This is the Beacon Payments blog. Learn about the credit card processing and the merchant services industry. Hear about the successes of our outside sales people whose job it is to sell merchant services and sell credit card processing programs.
We have been asked this question hundreds of time since Square introduced its flat rate credit card processing system. The answer is: It depends. I know - not what you are looking for - but it really does depend on a few factors: the size of your average transaction and how much you actually process through your merchant account every month.
Below is another example of one of our clients saving a ton of money on their monthly debit card processing fees due to the Durbin Amendment! This client is a dentist with two accounts. One of them is used to swipe cards at the front desk, the other one is used exclusively for recurring billing. The Swiped account realized a much greater Durbin savings due to higher volume of Debit cards.
the Durbin Amendment reduces the cost of processing a qualified debit card from about .95% + $.20 per transaction down to roughly .05% + $.22 per transaction. On a $100 sale the old cost would be $1.15 and the new cost of processing the debit card would be $.27. This is a huge savings - and one that the business owner can ONLY take advantage of if they are on an interchange plus pricing structure.