The library
Buyer guides, head-to-head comparisons and industry analysis — built on the same six criteria we use to grade every processor in the catalogue.
A retainer paid by card must reach the trust account in full, the fee must come out of the firm's own money, and no chargeback may touch another client's funds. Most general-purpose processors cannot promise any of that. What the ABA and state bars say, and what the processors that comply charge, as of September 2026.
12 min readSeptember 13, 2026
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Capital One finished moving its debit cards from Mastercard to the Discover network this year. The federal interchange cap does not reach a three-party network, so a card that cost a merchant about 24 cents on a $50 sale now costs about 71. Who pays, who does not, and what the other big banks are doing about it.
11 min readSeptember 13, 2026
Square, PayPal, Stripe, Shopify and Toast all lend against your card sales on the same terms: one fixed fee, no interest, repaid as a slice of every day's takings. The fee is fixed. The time is not, and that is where the cost hides. Worked through with the providers' own examples, as of September 2026.
11 min readSeptember 12, 2026
Affirm, Afterpay, Klarna and Sezzle do not publish what they charge a merchant. Stripe, Square, PayPal and Shopify do, and as of September 2026 the answer clusters around 6% plus 30 cents. Here is what that buys, what the rate leaves out, and what the regulators are about to change.
12 min readSeptember 12, 2026
When a card issued outside the United States is used at a US business, Visa and Mastercard each add roughly 1.45% in cross-border assessments on top of everything else. Here is where that number comes from, how flat-rate processors pass it on, and what actually reduces it.
10 min readSeptember 11, 2026
Every vertical software company is told to monetise payments. There are three ways to do it, and they differ in who holds the merchant agreement, who eats the losses, and how much of the margin you keep. The published prices, side by side.
12 min readSeptember 11, 2026
In April 2026 Visa and Mastercard both stopped billing tokenization and card-updating services on use, and started charging for them as a rate on every card-not-present authorisation. Visa has already published the 2027 increase.
9 min readSeptember 10, 2026
Mastercard's specialty merchant fees began billing on 14 June 2026: $1,000 a year, $0.02 a transaction and 10 basis points on volume. Visa has charged the same shape of fee since 2023. What it adds up to, and which transactions are caught.
8 min readSeptember 10, 2026
Three Visa changes land between April and October 2026: the Digital Authentication Framework is being retired, passkeys are replacing it, and a token service switches on automatically at the end of October. Only one of them has a deadline you can miss, and it is not the one being written about.
10 min readSeptember 9, 2026
Visa's own rate schedule gives charities 1.35% + $0.05 on consumer credit, card-present or online, on every card tier including premium rewards. Two things stand between a nonprofit and that number: a merchant category code, and a pricing model that passes it through.
11 min readSeptember 9, 2026
An equipment lease is a separate contract with a separate company, written as a finance lease so that it cannot be cancelled. Cancelling your merchant account does nothing to it. Here is the law behind that, the arithmetic, and what a New York court found when it finally read one of these programmes end to end.
9 min readSeptember 8, 2026
Three ways to accept a card, three different answers to the question of whose name is on the merchant agreement and whose name appears on your customer's statement. The card network rules are explicit about it, and the difference decides your tax exposure, your chargeback liability and how hard it is to leave.
9 min readSeptember 8, 2026
A funding delay, a risk hold and a reserve are three different things with three different cures. Here is what Visa requires an acquirer's contract to say about reserves — and what Stripe's, Square's and PayPal's agreements reserve the right to do instead.
10 min readSeptember 7, 2026
Federal regulators are now barred from using reputation risk against the banks they supervise, and credit unions followed in July. The rule constrains examiners, not the acquirer that underwrites you — which is where almost every merchant account decision is actually made.
9 min readSeptember 7, 2026
Stablecoin acceptance now has published prices and a federal statute behind it. Here is what the rate actually buys, what disappears along with the chargeback, and the short list of merchants for whom the maths works today.
8 min readSeptember 7, 2026
Congress restored the $20,000 and 200-transaction threshold, and the coverage told small sellers they would stop getting a 1099-K. If you take cards through a merchant account, no threshold ever applied to you — and the December 2026 form has two new boxes nobody has mentioned.
7 min readSeptember 6, 2026
Pay by bank is sold as a way around interchange. It is three different products with three different price tags, and the Federal Reserve's own research warns against the savings claims. Here is what the rails cost, where the dispute rules land, and the shape of business it genuinely suits.
8 min readSeptember 5, 2026
A North Dakota court vacated Regulation II in August 2025 and then paused its own ruling. The Eighth Circuit heard argument in May 2026 and has not decided. Here is what the cap is actually worth to your business, and whether your pricing model would pass a change through at all.
