Merchant Account Interchange Plus Pricing
Depending on your customer base; sometimes the typical bundled Qualified, Mid Qualified and
Non-Qualified pricing plans that you'll find offered by merchant
providers may not not best for your business.
If you are seeing a large majority of "Non-Qualified"
transactions on your statement you may want to look into the Interchange Plus
pricing plan.
Interchange plus is the only plan in which all transaction rates
are affected directly by the Visa/MC Interchange Rate (a set of
pre-defined by Visa/MC rules that determines pricing for each card) that
the merchant provider is charged directly. So instead of
being billed a Qualified, Mid Qualified, and Non-Qualified
bundled rate, you are billed whatever Visa/MC charges for that
particular card plus a small markup determined by the merchant
account provider.
When Interchange plus pricing was first introduced it was only
available to certain merchants that had extremely high volume
but now due to the competitive nature of the industry and the
fact that Visa/MC is now more transparent about their
Interchange rates merchants now find it easier to sign up for
Interchange Plus pricing if they so wish. Again, it's not
best for everyone due to it's lack of simplicity but it may be
worth looking into if you find that you are seeing lots of
downgrades to Non-Qualified.
Real-Time Visa/MC Interchange Charts:
Many Merchants will not understand
these charts as it breaks down the pricing of certain types of
cards that an untrained eye may not be able to decipher.
But the following real-time Visa/MC Interchange Charts (directly
from their respective brands) give an overview of the
different Interchange Categories that are set by Visa/MC.
If you have questions on these rates and card types if is best
that you deal with your merchant provider or contact a merchant
provider expert/resource (such as MerchantSeek).
Again
these rates are not as "simple" to decipher as there are
literally hundreds of different rate categories with card types
that are also confusing to understand unless you are an expert
in the
merchant provider industry. Contact your merchant
provider or email MerchantSeek via our "Contact Us" page for answers to merchant
account related questions.
How can I tell which category a card will fall under?
We are also often asked if there is a way to tell when a
merchant takes a card what "bucket" or category the transaction
will fall under when you take the card - the answer is no you cannot. This was
really the one of the initial reasons for providers offering the standard
"Qualified, Mid Qualified, and Non-Qualified" pricing. It
narrows down hundreds of confusing categories into 3 categories
that are easier to understand. So though you will never be
able to tell where your card will land you do have an easier
time reading your merchant statements.
Interchange plus is a great tool for merchants that take a lot of
non-traditional credit cards that often downgrade to the lowest
"Non-Qualified" level. But if you're satisfied with the
current qualification level of your merchant account (or if you
don't have an account yet), starting out with a 2 or 3-Tier rate with a
provider that will allow you to change down the road is a good
way to get a feel for whether or not Interchange plus is for
you.
Go back to:
Merchant Account Rates
or the
Buyers Guide Merchant Rates Overview
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Tips for Merchant Account
Holders
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