Credit Card Processing Fees: What Missouri Businesses Actually Pay
Revised July 28, 2026
What do credit card processing fees actually cost a small business?
1.5% to 3.5% per transaction — in person about 1.8–2.6% + 8–15¢, online or keyed about 2.25–3.5% + 25–30¢, debit 0.5–1.5%. Your rate is three stacked fees: interchange (goes to your customer’s bank), assessments (the network), and the processor’s markup — and only the markup is negotiable. 💡 Missouri has no surcharge ban, so you may legally pass the fee on, subject to card-network caps around 3–4% and advance disclosure. ⚠️ Avoid tiered pricing, and judge any offer on your effective rate — total monthly fees ÷ total card volume — not the quoted number.
Keep reading ↓What do credit card processing fees actually cost a small business?
Between 1.5% and 3.5% of each transaction, and where you land inside that range depends less on luck than most owners think.
That range is the one point everyone agrees on — NerdWallet, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and OnDeck all publish the same figures independently. Roughly:
- In person, tapped or swiped — about 1.8% to 2.6%, plus 8 to 15 cents
- Online or manually keyed — about 2.25% to 3.5%, plus 25 to 30 cents
- Debit — about 0.5% to 1.5%, lower because debit interchange is regulated
So the same $100 sale costs you roughly $2 across the counter and closer to $3.50 typed into a form. If a meaningful share of your work is invoiced or taken over the phone, that difference is not rounding — it is a line item worth managing.
And the question almost everyone is really asking: in Missouri, you are allowed to pass it on. More on that below, because it is the part page one does not answer.
Where the money actually goes
Your rate is not one fee. It is three, stacked, and only one of them is negotiable — which is the single most useful thing to understand before any sales call.
Interchange. The largest slice, and it goes to the bank that issued your customer’s card — not to your processor. It is set by the card networks, it is the same for everyone, and nobody can discount it for you. Rewards cards carry higher interchange, which is why the customer paying with a premium travel card costs you more than the one with a plain debit card.
Assessments. A small cut to the network itself — Visa, Mastercard, and so on. Also fixed, also not negotiable.
The processor’s markup. This is the only part that is actually up for discussion, and it is the entire basis of every competing quote you will ever receive.
When a salesperson promises to “beat your rate,” they are talking about that third layer. Anyone claiming they can cut the first two is either confused or counting on you being.
The three pricing models, and the one to avoid
Flat rate. One blended percentage for everything — the Square and Stripe model. You pay the same whether the customer used a debit card or a premium rewards card. It is simple, predictable, requires no negotiation, and for low volume it is genuinely hard to beat on total cost once you account for your own time.
Published rates as of this writing: Square 2.6% + $0.15 in person on the free plan, 3.3% + $0.30 for online and invoices, 3.5% + $0.15 keyed. Stripe 2.9% + $0.30 for standard online domestic cards. Both change their pricing periodically, so check current rates rather than trusting any article, including this one.
Interchange-plus. You pay the real interchange, whatever it happens to be for that card, plus a stated markup. A competitive markup for a small or mid-sized merchant runs roughly 0.20% to 0.50% plus 10 to 20 cents. It is the transparent option — you can see exactly what the processor is making — and as volume grows it usually wins. It also requires you to read a statement.
Tiered. Your transactions get sorted into vague buckets labeled something like “qualified,” “mid-qualified” and “non-qualified.” The advertised rate is the qualified one. A great deal of your volume will mysteriously not qualify.
Avoid tiered. The structure exists to make comparison impossible, and the headline number it advertises is the one you will rarely pay.
Can you charge customers the fee? In Missouri, yes.
This is the most-asked question on the topic and the least well answered, because the answer genuinely depends on your state — and nearly every guide ranking for it is written for nobody in particular.
Missouri has no state law prohibiting or regulating credit card surcharging. A Missouri business may add a surcharge to credit card transactions. You are still bound by the card networks’ own rules, which generally cap surcharges in the region of 3–4%, require advance disclosure, and require that you register the practice with the networks.
For context on why this varies at all: in Expressions Hair Design v. Schneiderman, the Supreme Court held unanimously that surcharge bans regulate speech rather than conduct — they govern how a business is allowed to describe its prices. That reasoning dismantled outright bans in states that had them. Missouri never had one to dismantle.
Surcharge or cash discount?
They sound like the same thing and they are not, legally or in how customers receive them.
A surcharge adds a fee on top of the posted price when someone pays by credit card. A cash discount posts the higher price for everyone and takes something off for cash. Same arithmetic, different framing — and the cash-discount structure sits outside most surcharge rules entirely, which is exactly why many businesses choose it.
Two practical notes. Debit is different: surcharging debit cards is not permitted the way credit surcharging is, so a blanket "card fee" applied to everything is a mistake. And disclose it before the sale, visibly — at the door, on the menu, on the estimate. The complaint customers make is almost never about the 3%. It is about finding out at the till.
If you take orders through a delivery app, that is a different number
Worth separating, because restaurant owners routinely blame their processor for something else entirely. Go and read what owners post about this and you will find figures like “we have 14.81% come out of every sale” — and then a reply blaming the card processor. It almost never is.
