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HOME/ FAQ / About Quotes, Rates, Fees.

How do I know if I have competitive rate for my business?
Finding your true cost for processing services is not an easy task. Which is better, a small transaction fee or a bundled rate? Is a monthly fee less expensive than an annual fee? The Answer: It depends.
Every business has its own unique set of circumstances that must be considered when making a financial decision like choosing an electronic payment services provider. For example, whether a bundled discount rate or a rate plus transaction fee makes better financial sense depends primarily on the dollar volume your business processes each month and the average transaction size. The lower the average transaction size, the greater the percentage of the sale a transaction fee represents.
Different business type pays different rates, depending on the risk they represent for the Bank. For example a retailer, who mainly swipes cards through a terminal, is considered less risky than an e-commerce merchant who process cards over the Internet.
The card present businesses should pay less than card not present businesses.
We invite you to click here to find out if you got the best possible rate for your business.

What are the costs for your services?
Because each of our customers has unique needs, our processing services are customized according to the specifics of their business. Pricing is based on factors such as type of industry, payment method, estimated processing volume, and a number of other variables. To receive a personalized pricing quote from one of our helpful representatives, please follow these easy steps in our Get a free Quote section and you will receive a prompt response.

How to Calculate My Effective Rate
Follow these quick steps to calculate your TRUE cost for credit card processing:
1/ Grab your last processing statement and a calculator.
2/ Enter the TOTAL amount deducted from your account for service. Make sure this number includes ALL charges during the statement period (discount rate paid, surcharges, transaction and authorization fees, Batch fees, AVS fees, chargebacks fees, annual and monthly fees..)
3/ Divide the number entered in step 2 by the TOTAL amount of sales volume processed during the statement period. This is your effective rate for that time period.
We invite you to click here to find out if you got the best possible rate for your business.

How come I don't get the rate my Processor wrote on my contract?
Merchants are classified according their merchant types: Retailers, Restaurants, Hotels, Supermarkets, Fuel, Transport, Mail Order / Telephone Order or E-commerce..
Each catagory of business has a "qualified" rate: Qualifed means the kind of transaction this business is most likely to get make. Think of it as a local phone call. Whenever this rate is not applicable, the merchant will be surcharged: these surcharges are called " downgrades". Surcharges are related to "mid-qualified", or "non-qualified transactions" catagores on your processing statement. Think of these as long distance or international phone calls.
Example: clothes & accessories retailer
The qualified rate applies to every swiped, consumer transaction.
If the transaction is key-entered (because you get an order on the phone), or the merchant is paid by a corporate card, he will pay a higher fee.
That's why merchants often THINK they pay a certain rate, but in fact they don't. Remeber, that rate is dependent on what type of card the customer presents for payment!

What are interchange fees?
Interchange fees are transaction-related costs that the Processor pays to the issuer of the card as compensation. These fees are established by MasterCardŽ and VISAŽ and represent the fee a card issuer gets for finaciang the payment for the merchant. Transaction processing fees are added to interchange to compensate transaction processor. Click here to know more

What is a chargeback?
Occasionally, a cardholder will dispute a charge that appears on his/her monthly bankcard statement and/or it may be discovered that the proper bankcard acceptance and authorization procedures were not followed at the point of sale. If this happens, you will be notified of the dispute and the amount will be debited from your settlement/deposit account if you cannot produce adequate proof that you follow processing procedure. Chargebacks can occur for a wide variety of other reasons, such as double-charging, credit card expiration, bank error.

What is a monthly minimum fee?
This processing fee is collected by your transaction and discount rate fees from your credit card sales each month. So, for instance, say your merchant account company charges $25 as a monthly minimum, if the transaction and discount rate fees collected by the processing company add up and equal or go over $25 that month, no monthly minimum will be charged. However, if the fees for that month do not meet the $25 monthly minimum, you will then be charged the difference.

What is Address Verification Service?
AVS stands for Address Verification Service. It verifies the cardholder's billing address in order to help combat fraud in card-not-present transactions, such as Internet and mail/telephone order. This service is only available for credit card transactions within the United States.

I don't swipe many cards, why is my rate so high?
Non-swiped transactions are less secure and are prone to higher incidences of consumer fraud. A great way to lower your non-swiped rate is by utilizing AVS (address verification system). This is a secured form of keyed transactions that offers you the merchant better than typical non-swiped rates offered by most other companies.

Why are rates higher for Internet, Mail and Telephone Order transactions?
Face-to-face transactions where the credit card is swiped are considered less risky by banks. Since this is the case, rates are quite a bit lower as the instances of fraud and chargebacks are a lot less.

Do your fees include all costs? Or will the acquiring bank charge additional fees?
MuniCommerce's quote includes all fees. There will be no additional bank charges linked to credit card processing.

I would like to receive an offer from MuniCommerce. What do I need to do?
Click here, one of our Payment Consultant will get in touch with you.

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  Face to face (swipe),
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