Online payments judged on approvals, not just checkout design
A beautiful checkout that declines good customers is an expensive checkout. We optimise for the number that pays you: authorisation rate. For a line-by-line breakdown of what gateways charge, see Payment Gateway Fees: What Gateways Really Charge.
What you get
- Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento, custom API
- Authorize.net, NMI and PayTrace gateway options
- 3D Secure 2 with frictionless flow where supported
- Tokenised vault so you keep customers if you change platform
- Multi-currency for cross-border US, Canadian and international buyers
Direct answer: a payment gateway typically costs $0–$25 a month plus $0.05–$0.30 per transaction, on top of the card-processing rate itself. Bundled "all-in-one" providers fold the gateway into one blended percentage; standalone gateways like Authorize.net or NMI bill the gateway separately from your processing rate, so the two costs should never be quoted as one number.
What a payment gateway actually charges
| Gateway | Monthly fee | Per-transaction fee | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Authorize.net — Gateway Only | $25 | $0.10 + $0.10 daily batch fee | Processing billed separately by your processor |
| Authorize.net — All-in-One | $25 | 2.9% + $0.30 | Gateway and processing bundled into one rate |
| PayPal Payflow Pro | $25 | $0.10 | Gateway only; processing billed separately |
| Stripe (standard) | $0 | 2.9% + CA$0.30 (domestic) | Gateway included in the blended rate; no separate gateway fee |
Sources, checked 18 Sep 2026: Authorize.net, "Merchant pricing," authorize.net; PayPal, "Merchant fees" (Payflow Pro), paypal.com; Stripe, "Pricing" (Canada), stripe.com. Rates change without notice — confirm the current schedule before deciding.
Gateway fee vs processing fee: two different bills
A "gateway fee" is the cost of the software that submits your transaction for authorisation and returns an approval or decline — it does not include interchange, network assessments or your processor's markup. Bundled providers such as Square or Stripe hide the gateway inside one number; a merchant who compares a bundled quote against a standalone gateway-plus-processor quote line for line is comparing two different things.
Cross-border and international card fees
Selling to customers whose card was issued outside your own country adds a separate line, on top of the gateway fee and the processing rate:
- Stripe: +0.8% for international cards, plus 2% if currency conversion is required (Stripe Canada, checked 18 Sep 2026).
- PayPal: +1.50% on commercial transactions with a cross-border component, plus a 3–4% currency-conversion spread when PayPal converts the currency (PayPal US merchant fees, checked 18 Sep 2026).
Visa and Mastercard also charge their own cross-border and currency-conversion assessment fees to the acquirer, which are typically passed through on your statement as a separate line; the exact percentage is not published on a single public page for every card type, so ask your provider to show it as its own line rather than folding it into "processing" — not published here because we could not verify one figure that applies to every card and issuer.
See how interchange, network fees and markup break down for the processing side of this bill. For businesses selling in person as well as online, compare against our POS systems page, and see gateway costs by industry on retail and restaurant payment pages, or check current pricing structures.
Approval-rate tuning
AVS settings, retry logic, network tokens and issuer response analysis. Example: a one-point lift in approvals on $2M of volume is $20,000 recovered.
Scope-reducing compliance
Hosted fields and tokenisation keep you in SAQ-A territory instead of a full PCI audit.
Chargeback defence
Real-time alerts, automated representment packages and rules that stop repeat abuse.
Portable by design
Your vault is yours. Changing platforms should never mean re-collecting cards from every customer.
Quoted from your statement, not from a rate card
We do not publish a single rate for ecommerce & gateways because a single rate would be a guess. Your cost depends on card mix, average ticket, monthly volume, how much of it is keyed or online, and your industry's risk profile.
Send one statement. Usually within 4 hours you get your real effective rate, every fee named, and a quote you can compare line by line against what you pay now.
- No long-term contract and no cancellation penalty
- No PCI fee and no non-compliance fee
- No statement fee, no monthly minimum
- A named expert, reachable by phone
eCommerce & Gateways, answered
Yes. We support the major independent gateways and will keep you on the one you have if it is working. Gateway fees are quoted separately so you can see them.
Yes, with card updater, dunning and retry logic. See recurring billing.
We support multi-currency acceptance and will show the cross-border and currency-conversion assessments as separate lines, because they are separate costs.
Standalone gateways such as Authorize.net or PayPal Payflow Pro typically run $25 a month plus $0.10 per transaction, billed separately from your processing rate. Bundled providers fold the gateway into one blended percentage instead. See the sourced table above, checked 18 Sep 2026.
The gateway fee pays for the software that submits your transaction for authorisation and returns an approval or decline. It is separate from interchange, network assessments and your processor's markup, even when a bundled provider bills all of it as one number.
Yes. Selling to a card issued outside your country typically adds a separate cross-border or international-card fee, commonly 0.8%-1.5% depending on the provider, plus a currency-conversion spread if the sale is settled in a different currency. See the sourced figures above.
See how ecommerce & gateways works in your industry
Send one statement. Every fee named, back, usually within 4 hours.
It is free, there is nothing to sign and nothing to cancel. We read your current merchant statement line by line, name every fee on it — including the ones buried in the fee schedule — work out your true effective rate, and send the written analysis back, usually within 4 hours. Do not want to wait? Call 1-888-705-7896 and we will read your statement with you on the call in about 5 minutes.
Every fee named, usually within 4 hours. Or call now and we quote you on the spot.
Everyone else in this industry says twenty-four hours. We say four — and if that is still too slow, pick up the phone and get your numbers while you are on the call. No contract, nothing to cancel, no pressure.