Why effective rate beats sticker rate every time
May 6, 2026 at 12:35 PM
The 2.6 percent on the home page is not what you pay. Effective rate (total fees divided by total volume) is the only number that matters when you compare processors. Most merchants on flat-rate plans are 0.30 to 0.50 percent above their tier benchmark.
The 2.6 percent that processors quote on home pages is the sticker rate. The effective rate (total fees divided by total volume in a billing period) is what you actually pay. Most merchants on flat-rate plans are running 0.30 to 0.50 percent above their tier benchmark, and the gap shows up only when you look at the statement, not the contract.
## How to compute yours Pull any recent monthly statement. Take the total fees line. Divide by total processed volume that month. Multiply by 100. That number is your true effective rate.
## What it means If your effective rate is more than 0.30 percent above the public benchmark for your volume tier (see our rate table), you are paying for the convenience of flat-rate pricing instead of interchange-plus. Above $25K monthly volume, the math almost always favors switching.
Sources: Visa and Mastercard published interchange schedules, processor public pricing pages.
Source
myPayAdvisor