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Pricing models · Glossary

Tiered pricing

Also called: bundled pricing

Tiered pricing is a payment-processing model where transactions are bucketed into qualified, mid-qualified, and non-qualified tiers, each charged at a different rate. Notorious for opaque fee escalation as the processor reclassifies transactions into higher-cost tiers without explanation.

Why this matters to merchants

Tiered pricingsits inside the broader system of U.S. payment processing economics that determine a merchant’s effective rate. Most operators encounter this term on their merchant statement without understanding what it controls, which is how the four hidden fees covered by our methodology slip past unnoticed.

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