A restaurant owner in Chagrin Falls walked into our office last spring with a stack of processing statements. Three years with the same processor. Never once understood what she was paying or why.
She's not unusual. We see this all the time.
Most business owners pick a credit card processor, sign the paperwork, and never look at their statements again. And processors know that. They count on it. The pricing models they use -- tiered, bundled, flat-rate -- are designed to be confusing enough that you won't notice when rates creep up or fees get added.
Interchange-plus pricing is different. It's the most transparent pricing model in the industry, and it's the only one we offer at Cloud9. Here's why that matters if you run a business in Ohio.
What is interchange-plus pricing?
Every time a customer swipes, dips, or taps a credit card at your business, three parties take a cut:
- The card-issuing bank (Chase, Capital One, etc.) charges an interchange fee
- The card network (Visa, Mastercard, Discover, Amex) charges an assessment fee
- Your processor (that's us) charges a markup
Interchange-plus pricing breaks all three of these out on your statement. You see the exact interchange rate for every transaction, plus a small, fixed markup from your processor. That's it.
The "interchange" part is set by Visa, Mastercard, and the other networks. Nobody can change those rates -- not your processor, not us, nobody. They're the same for every processor in the country.
The "plus" part is your processor's markup. And that's where the transparency kicks in. With interchange-plus, that markup is a fixed percentage and a fixed per-transaction fee. It doesn't change month to month. It doesn't fluctuate based on card type. You always know exactly what you're paying your processor.
How is it different from tiered pricing?
Tiered pricing is what most traditional processors use. They sort your transactions into buckets -- "qualified," "mid-qualified," and "non-qualified" -- and charge different rates for each.
Sounds reasonable. It isn't.
Here's the problem: your processor decides which bucket each transaction falls into. A regular Visa debit card might be "qualified" at 1.69%. But a rewards Visa credit card? That gets bumped to "non-qualified" at 3.49%. And you have zero control over which cards your customers hand you.
The categories are deliberately vague. The criteria for "qualified" vs "mid-qualified" aren't standardized across the industry. Your processor can shift transactions between tiers however they want. And they do.
With tiered pricing, you're trusting your processor to categorize your transactions fairly. With interchange-plus, there's nothing to categorize. You see the actual cost of every transaction.
What about flat-rate pricing?
Flat-rate pricing is what you get from Square, Stripe, and PayPal. One rate for everything -- typically 2.6% + $0.10 per swipe, or 2.9% + $0.30 for online transactions.
Simple? Yes. Cheap? Not usually.
Flat-rate works okay if you're processing under $3,000-$5,000 a month. But once your volume grows, you're overpaying significantly. Here's why: many debit card transactions have interchange rates as low as 0.05% + $0.21. Under interchange-plus, that's what you'd pay plus a small markup. Under flat-rate, you're still paying 2.6%.
That gap adds up fast.
A retail shop in Cleveland processing $25,000/month told us they were happy with Square. "It's simple," they said. We ran a comparison. They were overpaying by $287 every month. That's $3,444 a year -- just because "simple" doesn't mean "cheap."
How much can interchange-plus save an Ohio business?
Real numbers. A typical small business processing $20,000-$40,000 per month in card transactions can expect to save $200-$400 per month by switching from tiered or flat-rate to interchange-plus.
Here's a rough breakdown:
- Tiered pricing often works out to an effective rate of 2.8%-3.5%
- Flat-rate is usually locked at 2.6%-2.9%
- Interchange-plus typically lands between 1.8%-2.3% effective rate, depending on your card mix
For a restaurant doing $35,000/month in card sales at a 3.0% effective rate, that's $1,050 in processing costs. Drop that to 2.1% with interchange-plus, and you're at $735. That's a $315/month savings -- or $3,780 a year.
And that's conservative. Businesses with a high percentage of debit card transactions save even more, because debit interchange rates are significantly lower than credit.
Why don't more processors use interchange-plus?
Honestly, most owners don't realize there's an alternative. The processing industry has spent decades training businesses to accept whatever pricing model they're given. Tiered pricing has been the default since the early 2000s.
But the real reason? Processors make more money on tiered pricing. When they control which bucket your transactions land in, they control their profit margin. With interchange-plus, the margin is fixed and visible. There's nowhere to hide extra profit.
That's exactly why we use it.
Can I see the difference on my statement?
Absolutely. And this is one of the biggest practical benefits of interchange-plus.
On a tiered statement, you'll see line items like: - Qualified: $12,450.00 @ 1.69% = $210.41 - Mid-Qualified: $5,200.00 @ 2.29% = $119.08 - Non-Qualified: $3,800.00 @ 3.49% = $132.62
Looks clean. But you have no idea which transactions went where or why.
On an interchange-plus statement, you'll see the actual interchange category for each batch of transactions: - Visa Debit Regulated: $4,200.00 @ 0.05% + $0.21 - Visa Credit Consumer: $6,800.00 @ 1.51% + $0.10 - Mastercard World Elite: $2,100.00 @ 2.05% + $0.10 - Processor markup: 0.20% + $0.10
Everything is visible. Everything is verifiable. You can literally look up Visa's published interchange rates and confirm what you're being charged.
What hidden fees should I watch for even with interchange-plus?
Good question. Interchange-plus eliminates the biggest source of overcharging -- opaque transaction rates. But some processors still tack on junk fees alongside interchange-plus pricing. Watch for:
- PCI compliance fees ($79-$149/year is normal; $30+/month is excessive)
- Statement fees ($5-$10/month -- sometimes negotiable)
- Batch fees ($0.10-$0.25 per batch -- minor but worth knowing)
- Annual fees (shouldn't exist with a good processor)
- Rate increase notices buried in your statement fine print
We wrote a whole guide on this: Hidden Credit Card Processing Fees Every Small Business Owner Should Watch For.
At Cloud9, our interchange-plus pricing comes without hidden fees, without long-term contracts, and without annual rate hikes. That's not a marketing line -- it's how we've built the business.
Is interchange-plus right for every business?
Almost. If you're processing more than a few thousand dollars a month in card transactions, interchange-plus will almost certainly save you money compared to tiered or flat-rate.
The only scenario where flat-rate might make sense is if you're a very small operation -- a weekend pop-up shop or a solo freelancer doing under $3,000/month in card sales. The simplicity of flat-rate has real value when the dollar amounts are small.
But if you're running a restaurant in Akron, a retail store in Canton, or a professional services firm in Cleveland -- and you're processing $15,000+ per month -- you should be on interchange-plus. Full stop.
Why does Cloud9 use interchange-plus exclusively?
Because we think the relationship between a business and their payment processor should be built on transparency. Not on fine print.
We don't want to profit from confusion. We want to earn your business by providing a fair price, great technology, and local support you can actually reach. Our office is in Chagrin Falls. When you call us, a real person answers. When something breaks during dinner service, we're there same-day.
Interchange-plus pricing is just one piece of that. But it's the foundation. When you can see exactly what you're paying and why, trust isn't something we have to ask for -- it's something we've already earned.
Check out our full pricing breakdown to see how our programs work, or learn how dual pricing can reduce your effective processing cost even further.
Ready to see what you're actually paying?
Here's what we'd suggest: pull your most recent processing statement. If you can't tell exactly what your processor's markup is, you're probably overpaying.
Send it to us. We'll run a free savings analysis and show you exactly what interchange-plus would look like for your business. No pressure, no contracts, no commitment. Just numbers.
Get your free statement analysis -- or call us at 1-855-297-6722. We'll walk through it together.