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Pricing estimator

What will card processing actually cost you?

Plug in your volumes and risk profile. We'll estimate the Cardflo fee, regional scheme and interchange costs, and chargeback exposure, in your local currency.

Your business

This calculator is illustrative and shows an estimated blended cost only. It is not a binding quote. Actual pricing depends on the specific acquirer mix, your risk profile, jurisdiction, processing volume, chargeback and refund history, and other commercial terms. Cardflo will provide a tailored quote after reviewing your application.

Indicative only. Final pricing depends on your acquirer mix, region split, refund and chargeback ratios, and acquirer pricing. UK IFR caps: 0.3% credit, 0.2% debit.

Estimated monthly cost
£2,225.00
0.74% effective rate on £300,000.00 volume
Cardflo platform fee
£0.10 per txn
£500.00
Acquiring fee
£0.05 per txn + 0.20%
£850.00
Scheme & interchange
Regulated IFR caps (0.3% credit, 0.2% debit)
£750.00
Chargeback costs
5 × £25.00
£125.00
Total
£2,225.00
Get a tailored quote

Effective card processing rate is one of the most opaque numbers in a merchant's P&L. Interchange, scheme fees, acquirer margin, cross-border assessments, 3DS fees, refund fees and chargeback fees stack in different ways depending on your MCC, geography and card mix. The estimator gives you an honest read on what you should be paying.

What actually moves your rate

MCC and risk profile

A grocery MCC (5411) prices at 0.2 percent interchange in the EU. A high-risk MCC like adult content (5967) can price 20x higher. If your acquirer isn't quoting you interchange++ with a visible margin, they're almost certainly making the difference on undisclosed markup.

Card mix

Commercial cards, premium consumer cards and non-EEA cards carry higher interchange than domestic consumer credit. If 40 percent of your traffic is international premium, expect an effective rate 60 to 120 basis points higher than a UK-only high-street retailer.

Chargeback ratio

A chargeback ratio above 0.9 percent triggers Visa's Dispute Monitoring Programme and adds a per-chargeback fee of $50 to $100. Above 1.8 percent it becomes Excessive, and acquirers start pricing in a monitoring fine. Keep it below 0.5 percent.

Geography and cross-border flags

A transaction is cross-border when the issuer and acquirer sit in different countries, and the assessment applies even if the customer never left home. Adding a domestic acquirer in a market where you already have real volume is often the single largest saving available to a merchant selling across Europe.

Average ticket and authorisation mix

Fixed per-transaction fees dominate on small baskets, percentage costs dominate on large ones. A merchant with a five pound average ticket and one with a five hundred pound ticket should negotiate completely different structures, even on identical MCCs and volumes.

Refunds, retries and disputes

Every refund, retry attempt and dispute carries its own fee, and none of them appear in the headline rate. High-refund verticals such as fashion and travel routinely pay more in ancillary fees than in acquirer margin, which is why the estimator models them separately.

Common questions

What pricing models does this cover?

Interchange++ (the acquirer publishes each cost line), blended (one flat percentage), and tiered (buckets by card type). Cardflo strongly recommends interchange++ for anyone doing over £250k a year in card volume: the transparency alone is worth 10 to 30 basis points a year.

Is the estimate binding?

No. It's indicative and based on your inputs. Real pricing depends on your MCC, geography, average ticket, chargeback ratio, PCI scope and volume. Apply for a merchant account and we come back with a formal offer in two business days.

How do I read the output?

The estimator returns a breakdown: interchange (paid to the issuer), scheme fees (paid to Visa/Mastercard), acquirer margin (paid to your processor) and platform fee (Cardflo's share). Everything except acquirer margin is a pass-through cost that doesn't vary between providers.

What if my numbers look worse than the estimate?

It usually means your current acquirer is blending in undisclosed markup, or you're on a tiered rate card that hides the true interchange. Apply and we'll build a benchmark against your current 90-day statement so you can see the delta line by line.

How do I compare two offers that are quoted differently?

Convert both to an effective rate: total cost of acceptance divided by total processed volume, over the same period and using your real card mix. A blended quote that looks cheaper than interchange++ often loses once premium, commercial and non-EEA cards are included, because blended pricing is set on an assumed mix that rarely matches yours. Ask each provider for a worked example on your last full month of statements, including scheme fees, authorisation fees, refund fees and any monthly minimums, then compare the single number that results.

What savings are realistic if I have already negotiated?

Merchants who have never benchmarked usually find 20 to 40 basis points. Merchants who negotiated recently on interchange++ terms typically find less on margin but still gain on routing: domestic acquiring, network tokens, retry timing and correctly claimed SCA exemptions all lift approvals, and an approval-rate gain of a single percentage point is usually worth more than the entire acquirer margin. That is why the estimator shows cost and approval impact side by side rather than treating price as the only variable.

Related guides.

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