They can change your price and you promised them three years.
A unilateral fee-change clause is in essentially every merchant agreement and you will not get it struck. What you can do is notice the asymmetry it creates with a long term, and read the statement line that counts as your notice.
What this page settles.
Three questions, in the order most people ask them.
What the clause says
Somewhere in your terms and conditions, under a heading like “Fees” or “Amendments”, there is a sentence giving your processor the right to change its fees and terms on notice.
The wording varies. The common versions:
Pass-through of third-party costs. The processor may pass on changes to interchange, assessments and other network costs. This is the uncontroversial version — those are costs paid to third parties and nobody can absorb them. April and October interchange updates.
Changes to any fee, on notice. Broader, and it covers the processor’s own margin as well as pass-through. Notice periods of thirty days are typical; some are shorter.
Changes deemed accepted by continued processing. If you keep taking cards after the notice period, you have accepted the change. You usually have.
A right to terminate following a change, sometimes. Not universal, and where it exists the window is short — often the same thirty days. Worth knowing whether yours has one, because it is the only genuine remedy in the clause.
Why it exists, and why that is partly fair
A merchant agreement can run for years and the costs underneath it change constantly. Interchange is republished twice a year. Network assessments change. Compliance requirements change. A processor with no ability to adjust would have to price in a buffer for all of it, which would mean a worse starting rate for everybody.
So the pass-through part of the clause is reasonable and you should expect it.
What is less reasonable is the breadth. A clause permitting changes to “any fee” at the processor’s discretion, with notice given as a statement line, does not distinguish between passing on a network increase and raising the margin because a merchant has stopped paying attention. Both are permitted by the same sentence.
And in practice the second does happen. A rate that drifts up half a point over two years, in small steps, each one properly noticed and none of them noticed, is a well-established pattern in this industry.
How notice is actually given
This is the part worth internalising.
A message on your monthly statement is the most common form, and in most agreements it is sufficient. It will be a sentence, often on a page you do not read, frequently phrased as an update to a schedule rather than as a price increase.
A notice in a portal that you have to log in to see.
An email, sometimes, to whichever address was on the application — which may be an address nobody checks.
A letter, rarely.
What it almost never is: a phone call from the person who sold you the account.
None of this is a trick in the legal sense. The agreement defines what counts as notice, you agreed to it, and the format was chosen for exactly the reason you would expect. Agreement red flags.
The asymmetry this creates
Here is the argument that follows from all of the above, and it is the useful one.
You are being asked to commit to a term. They are not committing to a price.
A three-year agreement with a liquidated damages exit clause, combined with a right to change any fee on thirty days’ notice, is an arrangement where one party is locked and the other is not. That is not a rhetorical point; it is the literal structure of the document.
Which means the fee-change clause — which you will not get removed — is the strongest available argument for the thing you can get: month-to-month terms. If the processor can reprice at will, you should be able to leave at will. Put it in exactly those words and it is a hard position to argue against.
If you are offered a term, the trade to ask for is a cap: no changes to the markup during the initial term, pass-through only. Some will agree to that in writing. Auto-renewal clauses.
What you can negotiate
Realistically, four things, in descending order of likelihood.
Month-to-month instead of a term. Widely available, and the clause above is your argument for it.
Pass-through only during the initial term. A commitment in writing that the markup will not change, only third-party costs. Reasonable to ask and sometimes granted.
A longer notice period, or notice by a method you will actually see — email to a named address, not a statement line.
An explicit right to terminate without penalty following any fee increase, with a window long enough to act in. If the agreement already has one, check how long it is.
What you will not get: the clause struck entirely. Do not spend your negotiating capital there.
How to actually catch an increase
Since notice will not reach you in a form you notice, the defence is a habit rather than a clause.
Record your effective rate every month. Total fees divided by total card volume, written down. Ten minutes. The calculator.
If you are on interchange-plus, watch the markup line specifically. It should be a constant number. Interchange moving is expected; the markup moving is a price change. Interchange-plus pricing.
Read the fee summary line by line, once a quarter. Not the whole statement — just the list of monthly charges, compared against the previous quarter. A new line or a changed amount takes thirty seconds to spot and can sit undetected for years otherwise.
Read the statement messages. The boring paragraph nobody reads is where the notice is. Once a month, read it.
Diarise a review. Once a year, compare your current effective rate to what you were quoted when you signed. That single comparison catches the slow drift that monthly checks miss. Why the bill went up.
What we charge
Interchange + 0.50% + 10¢ in person, interchange + 0.75% + 25¢ keyed, with no contract, no monthly fee, no monthly minimum and no termination fee.
We pass interchange through, so our markup is a published number you can check on every statement. And since there is no term, the fee-change asymmetry does not arise — if we ever changed the markup, you could leave the same month, which is the only enforcement mechanism in this industry that actually works.
While we are on the subject
Can my processor really raise my rates whenever they like?
Within the terms of your agreement, generally yes, on notice. Essentially every merchant agreement contains a clause permitting it, and most define notice loosely.
Is a line on my statement really legal notice?
In most agreements, yes — the contract defines what counts as notice, and a statement message is a common and accepted form of it.
Can I leave if they raise my rates?
Some agreements give a limited right to terminate without penalty following a fee change. Check yours, and note the window is usually short.
How do I know if my rate changed?
Compare your effective rate across months, and if you are on interchange-plus compare the markup line specifically. It should be constant.