THE BENCHMARK · V1
What does taking a payment actually cost?
Every major processor's published list price, read off the official pricing pages and put side by side — with the regulated floors underneath. The numbers nobody puts in the same table, in one table.
1
List price is the ceiling, not the price. Square invites custom pricing above $250K/yr, Razorpay above ₹5L/month, Stripe and Adyen negotiate everything at volume — and Worldpay and Checkout.com don't publish numbers at all. The table is what you pay before you have leverage.
2
Blended vs interchange-plus is the real comparison. A "2.9% + 30¢" blended rate quietly averages cheap debit with expensive rewards credit; IC+ (Adyen, Helcim) passes the true cost through and charges a visible margin on top. Which one wins depends on your card mix — that's why the same merchant gets different answers.
3
The floors are political, not technical. EU interchange is capped at 0.3%/0.2%, regulated US debit at 21¢ + 0.05% + 1¢, UPI is zero-MDR by mandate — and processors price above those floors differently in every market. Same plumbing, different regulation, different bill.
how interchange is set explains why →