You signed up for what seemed like a great rate — maybe 1.79% or “qualified rate of 1.59%.” But your actual bill is way higher. Sound familiar?
Welcome to the world of hidden fees. Here's what your processor hopes you never notice.
The Usual Suspects
Statement fee ($10–$25/month) — you're literally paying them to send you a bill. In 2026. When everything is digital.
PCI compliance fee ($15–$30/month) — PCI compliance is required, but the fee to “manage” it is pure profit for your processor. Some charge it even if you're already compliant.
PCI non-compliance fee ($30–$100/month) — didn't fill out that annual questionnaire you didn't know about? That'll cost you.
Batch fee ($0.25–$0.50/day) — charged every time you close out your terminal. That's $7.50–$15/month for pressing a button.
Annual fee ($75–$300/year) — for the privilege of being their customer. Usually snuck in during December.
The Big One: Non-Qualified Surcharges
If your processor uses “tiered pricing,” they sort your transactions into qualified, mid-qualified, and non-qualified buckets. The qualified rate is the one they advertised. The non-qualified rate? Could be 1–2% higher.
And here's the kicker: rewards cards, corporate cards, and keyed-in transactions almost always land in the expensive bucket. For a typical restaurant, that's 40–60% of transactions.
So your “1.79% rate” is really 2.5–3.5% on most of your volume.
How to Spot Them
Look for line items you didn't agree to. Add up every fee on your statement and divide by your total volume. If the number is more than 0.3% above what you were quoted, you've got hidden fees.
Or skip the math entirely — our Fair Rate Analyzer does it for you.
A Better Way
At PAYHERO, we don't do statement fees, PCI fees, batch fees, annual fees, or non-qualified surcharges. Your cost is interchange (what Visa/Mastercard charges) plus our per-transaction fee. That's it. You can read the whole statement in under a minute.
Radical, right? It shouldn't be. But here we are.