Most business owners never read their processing statement past the total. That’s understandable — they’re built to be skimmed past, not understood. Here’s what’s actually on there, line by line.
Interchange and assessments
This is the largest line on almost every statement, and it’s the one part nobody can negotiate. Interchange is set by the card networks (Visa, Mastercard, Discover, Amex) and paid to the bank that issued your customer’s card. Assessments are a smaller network fee on top of that. Every processor pays the same interchange rates for the same transaction — this is the floor, not the markup.
Processor markup
This is what your processor charges on top of interchange, and it’s the part that’s actually negotiable. It shows up as a percentage, a per-transaction fee, or both. If two statements look different, this is almost always where the difference lives.
PCI non-compliance fee
Charged when a business hasn’t completed a PCI (Payment Card Industry) self-assessment questionnaire — a short annual form, usually free to fill out. Processors charge this fee, often $30–40 a month, specifically because the form wasn’t filled out. It stops the moment it is.
Monthly minimum
If your total processing fees for the month fall below a set amount, some processors charge you the difference. It’s a fee for not generating enough fees. Low-volume or seasonal businesses hit this most often.
Statement fee
A flat monthly charge for producing the statement itself — the same statement you can also pull from an online portal for free. Small, but it’s pure margin for the processor.
Batch fees
A small charge each time your terminal closes out the day’s transactions and sends them for settlement (usually once every 24 hours). Shows up as a per-batch amount multiplied by the number of batches in the billing period.
Wireless or gateway access fee
A recurring charge for a terminal’s cellular or wireless data connection. Worth checking against how the terminal actually connects — machines plugged into ethernet or Wi-Fi sometimes still carry this fee because nobody updated the account after the equipment changed.
What to do with this
None of these fees are illegal or even unusual — most processors charge some version of most of them. The question worth asking isn’t “is this a real fee,” it’s “am I paying it because it applies to me, or because it’s just sitting on the account.” That second category is where a statement review earns its ten minutes.
Send me yours and I’ll go through it the same way.