Processing Fee

A processing fee is the amount a payment processor charges to accept a card payment. It's almost always a percentage of the transaction plus a small fixed amount, deducted automatically before the funds reach your balance.

How it's structured

The classic online-card rate in the US is 2.9% + $0.30 per successful charge, with no monthly or setup fee on the standard plan. The percentage scales with the payment size; the fixed fee covers the cost of processing each individual transaction regardless of amount.

For a $100.00 payment at 2.9% + $0.30, the fee is (0.029 × $100) + $0.30 = `$3.20`, leaving $96.80 net.

What can raise the rate

The headline rate is only the baseline. Common surcharges include:

• International cards — often an extra 1.5%.
• Currency conversion — around 1% when converting currencies.
• Manually entered cards — a small added percentage for higher-risk keyed entry.

Much of this cost is passed through from the interchange fee set by card networks and issuers.

Why it matters for SaaS

Processing fees quietly erode margin, especially on high-volume, low-ticket subscriptions where the fixed $0.30 is a large share of a small charge. The fee is recorded on each balance transaction, and subtracting it across all payments gives your net volume. ChargeBell shows the net-after-fees figure directly on each payment alert, so the number you see in Slack is what actually hit your balance — not the gross you charged.