Statement Fee Decoder
Decode every line on your processing statement
Processing statements bury real network costs under named line items that mean nothing to most merchants. Each entry below explains one of them in plain English: what it is, who charges it, what fair looks like, and whether you can get rid of it.
Every line, in plain English
19 fees
Fee creep
The fees that show up after you sign.
Tap the fees on your own statement and watch three years of them add up. Then decode every line below.
Monthly and annual extras
Flat charges that arrive every month or every year whether or not you processed a single card.
- PCI compliance feeProcessor markupAlso billed as PCI annual fee, PCI assessment
- Monthly statement feeJunkAlso billed as Statement fee, Reporting fee
- Monthly minimum feeJunkAlso billed as Processing minimum, Minimum discount
- Annual feeJunkAlso billed as Membership fee, Account maintenance fee
- Gateway feeProcessor markupAlso billed as Gateway access fee, Gateway monthly fee
- Regulatory reporting feeJunkAlso billed as IRS reporting fee, Regulatory recovery fee
- Customer service feeJunkAlso billed as Service fee, Help desk fee
- Paper statement feeProcessor markupAlso billed as Mailed statement fee
Rate padding and downgrades
Per-transaction additions that quietly raise your effective rate above the one you were quoted.
- Batch feeJunkAlso billed as Batch header fee, Settlement fee
- AVS feeProcessor markupAlso billed as Address verification fee
- Non-qualified surchargeJunkAlso billed as Non-qual surcharge
- Mid-qualified surchargeJunkAlso billed as Mid-qual surcharge, Partially qualified surcharge
- Downgrade feeProcessor markupAlso billed as EIRF, EIRF fee
Penalties and contract fees
Charges built into the contract that punish leaving, lapsing, or renting.
Dispute and case fees
Charges triggered when a cardholder disputes a transaction. A real cost exists underneath; the markup is the question.
Legitimate pass-through
Real network costs that exist on every processor's statement. Fair when passed through at cost, a problem when padded.
Guides
Longer explainers for the questions a single fee definition does not answer.
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One fee a week, explained
Get plain-language explanations of statement fees like this one: what each fee is, who set it, and whether it can come off. No sales calls.