Stop paying credit-card rates on debit.
About $4,802 a year back in your business on $50,000 a month in card sales, compared with Square.
Most of what your customers pay you with is debit. Interac and debit pass through at cost, your bill matches the rate card, and yesterday's sales fund today's restock.
- Interac at cost. Debit at cost. In writing.
- Pay less or it's free
- Honest Rate Promise: 2x junk fee refund
- No junk fees
Estimate at our published rates; a person runs the same math on your own statement before you sign.
What switching means for your store.
$4,802
About $400 a month back in your business compared with Square, and $14,406 over three years.
How your price is built
At $50,000 a month in card sales
- Network costs (interchange and assessments), passed through at cost
- $288.70
- Payzium margin
- $45.75
- Payzium per-transaction fees
- $23.93
- Monthly account fee
- $5.00
- Your total a month
- $363.38
- Effective rate
- 0.73%
Estimate for a typical profile: 95 percent in person, $35 average ticket, compared with each processor's published Canadian rates (Global Payments modeled at a mid-range of its bank-channel plans). A person runs the same math on your own statement before you sign.
What a retailer keeps by switching.
Math is for 66.5% Interac, 3.5% Visa and Mastercard debit, 30% credit, at $35 average ticket, 95% card-present. The calculator runs it on your numbers.
- Kept a year at $20,000 a month, compared with Square
- $2,088
- Kept a year at $50,000 a month, compared with Square
- $4,802
- Kept a year at $120,000 a month, compared with Square
- $11,825
- Kept a year at $250,000 a month, compared with Square
- $24,701
Four cost mechanisms every independent retailer pays for.
Two debit networks. Two structures. One flat rate captures all of it.
Canadian debit splits between Interac (domestic network, flat per-transaction fees) and Visa Debit and Mastercard Debit (network rails, interchange of 0.20 to 0.50 percent depending on transaction type). On a flat-rate processor like Square Canada (0.75% + 7 cents on Interac in person), every debit transaction is charged the same Interac rate regardless of which network it ran on. The gap on Interac is large: on a $35 Interac transaction, Square Canada charges about 33 cents. The gap is about 23 cents per transaction on the network that processes the largest single slice of Canadian retail card volume. Multiply by typical retail transaction frequency and the savings on Interac alone can exceed everything else combined.
Multi-year leases not disclosed up front
Terminal leases are typically 48-month, non-cancellable, with per-terminal insurance billed monthly, and they are not rent-to-own. The lease company is legally separate from your processor, so closing your merchant account does not close the lease. The terms are binding; the problem is when they are not disclosed up front. We disclose ours: hardware on /hardware, rates on /pricing.
PCI non-compliance penalty
Most retail merchant agreements include a PCI non-compliance fee, usually $99 to $199 quarterly, charged when the merchant has not completed the annual PCI self-assessment questionnaire on the processor's portal. Most independent retailers do not know the portal exists. The fee bills automatically. Over four years, a non-compliant retailer pays $1,600 to $3,200 in fees that completing one online form would have eliminated. We include PCI compliance assistance at no charge.
Monthly minimums and statement fees
Most processor contracts include a monthly minimum fee, $25 to $50, charged whenever your processing volume falls below the threshold that would generate that much in discount fees. Plus a monthly statement fee, $10 to $20. Plus an account-on-file fee, $5 to $15, on merchant accounts older than 24 months. A low-volume retailer on a slow month can pay $60 to $80 in flat fees on $1,200 in processing volume, an effective rate of 5 to 7 percent. We do not charge monthly minimums, statement fees, or account-on-file fees. The scam-fee list is published on /honest-rate-promise.
Three retailers. Three switches.
- Toronto, ON$48,000 per month, 70% debit
Specialty food shop
Before: Square Canada.
After: Payzium, funded the next day, with no junk fees.
$4,608Kept a year - Calgary, AB$85,000 per month, 70% debit
Hardware and home goods
Before: Square Canada.
After: Payzium, funded the next day, with no junk fees.
$8,208Kept a year - Halifax, NS$22,000 per month, 70% debit
Boutique apparel
Before: Square Canada.
After: Payzium, funded the next day, with no junk fees.
$2,304Kept a year
Illustrative composite. Numbers reflect Payzium's published rates and typical retailers card mix at the stated volumes. Not a real customer case.
See your cost before you switch.
You find out what you are really paying before you commit to anything. No phone calls required.
- Within 1 business day
Find out what you are really paying
Send one month's statement as a PDF or a photo. Within 1 business day a person shows you, line by line, where your money goes.
- Before you sign
Know your cost before you sign
Your pricing program and your device are confirmed in writing first, so there is nothing to discover later.
- Every business day after
Today's sales, tomorrow
From then on, today's sales land tomorrow.
Sign and go live. If you are on an open POS or a standalone terminal we plug in directly. If you are mid-contract on a terminal lease, we coordinate the exit path.
Frequently asked questions
Why is my debit transaction charged at credit card rates?
Canadian debit runs on two separate networks. Interac is a domestic debit network that prices at flat per-transaction fees. Visa Debit and Mastercard Debit run on the credit card networks at network-published interchange, typically 0.20 to 0.50 percent depending on transaction type. Flat-rate processors (Square Canada, most legacy bank-bundled processing) charge the same flat rate on every debit transaction regardless of which network it ran on. The difference between what they charge you and what the actual interchange or Interac cost is goes to the processor. On interchange-plus pricing, the actual cost shows on your statement as a pass-through line. Anything between actual cost and what you currently pay is markup.
Will I have to replace my POS system or terminal?
It depends what you are on. Standalone terminals (Verifone, Ingenico, Pax) can usually be reprogrammed to route through Payzium without hardware replacement, though a swap is sometimes cleaner. Square POS hardware does not work with third-party processors on recent models. Clover hardware is processor-locked at the device level. Lightspeed Retail and most open-architecture POS systems work with us directly. We confirm compatibility before you sign.
I am on a terminal lease. Can I switch anyway?
Yes. The lease and the merchant account are legally separate contracts. Closing your merchant account does not close the lease. We have two options: process on Payzium with the leased terminal (if it is reprogrammable, which most are), or swap to hardware that is yours. The lease keeps running either way until it terminates by its own terms, but your processing cost drops the day you switch. We can also help analyze whether early-exit penalties on the lease are worth paying given the rate savings.
How fast can I switch?
It depends on your hardware. Open POS or standalone-terminal merchants plug in directly. Lease-locked or hardware-swap setups take longer; we coordinate the exit path. PCI compliance assistance and bank verification happen in parallel.
What is "Pay less or it's free"? · Payzium-controlled fees only
Your first 90 days on Payzium have to cost you less than your old processor did. We compare your effective rate on Payzium against your most recent prior-processor statement, like for like, normalized if your volume or card mix shifts so the comparison stays honest. If you do not pay less, we refund the eligible Payzium fees you paid in those 90 days and put up to CA$1,000 toward moving you to another processor. You keep any savings either way. Full terms on /pay-less. · Payzium-controlled fees only
What about the PCI compliance fees I am being charged?
We include PCI compliance assistance at no charge. Our team walks you through the annual self-assessment questionnaire, which is the only thing standing between you and the elimination of those quarterly non-compliance fees. The fees disappear on the first quarter after you complete the SAQ.
Your rate, on your numbers. See it, then decide.
Run the calculator with your monthly volume. Read the published rate card. Then apply. No commissioned rep will call.