9 min readSeptember 5, 2026
A MATCH listing follows you for five years, names you personally as well as your company, and nobody is required to tell you it happened. Here is what the rules actually say about how a listing is created, who can remove one, and what to do while you are on it.
11 min readSeptember 4, 2026
The Interchange Fee Prohibition Act was supposed to take effect on 1 July 2026. It is now permanently enjoined against most card issuers, preempted by two federal regulators, and delayed by statute to July 2027. Here is what an Illinois merchant should actually plan for.
9 min readSeptember 4, 2026
The FTC's click-to-cancel rule was vacated before it ever took effect. That changed less than most subscription businesses think, because Visa, Mastercard and California already require most of the same things — and have for years.
10 min readSeptember 3, 2026
Nacha's fraud-monitoring rule reached the rest of the ACH network on 22 June 2026. There is no volume threshold any more, no software you can buy to satisfy it, and two new mandatory descriptors that most e-commerce merchants have not heard of.
10 min readSeptember 3, 2026
Visa's general Level 2 interchange category no longer appears on its published rate schedule. Working from Visa's own document dated 18 April 2026, here is what enhanced data is worth now, where the arithmetic breaks for small-business cards, and what to check on your statement.
9 min readSeptember 2, 2026
The shortest PCI questionnaire got shorter in January 2025, and harder at the same time. Two requirements moved out of SAQ A and became conditions you have to satisfy before you may use the form at all — including one about your whole website, not just your payment page.
8 min readSeptember 2, 2026
Your statement is three costs stacked on top of each other: interchange set by the card networks, assessments and network fees the networks charge your acquirer, and your processor's markup. Only the third is negotiable. Here is how to separate them, using published 2026 rates.
9 min readSeptember 2, 2026
On 1 April 2026 Visa cut the excessive-merchant VAMP threshold from 220 to 150 basis points. The ratio counts issuer fraud reports as well as chargebacks, and only card-not-present sales. Here is how it is built, and what a breach costs.
11 min readSeptember 2, 2026
A federal judge gave preliminary approval to the revised Visa and Mastercard interchange settlement in June 2026. Here is what is in it, what is not, when any of it takes effect, and which merchants would actually see the savings.
12 min readSeptember 2, 2026
Surcharging is legal in most of the United States, but the rules come from three places at once: Visa, Mastercard and your state. Here is what each one requires, where the blog guides are out of date, and how the processors we review handle it.
16 min readSeptember 2, 2026
Six processors for online stores, compared on published rates, chargeback fees and what happens when you scale — including the point at which the industry-standard 2.9% + $0.30 stops being a good deal.
9 min readAugust 25, 2026
Six processors for restaurants, bars and cafes — compared on the card-present rate that decides your annual cost, the monthly software fee, and the early-termination clause that catches out more operators than anything else on this page.
10 min readAugust 25, 2026
Six providers that will underwrite a high-risk business, ranked by volume and situation — plus the five mainstream processors that will close your account once they notice what you sell.
9 min readAugust 25, 2026
Six providers that will actually board a hemp or CBD business for credit card processing, ranked by what you sell and how much of it — plus the five well-known processors that will close your account, so you don’t waste an application.
9 min readAugust 25, 2026
Five processors that will board an FFL, a gun store or an online ammunition retailer — with the card-present rates that actually matter at a counter, and the five mainstream processors that prohibit the category outright.
8 min readAugust 25, 2026
Learn more about the payment processing and merchant account options for pawn shops like yours.
4 min readApril 8, 2026
Having the right payment terminal can make the difference between smooth service and frustrated customers.
4 min readOctober 2, 2025
Learn how current and future data privacy regulations may affect payment processors and other businesses.
5 min readOctober 2, 2025
Learn how to navigate recent technological advancements and future regulatory shifts and tech changes.
5 min readNovember 13, 2024
Learn more about high risk merchant accounts and which processor might be best for your business.
5 min readNovember 9, 2024
Learn more about the companies that offer high risk merchant accounts with instant approval.
4 min readOctober 25, 2024
Whether your auctions are online or in-person these top payment processors are here to help.
4 min readOctober 22, 2024
Learn more about the top payment processors for marketers. Find one that's perfect for your business.
4 min readOctober 17, 2024
Explore our comprehensive guide of the top payment processors for consulting businesses.
5 min readOctober 1, 2024
Check out our comprehensive guide of the top payment processing companies for furniture merchants.
5 min readSeptember 29, 2024
Learn more about these top-notch payment processors services designed with pharmacies in mind.
5 min readSeptember 24, 2024
Answer six questions and we’ll rank every processor we grade against your answers — and tell you which ones will decline you before you apply.