B2B Surcharging: Passing Credit-Card Fees to Customers
Written by Harry Prabandham
Curated by Rubric Financial
Last updated
1 / 5
What Surcharging Actually Is
- A surcharge is an added fee that offsets the interchange cost of accepting a credit card, applied only when the customer chooses to pay by card.
- It differs from a convenience fee, which applies to an alternative payment channel, and from a service fee applied to every transaction regardless of method.
- Card network rules cap the surcharge at the actual cost of acceptance, commonly around 3%, and never more than 4% in most programs.
- Debit cards and prepaid cards generally cannot be surcharged, so your billing logic must detect card type before applying any fee.
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About the author
Harry PrabandhamFounder & CEO
Founder and CEO of StartupCFO. MBA from Wharton, MS in Computer Science, and decades of experience building and advising venture-backed startups.
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