big mistake!
Web-based Virtual Terminal
SAGE Payment Processing enables you to accept credit cards anywhere you have a computer and internet access with our advanced, web-based virtual terminal application. This virtual terminal not only gives you the ability to process sales but also view transactions in the current batch waiting to be settled and post credits for transactions that have already settled. You also have the ability to view reports such as view/search transaction history and view transactions for the last settled batch.
Merchant Focus
Merchant Focus Processing, Inc., a leading provider of merchant payment solutions, focuses on two distinct market segments, each of which has special requirements and challenges. Merchants transacting $250,000 or more annually in credit card sales qualify for Interchange-Plus pricing with no monthly fees of any kind, and brand new businesses encounter special merchant friendly terms and low fixed pricing. |
