Assessments, and the part of the bill that goes to the networks.
Interchange goes to the bank that issued the card. Assessments go to Visa and Mastercard themselves. Together they are the floor under every quote, and the only reason to understand them is so you can tell which part of a proposal is real.
What this page settles.
Three questions, in the order most people ask them.
Where assessments sit
Three parties take money out of a card sale before the rest reaches you.
The issuing bank — the one that gave your customer the card — takes interchange. That is the largest of the three and on the worked statement here it is 1,021.00 of 1,687.50.
The card network — Visa, Mastercard, Discover, American Express — takes assessments, sometimes called dues and assessments, for operating the rails your transaction travels on.
Your processor takes its markup. That is the only part anybody negotiates.
Assessments are smaller than interchange by a wide margin, which is why they rarely come up. They are worth understanding anyway, for one reason: knowing what is pass-through tells you exactly how much of a proposal is actually a proposal.
What is actually in them
“Assessments” is often used loosely to cover several things the networks charge. In practice there are two shapes:
A percentage of volume. The headline assessment, charged on everything you process on that network’s cards. This is the bit most people mean.
Per-transaction and per-authorization charges. Small fixed amounts on each transaction, with names like NABU and APF. Those are covered separately here, because they behave differently — they hurt low average tickets far more than high ones.
Both are published by the networks in their fee schedules, and both get passed down the chain from network to acquirer to processor to you. A provider on genuine interchange-plus pricing shows them to you as separate lines at cost. A provider on tiered pricing folds them into the discount rate, where you cannot see them at all.
We are deliberately not quoting the current percentages on this page. The networks revise their schedules and a figure typed here would be wrong within a year, which is worse than no figure. Visa and Mastercard both publish their US fee schedules on their own sites, and your own statement is the authoritative answer for what you actually paid.
Why nobody can discount them
This is the only genuinely useful thing on the page, so it is worth being blunt about.
Every acquirer in the United States pays the same published assessment rate on the same transaction. There is no volume tier, no negotiated rate, no relationship discount. The network charges what the network charges.
So when a proposal says something about reducing your network costs, one of three things is true:
- They mean interchange optimization — sending better data so transactions qualify for cheaper interchange categories. That is real, it genuinely works for some businesses, and it is a different thing entirely. Level 2 and Level 3 data is where it bites hardest.
- They mean their own markup, described in language that makes it sound like a network cost.
- They are mistaken.
None of those is necessarily dishonest. But the question that resolves it in one line is: is that a pass-through cost or your margin? A provider who answers that cleanly is one you can have a sensible conversation with.
The practical rule: if two providers quote you different interchange or different assessments, at least one of them is not passing them through at cost. Those numbers are the same for everybody.
How they show up on your statement
Depends entirely on your pricing model, and this is the clearest everyday illustration of why the model matters.
On interchange-plus, you will see interchange itemized, assessments and network fees itemized, and the markup stated separately. The bill is longer and considerably more useful.
On tiered pricing, you will usually see a discount rate and some surcharges, and that is all. Interchange and assessments are inside those percentages and you cannot separate them without doing the arithmetic yourself. This is not an accident; it is what the model is for.
On flat rate, there is one number and everything is inside it. Which is at least honest about being a bundle, and for some businesses is the right trade. The comparison is here.
If your statement shows a line you think is an assessment but you are not certain, the A to Z list is here.
What this means for a quote
One question, and it is the same question that runs through everything on this site.
Interchange is fixed. Assessments are fixed. Network per-transaction charges are fixed. Everything that is fixed is the same for every provider you will ever speak to. So the only variable in a quote is what the processor adds on top — and a quote that does not state that number separately has not told you anything you can compare.
“2.6% and 10 cents” bundles the fixed and the variable together and tells you nothing about either. “Interchange plus 0.50% and 10 cents” tells you exactly what the processor earns and lets you hold it against anyone else’s number.
That is the whole value of understanding assessments: not because you can do anything about them, but because knowing which parts are untouchable tells you precisely where the negotiation actually is.
What we charge
Interchange + 0.50% + 10¢ in person, interchange + 0.75% + 25¢ keyed. Interchange, assessments and the network per-transaction charges are passed through at cost, because there is no other way to pass them through. The 0.50% and the dime are ours, and that is the whole of it.
Send us a statement and we will separate the three for you, so you can see what is actually in play.
While we are on the subject
Can any processor get me lower assessments?
No. Assessments are set by the card networks and every acquirer pays the same published rate. A provider offering to reduce them is either repackaging their own markup or describing something else.
Are assessments the same as interchange?
No. Interchange goes to the bank that issued your customer’s card. Assessments go to the card network itself. Both are pass-through, but they are different money going to different places.
Do assessments change?
The networks update their fee schedules periodically, in the same way interchange is updated. Changes are usually small, and your processor should be passing the new figure through rather than keeping the difference.
Why can I not see them on my statement?
On tiered pricing they are usually folded into the discount rate and never itemized. That is one of the clearest practical arguments for interchange-plus — you can see them.