In our ongoing series uncovering the hidden costs of payments, we've already explored:
Understanding Interchange Fees: A Guide for Merchants - where we demystified how merchants ultimately pay issuing banks, and how interchange fees vary across card types, regions, and transaction methods.
Understanding Scheme Fees: The Hidden Costs of Card Payments - where we highlighted charges levied by major card networks like Visa and Mastercard, often bundled and poorly itemized, yet critical for merchants to recognize and manage
Now, we shift focus to the tech that enables payments: gateway and processing fees. Let's explore what they encompass, why they matter, and how to manage them effectively.
Payment Gateway Fees vs Payment Processing Fees
While often bundled together on invoices, gateway fees and processing fees are distinct:
Gateway fees: A payment gateway is the technology that enables businesses to accept payments from customers, whether online, in-app, or in-store. Acting as the "bridge" between your checkout and the financial institutions involved, it ensures that each transaction is securely transmitted, verified, and completed.
Here's how it works in practice:
The customer enters their payment details at checkout.
The gateway encrypts the information and sends it securely to the acquiring bank (your bank).
The acquiring bank communicates with the card network (Visa, Mastercard, etc.) and the customer's issuing bank.
The issuing bank verifies funds, approves or declines the transaction, and sends the result back through the chain.
If approved, the funds move to the merchant account - minus fees.
Processing fees: are the charges applied each time a customer makes a payment, covering the cost of moving money from the customer's account to the merchant's account. These are not "technology" fees (like gateway fees), but rather financial transaction costs applied by the acquiring bank or payment processor.
Processing fees are usually variable, meaning they change depending on transaction volume, transaction value, and payment method used.
Types of Payment Gateway Fees
Let's break down the most common gateway fees you might encounter:
Setup Fees
Some gateways charge a one-time fee for integration or providing hardware (e.g., a physical terminal for in-person payments).
Monthly or Annual Fees
These cover access to the platform, customer support, and reporting tools. Some providers use a pay-as-you-go model with no monthly fees, while others offer subscription tiers.
Transaction Request Fees
Each time there is a request to a gateway, it will be charged depending on the request type, for example an authorization request, a capture, a void, or a refund.
Chargeback Handling Fees
If a customer disputes a transaction, gateways apply administrative fees for handling the process and facilitating the representment.
3DS Authentication Fees
Fees charged when using 3D Secure (3DS) to verify a customer's identity during online transactions.
Risk Check Fees
Gateways often run fraud and risk checks (e.g., velocity checks, blacklist checks, device fingerprinting). Each of these checks may have an associated cost, especially if they rely on third-party risk engines.
Network Tokenization Fees
Tokenization replaces sensitive card details with secure tokens to reduce fraud risk and improve authorization rates. Networks like Visa and Mastercard charge providers for using tokenization, and these costs may be passed on to merchants.
Account Billing Updater Fees
Some gateways support automatic updates of expired or replaced card details (e.g., Visa Account Updater, Mastercard Automatic Billing Updater). This service reduces payment failures in recurring billing but comes with a fee per update attempt.
Customer Management Fees
Some providers, particularly platform-based solutions, charge additional fees for customer account management, onboarding, and payouts. These fees are often tied to offering marketplace or platform payment features.
Reconciliation Services
Gateways may charge for providing automated reconciliation between transaction data and settlements.
Data Management Services
Access to enriched data, advanced reporting, or analytics dashboards may be billed separately. This could include exporting historical data, API access for financial reporting, or long-term storage of transaction logs for compliance.
Types of Payment Processing Fees
Below are the most expected fees that are charged by an acquirer for processing services:
Acquiring Fees
Acquiring (or merchant) fees are charges by a payment acquirer (a bank or processor that handles card transactions for merchants) to process card payments.
Currency Conversion & Cross-Border Fees
When selling internationally, gateways often add charges for currency conversion or cross-border processing. These can easily add 1% or more on top of regular fees.
Payout fees
The cost to transfer the money or give accelerated payouts.
Termination Fees
Hidden in contracts, some gateways impose fees if you leave before a minimum contract term ends
PCI Compliance Fees
To cover adherence to PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard), gateways may add compliance charges.
Factors Influencing Gateway Fees
There are factors that have an influence on gateway fees; among them, we find:
Feature requirements: Adding fraud checks, 3DS authentication, tokenization, or reconciliation services all come with extra charges.
Integration complexity: If your business requires advanced or custom integrations, setup and ongoing fees can be higher.
Service level agreements (SLAs): Premium support, uptime guarantees, or faster processing often carry higher costs.
Data and reporting needs: Access to advanced analytics or data export services can add recurring charges.
Factors Influencing Processing Fees
For processing fees, below are some examples that influence them:
Transaction volume: Higher volumes typically allow merchants to negotiate lower acquiring fees.
