Tips to Lower Your Merchant Account Fees

Written by: Financial Haze

Paying merchant account fees is a cost that almost any business has to deal with. If you want to accept bank accounts, you need to work with a reputable merchant bank to process the credit card payment and get the money into your business bank account. Merchant banks will charge fees to cover their costs — usually a percentages of each transaction.

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But just because paying merchant account fees is inevitable doesn’t mean that should have to pay excessive fees. Reducing the cost of your merchant account fees can significantly help the bottom line of your business and let you keep more profits from each sale. Here are three steps that businesses can take to lower their merchant account fees:

Avoid leasing equipment. Some banks will charge hundreds of dollars on top of their service fees for their customers to lease credit card terminals and other equipment. This puts you in a tough spot if you have to get out of a contract — breaking the lease can cost several times the amount of the original lease. You can usually buy equipment for costs similar to leases. In addition, many merchant banks offer free equipment as part of their services.

Read your monthly statements carefully. When you get your first monthly statement, review it closely to make sure there are no hidden fees that you didn’t know about ahead of time. If you have any questions about charges or acronyms used in your statement, call your merchant bank and ask for clarification. Once you are comfortable reading your statement, check each month to make sure no new charges show up.

Work with a merchant bank that fits your business. Many merchant banks make it expensive for small businesses to accept credit card payments by charging them a higher rate if their transaction volumes don’t meet certain limits. However, other merchant banks target small businesses and do whatever they can to offer them rates that are competitive what what a larger company would expect. there are many examples of a merchant bank with solutions targeted toward small businesses.