Card processing runs 1.5% to 3.5%. Third-party delivery marketplace commission is an entirely different order of magnitude — Uber’s own published pricing lists marketplace delivery in the region of 20–30%, against roughly 2.5% plus 29 cents when the order comes through your own website using their tooling.
So an order placed on the app and the same order placed on your own site are not remotely the same transaction, and no amount of renegotiating your card rate touches the gap. If your effective cost per sale looks impossible, check which channel the orders are arriving through before you fire your processor.
One Missouri-specific trap that rides along with this. Missouri Department of Revenue Letter Ruling LR 8316 addressed whether delivery platforms act as the marketplace facilitator for sales tax purposes — and concluded they do not, in the arrangement examined. The practical consequence is that the restaurant generally retains primary liability for the sales tax on those orders, even though the platform collected the money from the customer.
That is not a processing question, it is a remittance one, and getting it wrong compounds monthly. If a meaningful share of your revenue arrives through a delivery platform, confirm with your accountant who is remitting what — and see our guide to the Missouri sales tax license for the underlying obligation.
The fees that are not on your rate sheet
The percentage is the part people compare. The monthly extras are where a "cheaper" processor quietly becomes expensive:
- Monthly minimum — charged if your fees fall short of a floor. Brutal for seasonal businesses.
- PCI compliance fee, and worse, a PCI non-compliance fee if you never completed a questionnaire you may not know exists.
- Statement, batch and gateway fees — small individually, permanent collectively.
- Chargeback fees, charged per dispute whether or not you win it.
- Early termination fees, which is why the contract length matters more than the rate.
The only number that means anything is your effective rate: total fees for the month divided by total card volume. Work it out from an actual statement. It is frequently 0.5 to 1 point above whatever rate was quoted, and it is the only figure worth comparing between providers.
When switching is worth the hassle
Run the effective rate before you do anything else. If it is close to the flat rates above, a switch will save you very little and cost you a week.
Interchange-plus generally starts to win as volume grows, because the flat-rate blend that protects a small merchant becomes an overpayment once you are processing steadily. Rather than trusting anyone’s threshold — including a processor’s, whose threshold is always conveniently just below your volume — take one month of real statements and price it both ways.
One more thing worth checking before you switch anything: how quickly the money actually lands. Two processors quoting the same rate can settle days apart, and for a business managing payroll against a thin balance, funding speed is worth more than a tenth of a point. Ask what standard settlement looks like, whether next-day funding costs extra, and what happens to deposits over a weekend or a holiday. It rarely appears on a rate comparison and it is frequently the thing you notice most.
Before signing anything, ask four questions and write down the answers: what is the markup over interchange, what is the contract term, what are the monthly fees in full, and what does leaving cost? A processor that will not answer the fourth in writing has told you what you need to know.
Frequently asked questions
Is it illegal to charge the 3% credit card fee?
Not in Missouri. The state has no law prohibiting or regulating credit card surcharges, so a Missouri business may pass the cost on. You must still follow the card networks’ rules — which generally cap the surcharge around 3–4%, require clear advance disclosure, and require registering the practice. Legality genuinely varies by state, which is why national guides dodge this question.
Can I pass on credit card fees to my customer?
In Missouri, yes. You can either surcharge credit card payments or run a cash discount, where the posted price applies to everyone and cash customers pay less. The cash-discount structure avoids most surcharge rules. Either way, disclose it before the transaction — customers object far more to the surprise than to the amount.
Can merchants charge 2% extra on credit card payments?
Yes, provided the surcharge does not exceed your actual cost of acceptance and stays within the networks’ cap, generally around 3–4%. A 2% surcharge on credit cards is well inside that. Note that debit cards are treated differently and cannot be surcharged the same way, so avoid a blanket fee on all card payments.
Is a 3% credit card fee normal?
It is at the high end but not unusual, particularly for online, invoiced or keyed transactions, which run about 2.25% to 3.5% plus a fixed amount. In-person card-present rates should be lower, around 1.8% to 2.6%. If you are paying near 3% for mostly in-person sales, your effective rate is worth auditing.
What is the cheapest way to accept a credit card payment?
Card-present beats keyed every time — taking the card in person is meaningfully cheaper than typing the number into a form, because keyed transactions carry more fraud risk. Beyond that: encourage debit where practical, since regulated debit interchange is lower, and match your pricing model to your volume rather than to whichever advert reached you first.
How to avoid the 3% credit card fee?
You cannot avoid interchange — it goes to the card-issuing bank and nobody discounts it. What you can do is reduce the processor’s markup, take payments in person rather than keyed, steer toward debit, and in Missouri either surcharge or offer a cash discount. Start by calculating your effective rate from a real statement; most owners have never done it.
Shaving half a point off processing is worth real money — but so is one more customer a week. Fees are a cost you can trim once; visibility is the side that compounds. If you have squeezed the rate and the volume is still the problem, that is a different fix: small business marketing. Listing your business takes a few minutes.
The rest of the money side: the sales tax license, what it costs to start, and hiring your first employee. Or browse local pros on St Louis Near Me Directory.
The other fee that hides in the fine print: what a small business website really costs, including the domain renewal after the free year.
Written by a dedicated team of St. Louis locals who live, work, and play right here in the St. Louis metro. Founder Lane Forman and team are committed to building the region’s most trusted directory by verifying listings and connecting local businesses with loyal customers across Missouri and Illinois.