Average transaction size: Larger transactions often mean a lower percentage fee, while smaller-ticket businesses may feel the fixed cost more heavily.
Industry type: High-risk industries (such as gambling, travel, or subscription services) are seen as more prone to fraud and chargebacks, which leads to higher acquiring fees.
Geography of the customer: Domestic vs. cross-border transactions significantly affect processing costs, as international and FX fees are applied.
Payment method mix: Cards, bank transfers, wallets, and BNPL solutions all carry different costs.
Settlement preferences: Faster or accelerated payouts can come at a premium.
Choosing a Provider for Gateway Services
It is important to take some factors into consideration when choosing a gateway service provider. Most importantly, one should look for:
Transparency in billing: Look for clear breakdowns of request fees, chargeback handling, and add-on service costs.
Security & compliance: Ensure the gateway offers strong fraud detection, PCI DSS compliance, and up-to-date protocols like 3DS2.
Integration options: Check that the gateway works seamlessly with your eCommerce platform, ERP, and CRM systems.
Flexibility of services: Providers that allow you to turn features on/off (e.g., tokenization, data exports) can help control costs.
Support and reliability: Strong technical support and guaranteed uptime reduce disruption risks.
Choosing a Provider for Processing Services
Similar to gateway services, when choosing a processing service provider, there are a couple of factors to consider. Mainly, they are:
Pricing model: Understand whether the acquirer uses flat-rate, interchange-plus, or tiered pricing. Interchange-plus is more transparent, while flat-rate may be simpler for smaller merchants.
Global capabilities: If you sell internationally, look for competitive cross-border rates and efficient currency conversion.
Settlement flexibility: Some acquirers offer faster payouts, but at higher fees-choose according to your cash flow needs.
Negotiability: Processing fees are often negotiable, especially at higher volumes. Always benchmark against multiple providers.
Reputation & risk appetite: Select an acquirer familiar with your industry type, especially if you operate in a sector considered "high risk."
Mistakes with Gateway Fees
Based on experience, those are the most common mistakes we see with pricing related to gateway fees:
Underestimating add-ons: Not accounting for costs like tokenization, account updater services, or reconciliation tools, which can increase total fees significantly.
Ignoring contract details: Missing terms around termination fees, auto-renewals, or hidden compliance charges.
Paying for unused features: Many businesses activate all available services but only use a fraction.
Failing to benchmark: Not comparing gateways can leave merchants paying above-market prices for basic services.
Mistakes with Processing Fees
For processing fees, make sure to avoid the following mistakes:
Accepting bundled invoices: Allowing acquirers or PSPs to combine processing and gateway costs makes it difficult to identify optimization opportunities.
Overlooking pricing models: Choosing flat-rate when interchange-plus would be cheaper at higher volumes, or vice versa.
Not negotiating rates: Assuming processing fees are fixed, when in fact volume or long-term contracts can unlock discounts.
Failing to monitor cross-border fees: Businesses expanding internationally often underestimate the added costs of FX and cross-border acquiring.
Ignoring chargeback ratios: High chargeback rates increase your risk profile and fees; prevention strategies are critical.
How to Optimize Costs
The right strategy can help you reduce costs without sacrificing performance. Consider these steps:
Negotiate with Your Provider: Higher volumes or long-term commitments can give you leverage.
Monitor Fees Regularly: Audit your statements to spot unusual charges or creeping increases.
Limit Expensive Payment Methods: If some methods (like BNPL) carry high costs and low usage, consider not offering them.
Match Pricing Models to Your Profile: Choose interchange-plus for predictability at higher volumes, or flat-rate for simplicity if your business is smaller.
Consolidate Providers Where Possible: Fewer integrations mean fewer overlapping fees.
How IXOPAY Helps
IXOPAY unifies data across PSPs and gateways, providing clarity and actionable insights:
Unified dashboards showing gateway, interchange, and scheme fees by provider, method, and region.
Anomaly detection for unexpected fee spikes, disputes, or hidden costs.
Cost breakdowns to see where each fee layer impacts margins.
Optimization suggestions, like better routing, fee negotiation triggers, or payment method recommendations.
Takeways
Gateway and processing fees are a central part of digital payments. While interchange and scheme fees are mostly regulated, gateway and processing costs are negotiable, variable, and often opaque.
By separating them clearly, monitoring invoices regularly, and aligning your provider choices with your business model, you can significantly reduce your total payment costs.
At IXOPAY, we make the invisible visible. Our AI payments intelligence and observability platform breaks down gateway, processing, interchange, scheme fees, and more, so you can see exactly where your money goes, and where you can save.
Want to learn how to have better visibility over your payment gateway costs with IXOPAY? Let's have a quick chat.
