Key takeaways
- Blended pricing averages your cheapest and most expensive card types together.
- Interchange-plus wins when consumer debit dominates your mix.
- Ask for a three-month effective rate, not a headline rate.
There are only two pricing models that matter in card acquiring, and almost every dispute we settle for a client comes down to which one they are on and whether it suits their transaction mix.
Blended: one rate for everything
You pay a single percentage plus a fixed pence figure on every transaction, regardless of what card was presented. It is easy to forecast. It also means your cheap UK consumer debit transactions subsidise your expensive commercial and non-UK cards — and the acquirer keeps the difference on the cheap ones.
Interchange-plus: cost plus a visible margin
You pay the scheme interchange, the scheme fees and a disclosed acquirer margin. Your statement becomes longer and more honest. If most of your volume is UK consumer debit, this is nearly always cheaper — often by 30 to 50 basis points.
Work out your effective rate first
- Take three consecutive monthly statements.
- Add every card-related charge: transaction fees, authorisation fees, PCI, gateway, minimum monthly, terminal rental.
- Divide by total card turnover for those months.
- That figure — not the rate on your contract — is what you pay.
We have never once seen a merchant's effective rate come out lower than the rate they believed they were on.
When blended is the right answer
Low volume, high average transaction value, or a mix heavily weighted towards commercial and international cards. In those cases a well-negotiated blended rate can beat interchange-plus and is far less work to reconcile. The point is to choose deliberately rather than accept whichever model the first salesperson offered.
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