Payment Platform Pricing for ISVs

The headline rate (e.g. '2.9% + $0.30') covers the baseline card transaction. The effective rate is what you actually pay once you layer in cross-border fees, currency conversion, chargeback fees, instant-payout fees, advanced fraud tooling, and PCI compliance costs. For most ISVs, the effective rate runs 30–80 basis points above the headline depending on mix. Every pricing page on this site surfaces the hidden-cost surface so you can model it, not just the sticker price.

Flat-rate (e.g. Stripe, Square) is simpler to model and onboard, but leaves margin on the table at scale because you're not seeing the interchange floor. Interchange-plus (e.g. Adyen, Payrix, Finix) exposes the true cost and lets you negotiate markup, but requires more operational muscle and usually a higher volume commitment. For sub-$5M annual processing, flat-rate usually wins on simplicity; above that, IC+ almost always wins on margin.

Most flat-rate providers require direct sales engagement and annual commitments to negotiate off-rack pricing — typically starting around $1M–$5M annual processing volume, though the actual threshold is rarely published. Interchange-plus providers negotiate markup from day one but base the markup on projected volume. If a provider won't discuss volume pricing before you commit, that's a pricing-transparency signal worth noting.

Every pricing page is reviewed quarterly, and we re-verify whenever a provider ships a material pricing change — new cross-border fee, new instant-payout fee, new subscription tier, changed dispute fee. The Updated date on each page reflects the last substantive change. Cosmetic edits don't bump it.

Every published fee is sourced from the provider's public pricing page, public docs, or a signed contract shared by an ISV we work with. We don't take vendor marketing claims at face value — if a number isn't visible on a public URL or a document we've seen, we mark it 'negotiated' rather than publish a guess. If a provider updates a number, we update the page and note the change.

Yes. The revenue calculator models payment economics at your volume, MCC mix, average ticket, and chargeback rate. For a custom written analysis comparing 2–3 candidates against your actual stack, use the contact form — turnaround is 3–5 business days.