PCI non-compliance fees. Batch fees. “Non-qualified” surcharges. Annual “regulatory” fees that regulate nothing. If you can't explain every line on your statement, some of those lines are taking advantage of that. Let's read it together.
$9.95 “account maintenance,” $19.95 quarterly “PCI program,” $99 annual “regulatory compliance.” Small enough to skip a fight, invented enough to be pure margin.
Tiered pricing lets processors decide a transaction was “non-qualified” and charge double — and the rules deciding that live in a document you've never seen.
You signed at “1.79%.” Your effective rate — total fees divided by total volume — is 3.4%. The gap between those numbers is the whole business model.
Statement padding typically adds 0.3–1% to a merchant's true cost — invisibly, because each item looks too small to fight. At even modest volume that's hundreds of dollars a month flowing out through line items designed to be skimmed past. The merchants who pay the most are simply the ones who never compute their effective rate. It takes one division: total fees ÷ total volume. Most people who do it for the first time get angry.
Here's the de-shaming truth: processing statements defeat accountants. They mix real interchange (what card networks charge everyone) with processor markup and invented fees, formatted differently by every processor, with the key numbers scattered across pages. Not understanding it isn't a you-problem. It's the product working as designed.
Our audit separates your statement into three buckets: interchange (real, unavoidable), legitimate markup (real, negotiable), and junk (invented, removable). That gives you a clean number — what you're overpaying per month — and a clean choice: make your processor strip it, or move to one of the transparent-pricing processors in our network where the junk doesn't exist.
Most merchants don't even need to switch. A processor confronted with a line-item audit and a credible alternative offer removes junk fees remarkably fast. We give you both.
A short set of questions about your business, your volume, and your situation. No documents needed yet, and nothing touches your credit.
Free • No hard credit pullA placement specialist reviews your answers against our processor network and walks you through the realistic options — which underwriters fit your profile, at what terms, and why.
No obligation • Plain EnglishOnce you pick a direction, we help you prepare and submit the application so it lands right the first time — and we stay with you until you are approved and processing.
Hands-on until you are liveA single processor can only offer you their box. We map your profile across an entire network and show you where you actually fit best.
Approvals are not luck. They are about presenting the right business, the right way, to the right desk. That is the part we do every day.
Blind applications create declines on your record, and declines make the next approval harder. We aim you once, at the right target.
Matching is half the job. We help with the application, the documents, and the follow-up until money is actually hitting your account.
When we place you with a processor, that processor pays us a referral fee. You don't pay us anything — not for the survey, not for the call, not for the application help.
Here's why that works in your favor: we work with dozens of processors, so we have no reason to push any particular one. And we only keep getting paid if you stay with the placement — a merchant who leaves in 90 days costs us money. Our incentive is literally to set you up to win. If we can get you to win, we win too.
One to three recent monthly statements — PDFs or even photos work. Plus the three-minute survey so we understand your business model. We come back with your effective rate, your markup over interchange, and a flagged list of removable fees.
PCI compliance is real; the fee usually isn't. Many processors charge a monthly “PCI program” fee and an additional “non-compliance” penalty if you haven't filled out an annual questionnaire they barely told you about. Often completing a 20-minute questionnaire kills the penalty instantly. We'll show you.
Then you'll know — in writing — and you've lost nothing. It happens, and we say so when it does. We only benefit when moving you somewhere better actually makes sense and sticks.
No. The call is a working session: we review your survey answers, show you which processors realistically fit your profile, and explain the trade-offs. If none of the options beat what you have, we will tell you that and part as friends. Pressure placements come back to bite us — merchants who feel pushed do not stay, and we only get paid when you stay.
The survey and the alignment call involve no credit check at all. A credit check only happens if and when you decide to submit an actual application to a processor — and we will tell you exactly when that step is coming, before it happens.
Nothing. Processors pay us a referral fee when a placement succeeds and sticks. You will never get an invoice from us.
Three minutes of questions, one statement upload, and you'll get a plain-English breakdown: what's real, what's negotiable, and what's junk — plus what to do about each.
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