What's a good credit card processing rate? 2026 benchmarks by business type
Actual effective rate benchmarks for restaurants, salons, medical offices, and more. Finally tell if you're overpaying.
You’ve asked your processor. You’ve asked your accountant. Maybe you’ve even asked Reddit. And every single time, you get the same useless answer: “It depends.”
It does depend on your industry, your volume, your card mix, and whether your processor is padding the markup. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t real numbers to compare against. There are. Nobody publishes them because every major “guide” out there is written by a processor or an affiliate getting paid to send you to one.
Here are the actual benchmarks.
How to calculate your effective rate (30 seconds)
Pull your most recent processing statement. Find two numbers:
- Total processing fees: everything they charged you
- Total card volume: everything you processed
Divide fees by volume. Multiply by 100. That’s your effective rate.
Example: $1,450 in fees on $55,000 in volume = 2.64% effective rate.
This is the only number that matters. Not the rate your sales rep quoted. Not the “qualified” rate on your contract. Your effective rate captures every fee: interchange, assessments, markup, and all the junk fees your processor hopes you’ll never question.
If you want the full breakdown of what’s hiding inside that number, we covered it in Your Merchant Statement Is Lying to You.
2026 benchmarks by business type
These ranges assume card-present transactions on interchange-plus pricing, which is the setup most small businesses should be on. If you’re on flat-rate or tiered pricing, your numbers will likely be higher.
| Business Type | Good | Fair | Overpaying |
|---|---|---|---|
| Retail (card-present) | 1.5–1.8% | 1.8–2.3% | Above 2.5% |
| Restaurant (full-service) | 1.5–1.8% | 1.8–2.2% | Above 2.5% |
| Restaurant (quick-service) | 1.4–1.7% | 1.7–2.0% | Above 2.3% |
| Salon / Spa | 2.2–2.5% | 2.5–2.8% | Above 3.0% |
| Medical / Dental | 1.8–2.0% | 2.0–2.3% | Above 2.5% |
| Auto Repair | 2.2–2.5% | 2.5–3.0% | Above 3.2% |
| E-commerce | 2.2–2.5% | 2.5–3.0% | Above 3.2% |
Why the variation? Restaurants and retail get the lowest rates because card-present, chip-read transactions carry the least fraud risk. Salons and auto shops run higher because of tipping, larger tickets, and (in the case of auto) higher dispute rates. E-commerce gets hit with a 0.10–0.30% premium on every transaction because the card isn’t physically present.
If your effective rate is in the “Overpaying” column, you’re almost certainly leaving money on the table every single month.
Why your volume matters as much as your industry
A restaurant doing $20,000/month and one doing $80,000/month should not be paying the same effective rate. Higher volume means more leverage and more savings when you’re on the right pricing model.
Here’s what the math looks like for a typical business comparing flat-rate pricing (2.6% + $0.15/transaction) against interchange-plus (~1.7% effective):
| Monthly Volume | Flat-Rate Cost | Interchange-Plus Cost | You’re Leaving on the Table |
|---|---|---|---|
| $15,000 | ~$405/mo | ~$275/mo | $130/mo ($1,560/yr) |
| $25,000 | ~$670/mo | ~$425/mo | $245/mo ($2,940/yr) |
| $50,000 | ~$1,315/mo | ~$850/mo | $465/mo ($5,580/yr) |
| $75,000 | ~$1,960/mo | ~$1,275/mo | $685/mo ($8,220/yr) |
| $100,000 | ~$2,615/mo | ~$1,700/mo | $915/mo ($10,980/yr) |
Read that last row again. If you’re doing $100K/month on Square or Stripe, you could be saving nearly $11,000 a year by switching to interchange-plus pricing. That’s not a rounding error. That’s a part-time employee.
The breakpoint is somewhere around $10,000–$15,000/month. Below that, flat-rate pricing is fine. The simplicity is worth the premium. Above that, you’re paying for convenience you no longer need.
The hidden fees that inflate your real rate
Here’s the trick processors don’t want you to catch. They quote you a transaction rate (say 2.9% + $0.30) and that sounds reasonable. But your effective rate ends up at 3.5% or higher because of fees that weren’t in the pitch:
- PCI compliance fee: $20–$39/month
- Monthly account fee: $10–$25/month
- Gateway fee: $10–$30/month
- Batch settlement fee: $0–$10/month
- Statement fee: $5–$10/month
On $10,000 in monthly volume, those fees add up to $45–$114/month. That bumps your effective rate from the quoted 2.9% to somewhere between 3.35% and 4.04%. On $50,000/month the same fees are a smaller percentage hit, but they still add 0.10–0.25% to your real cost.
This is why the effective rate is the only honest measure. It catches everything.
What to do if you’re in the red zone
If your effective rate puts you in the “Overpaying” column for your industry, here’s the play:
-
Know your number. Calculate your effective rate from your last 3 statements. If it’s trending up, your processor may have slipped in a rate increase without telling you. That happens more often than you’d think.
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Compare to the benchmarks. A restaurant at 2.8% or a salon at 3.3% has room to improve. The gap between where you are and where you should be, multiplied by your monthly volume, is what you’re losing every month.
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Negotiate or switch. Call your processor with your effective rate and the benchmarks in hand. Ask for a specific reduction. If they won’t move, get competitive quotes from interchange-plus processors. Make sure those quotes include all fees, not just the transaction rate.
If you don’t want to do the math yourself, that’s what a statement audit is for. We’ll pull apart your statement line by line, benchmark every fee against what you should be paying, and show you exactly where the overage is hiding. The average business we audit is overpaying by $200–$400/month, which means the audit pays for itself before the first month is over.
Your processor is counting on you not knowing these numbers. Now you do.
Check your numbers
Enter your monthly volume and total fees to see how you compare.