You opened your card machine statement, looked at the total, winced, and closed it again. Most of the business owners I speak to do exactly that every month. Not because the numbers are beyond them, but because the statement is written in a language nobody taught them: acquirer jargon, abbreviations, and a rate that never quite matches the one they remember signing up for.

It matters more than it used to. UK Finance reports that cards carried 64% of all UK payments in 2024, so for most small businesses, card fees are now one of the larger recurring costs on the books. I read these statements for a living. Clients send them over, I go through them line by line, and I explain what each charge is and whether the setup still fits how they trade. This guide covers the first half of that job.

What is the merchant service charge on a card machine statement?

The merchant service charge is the main cost on your statement: what your provider takes for processing card sales, shown as a percentage of turnover, a total in pounds, or both. It looks like one number. It is really three costs rolled together, and they behave very differently.

The first is interchange, which goes to your customer’s bank. On domestic consumer cards it is capped by the regulator (the Payment Systems Regulator, whose functions are moving into the FCA). The second is scheme fees, paid to the card networks such as Visa and Mastercard. The third is your provider’s own margin. Only interchange is capped. The other two can and do move, which is one reason two statements from different providers are so hard to compare side by side.

Why is my statement higher than the rate I signed up for?

Usually because the rate you remember is the best case, and your real card mix includes cards that cost more to process. Business cards, corporate cards and international cards often sit outside the headline rate, and every provider handles them differently.

How this shows up depends on your pricing model. Some providers charge one blended rate across most cards, which keeps things simple and predictable. Others itemise, so different card types appear at different rates. Neither model is wrong for a small business. The red flag is not which model you are on. It is not knowing which model you are on.

Here is the part the summary page never shows: two shops on identical headline rates can pay noticeably different amounts per £100 of card sales, purely because one serves more corporate and international cards than the other. I see this constantly in the statements clients send me. Whether your own mix makes your current setup a good fit is exactly the kind of question worth a two minute conversation, because the statement alone will not tell you.

Why does a pence-per-transaction charge hit small sales so hard?

Because the pence part of your pricing does not scale with the sale. A percentage rate takes the same share of every transaction, whatever its size. A fixed charge of a few pence takes a far bigger share of a small sale than a large one. If your average transaction is low, this one detail can matter more than the headline rate itself.

Take a purely illustrative price of 0.3% plus 5p per transaction (an example, not any provider’s actual pricing). On a £2.50 coffee, the percentage part is under a penny, but the 5p on top brings the total to 5.75p, which is 2.3% of the sale. On a £100 sale, the same pricing works out at 0.35%. Same deal on paper, yet the small sale costs more than six times as much per pound taken.

This is why a low headline rate can be the expensive option for a coffee van, a market stall, or anyone living on small tickets, and why a plainer flat rate with no pence charge sometimes beats it. It cuts the other way too: on high value sales the pence charge fades to nothing and the percentage does the damage. Which structure fits your business comes down to your average transaction value, and that is a number your statement already knows, even if the summary page never mentions it.

What are the fixed monthly fees on a card machine statement?

Fixed fees are the charges that arrive every month regardless of how much you sell. The usual suspects are terminal rental, a minimum monthly service charge, gateway or portal fees, and sometimes a fee just for receiving a paper statement.

The one that catches people out is the minimum monthly service charge. If your card turnover falls below a set level, the provider tops its income up to an agreed minimum, so a quiet month can cost proportionally more than a busy one. Seasonal businesses feel this hardest. I cover the full picture of what a machine costs to run in my guide to card machine costs.

You may also see a PCI compliance fee, and in the worst case a PCI non-compliance fee, which is a monthly penalty for not completing a security questionnaire most owners have never heard of. That one deserves its own explanation, and I will be writing about it separately.

What are the one-off fees that only appear some months?

These are the incident fees: charges triggered by something happening rather than by time passing. The main three are refund fees, chargeback fees and authorisation fees. They are easy to miss because they appear irregularly and sit deep in the statement, past the page where most people stop reading.

Refunds are the quiet one. When you refund a customer, many providers keep the fee they charged on the original sale, and some add a separate refund handling fee on top. Policies genuinely vary between providers, so a business with regular returns can lose more to refunds than it ever realises. Chargebacks carry a fixed fee per dispute, often charged whether or not you win it. Authorisation fees are small per-transaction charges for contacting the card networks, and on high volumes of low value sales they add up faster than you would expect.

Which parts of my card machine statement should I check each month?

Three things: the overall total against what you sold, any line that was not there last month, and any change to a rate or a fixed fee. You do not need to decode every abbreviation. You need to notice movement.

Mid-contract changes are more common than people think. Providers can revise fees, and the notice often arrives as a short line buried in the statement itself or an easily missed email. If your total crept up and your sales did not, something changed, and it is worth finding out what.

The most useful check takes thirty seconds. Take the total you were charged for the month and divide it by your card turnover. That is your true cost as a percentage: not the headline rate, the real one, with every fixed fee and incident charge baked in. It is the one number that lets you compare month against month, and it is the number providers never print. If that figure surprises you, give me a ring.

What the statement cannot tell you is whether that number is right for your business. That depends on your card mix, your turnover pattern and how you trade, which is precisely what I look at when someone sends a statement over for a free check. I work across multiple providers rather than selling one, so the answer is about your business, not about where I can steer you.

Card machine statement questions I hear most

Is the merchant service charge negotiable?

Pricing varies between providers and setups, so the same business can be quoted very differently depending on who is quoting. Rather than going back and forth with a sales team, the more useful question is whether your setup fits how you trade. That is what I check, across multiple providers rather than one.

Do all card machine providers send a monthly statement?

No. Traditional acquirers usually issue a formal monthly statement, while app-based providers often show fees only inside a dashboard or against each payout. If you cannot find a statement, look for a monthly summary or export in your provider’s online portal. The information exists somewhere, though rarely in an easy format.

Why does my statement show a charge for a month with no card sales?

Fixed fees do not stop when sales do. Terminal rental, service charges and PCI fees bill monthly whether or not you traded. Seasonal traders feel this most: a stall that winters down can pay several months of fees on zero turnover, unless the contract was chosen with that pattern in mind.

What is an authorisation fee on a card machine statement?

A small charge, typically pence, applied each time your machine contacts the card networks to approve a payment. Depending on the provider it can apply to declined transactions too, since the authorisation message was still sent. On busy, low value trade, these small charges accumulate faster than most owners expect.

What should I do if a line on my statement makes no sense?

Do not ignore it, and do not assume it must be right. Statements contain errors and quiet changes more often than you would think. Send it to me and I will tell you in plain English what each line is and whether anything looks off. It costs nothing and carries no obligation.