Why I stopped chasing the lowest credit card processing rates after 2 years

Three years ago I opened my own little bakery in Portland and went with whichever processor had the cheapest rate. I was so focused on saving 0.2% that I ignored everything else. Last month my terminal went down on a Saturday and the cheap processor took 48 hours to get me a replacement. A friend who runs a food cart told me he pays a little more but his processor overnighted him a new terminal once. Now I think about downtime costs way more than the rate itself. Has anyone else found that the hidden fees like chargeback and PCI compliance costs add up way more than the rate difference?

2 comments

2 Comments

angelamurphy14d ago

Wait, 48 hours for a replacement terminal? That's insane honestly. I would have lost it completely if my business literally can't take cards for two full days. Ngl, a Saturday outage would kill my weekend sales and that's prime time for a bakery. The hidden fees thing is real too I got hit with a random $25 PCI non-compliance fee once because I didn't update some form on time.

rosepark14d ago

Oh come on, it's two days not two weeks. You'd really "lose it" over that? Just put up a sign saying cash only for the weekend, it's not the end of the world. And that PCI fee thing, just stay on top of your paperwork and it's not an issue.