Blog · Payments · November 23, 2012

Small Ticket Rates

Visa and Mastercard both have special, lower interchange rates for small transaction sizes. Visa and Mastercard tend to create new interchange categories when they want to attract a new kind of merchant that has not previously accepted cards. Small ticket merchants (think convenience stores, parking meters, etc.) have historically been turned off by the per-transaction part of the interchange rates. Paying $0.10 in interchange, plus another few cents to the credit card processor really hurts when you are only charging the customer $5.

If you have a small average transaction size, make sure you are getting the lower Small Ticket rates passed on to you by your merchant account provider. Of course all the deals on FeeFighters.com use Interchange Plus pricing and take advantage of these lower rates.

Card Type	Normal Retail Interchange Category	Normal Interchange Rate			Small Ticket Rate Category	Small Ticket Interchange Rate
		$	%	Cost for a $10 Transaction		$	%	Cost for a $10 transaction
Visa Debit	CPS Retail Debit	0.2	0.95%	0.30	CPS Small Ticket Debit	0.04	1.55%	0.20
Visa Regular Credit	CPS Retail Credit	0.1	1.54%	0.25	CPS Small Ticket Credit	0.04	1.65%	0.21
Visa Rewards	CPS Rewards 1	0.1	1.65%	0.27	CPS Small Ticket Credit	0.04	1.65%	0.21
Mastercard Debit	Merit III Debit	0.15	1.05%	0.26	Small Ticket Debit	0.04	1.55%	0.20
Mastercard Regular Credit	Merit III Core	0.1	1.58%	0.26	Merit III Core	0.1	0.0158	0.26
Mastercard Basic Rewards	Merit III Enhanced	0.1	1.73%	0.27	Merit III Enhanced	0.1	0.0173	0.27
Mastercard World (Rewards)	Merit III World	0.1	1.73%

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