Membership pricing, and the volume where it starts paying.
Instead of taking a percentage, the processor charges a flat monthly membership and passes interchange through at cost. Whether that is cheap or expensive depends on one calculation you can do from your own statement in five minutes.
What this page settles.
Three questions, in the order most people ask them.
How the model works
Three components, and the middle one is the point.
Interchange and assessments pass through at cost, exactly as they do on interchange-plus.
A fixed monthly membership fee replaces the percentage markup. The processor earns the same amount whether you process ten thousand dollars or a hundred thousand.
A small per-transaction fee, usually. Check it rather than assuming it is zero.
That is the whole structure. It is sometimes marketed as wholesale or at-cost processing, which is accurate about the interchange and silent about the membership.
The consequence is simple and worth stating directly: because the processor’s revenue is fixed, your cost per dollar processed falls as your volume rises. Every model on this site other than this one takes more money as you grow. This one does not.
Working out your crossover
Five minutes, and it settles the question completely.
Take one month from your statement: card volume, transaction count, and your interchange and assessments if they are itemized.
Under membership pricing: the monthly fee, plus the per-item fee times your transaction count, plus interchange and assessments.
Under interchange-plus: the markup percentage times your volume, plus their per-item times your transaction count, plus the same interchange and assessments.
Interchange is identical in both, so it cancels. What you are actually comparing is:
membership fee, against markup percentage × your volume
On the worked statement used across this site — 48,500.00 a month — a 0.50% markup is 242.50. A membership priced below that is cheaper; above it is not. So the crossover sits at whatever volume makes the percentage equal the membership.
Do it on your quietest month as well as your busiest. If you are seasonal, the answer may be different in February from August, and the membership does not pause.
What to watch for
The per-transaction fee. Some membership plans carry a higher per-item fee than a percentage-based quote. On a low average ticket that can undo the whole saving. Price it on your transaction count, not your volume.
Tiered memberships. Several providers have bands, and being pushed into a higher band as you grow changes your crossover. Ask where the bands are before you sign.
What the membership includes. Gateway, terminals, support, PCI. Sometimes genuinely bundled, sometimes separate and billed alongside, which makes a cheap-looking membership not cheap. The worksheet.
Whether interchange really passes at cost. Easy to check on an itemized statement, impossible otherwise. If the bill is not itemized, this is not the model being sold to you, whatever it is called.
The annual commitment. Some memberships are billed annually or carry a term. Worth knowing before a quiet season.
Who it suits
Established businesses with steady, substantial volume. The clearest case. Fixed cost against rising volume is exactly the right shape.
Businesses with a high average ticket, where the per-item fee is irrelevant and the percentage would otherwise be large.
Anyone currently on tiered pricing with good volume, where the move tends to be the largest single change available.
It suits worst: low or irregular volume, seasonal businesses whose quiet months pay the same membership as their busy ones, and new businesses who do not yet know what their volume will be. For those, a model where the cost falls to nothing in a quiet month is worth more than a lower rate in a good one.
Which is the honest summary of every pricing model page on this site: the model that is cheapest for somebody else is not information about you. The crossover is five minutes of arithmetic and it is the only thing that settles it.
What we charge
Interchange + 0.50% + 10¢ in person, interchange + 0.75% + 25¢ keyed, with no monthly fee, no monthly minimum and no contract — so in a quiet month our markup falls with your volume rather than standing still.
Send us a statement and we will work out where your crossover sits against a membership plan. If your volume puts you comfortably the other side of it, we will say so.
While we are on the subject
Is subscription pricing the same as interchange-plus?
They are close cousins. Both pass interchange through at cost. Interchange-plus takes a percentage as markup; subscription takes a fixed monthly fee instead. The difference matters enormously at the extremes of volume and very little in the middle.
What happens in a quiet month?
You pay the membership anyway, which is exactly the risk. A seasonal business should run the calculation on its worst month, not its average.
Is there still a per-transaction fee?
Usually yes, a small one. Check it, because on a low average ticket a per-item fee can matter more than the membership.
Can I switch between models with the same provider?
Often, and it is a reasonable thing to ask for as your volume changes. A provider who will not move you onto the cheaper of their own models as you grow is worth noticing.