What card payments really cost.

The question of whether you accept cards was settled long ago by your customers — not by your cost calculation. The open question is at what price. And that is where the difference between two businesses with identical revenue can quickly reach four figures a year.

The reason is structural: a card acceptance agreement bundles five to seven individual line items that rarely appear on a single page. If you only compare the terminal rental fee, you are comparing the smallest item. This guide makes the others visible — in the order in which they hit your bottom line.

A card payment passes through four parties. Each takes a share, and only one of them is freely negotiable:

• Issuer— your customer's bank. It receives the interchange fee and bears the default risk.
• Card scheme (girocard, Visa, Mastercard) — provides the network and charges scheme fees.
• Acquirer — processes the payment, guarantees your payout, and adds its margin on top.
• Network operator (Netzbetreiber) — runs the terminal, software, and fault service. In Germany, often a separate contract with its own price.

Interchange and scheme fees are identical for all providers — they are pass-through costs. Only the acquirer's margin and the network operator's line items are negotiable. These are exactly the two figures that serious offers disclose.

Since the EU Interchange Fee Regulation (IFR), interchange on consumer cards from the European Economic Area has been capped: 0.2% for debit cards, 0.3% for credit cards. That is the floor no provider can go below.

Not capped are commercial cards and cards issued outside the EEA — there, interchange is significantly higher. A hotel with international guests therefore has a completely different cost structure than a bakery with a 90% girocard share. Anyone quoting you a flat rate without knowing your card mix is pricing in the difference just to be safe.

These items belong on every offer. If one is missing, it is not free — it is simply hiding somewhere else:

• Terminal rental — per device per month, the most visible and usually smallest item.
• Transaction fee — a fixed cent amount per transaction. Decisive for small tickets.
• Merchant service charge (Disagio) — a percentage of revenue, broken down by card type. Decisive for large tickets.
• Network operation or service fee — monthly, often in a footnote.
• Connectivity — SIM card or LTE data plan for mobile devices.
• Ancillary fees — chargebacks, paper receipts, dispute handling, early payout, card statement breakdowns.

Two metrics make offers comparable: the effective cost per transaction and the total cost as a percentage of card revenue. We calculate both for every offer — using your real figures, not sample values.

The market knows three pricing logics. They differ not primarily in price, but in how much of it you actually get to see:

The rule of thumb: blended buys simplicity, Interchange++ buys truth. Above a certain card volume, truth is the cheaper commodity — and we will calculate exactly where that point lies for your business.

The card or smartphone is read, the terminal encrypts the data and requests authorization from the issuer. The issuer checks available funds and the risk profile and approves the amount — reserved, not yet booked.

At the end of the day, the terminal submits all authorizations for settlement. Only then does money move: collected, minus the fees, on a payout schedule defined by your contract. That schedule is a real liquidity factor — between "next business day" and "weekly" lies several thousand euros of working capital for some businesses.

• Countertop — fixed at the checkout, connected via LAN. Maximum availability, ideal for retail, pharmacies, and specialty stores with a fixed checkout counter.
• Portable — base station plus wireless handset. For restaurants, where payment happens at the table and the tip function and battery swaps during service matter.
• Mobile (LTE) — works wherever your business happens to be: delivery, trades, markets, trade fairs. Judged by network quality and battery life, not by the spec sheet.
• SoftPOS — the smartphone becomes the terminal, no hardware required. Useful as a second device or for small volumes; under continuous checkout load it hits its limits.

The category determines usability; the rate determines the cost. Both deserve to be evaluated separately — and then together.

girocard(Germany's domestic debit scheme) is mandatory in Germany: the widest adoption, the lowest cost per payment. Visa and Mastercard — debit and credit alike — are expected by every younger and every international customer. Apple Pay and Google Pay technically run on the same cards and cost you no surcharge; refusing them gains you nothing.

American Express and Diners remain a judgment call: higher fees, but affluent customer segments. In hotels and upscale dining, they regularly pay off; in grocery retail, practically never.

Renting is the market standard: a predictable monthly rate, replacement on defect, security and software updates included. Buying lowers the monthly costs but shifts maintenance, replacement procurement, and certification risk to you.

The break-even often sits at three to four years — exactly the period in which security standards retire whole device generations. That is why in most cases we recommend renting on fair terms, and still run the numbers on the alternative. You should see the figure, not take our recommendation on faith.

• Term and renewal — 48 months with automatic renewal is widespread, but not the only option.
• Notice period — the most common reason a better rate has to wait a year.
• Price adjustment clauses — allow increases for "changed scheme fees." Check whether decreases are passed on the same way.
• Minimum revenue — falling short does not save you money; it triggers a back-charge.
• Device liability — who pays in case of defect, theft, or damage on return.
• Two contracts, two deadlines — acquiring and network operation often do not end on the same day.

On request, we review your existing contracts and tell you when your next cancellation window opens — even when switching is not currently worth it for you.

A terminal without a POS connection is a second input device: amounts are typed twice, and discrepancies only surface at the end-of-day count. With an interface, the terminal picks up the amount automatically — fewer errors, faster daily closing, clean allocation in your accounting.

Important context: the certified technical security system (TSE, Germany's mandatory fiscalization module) and the receipt issuance obligation (Belegausgabepflicht) apply to your POS system, not the payment terminal. But both worlds have to fit together — which is why we compare terminals and POS systems in the same process.

Every certified terminal encrypts card data inside the device; you do not store card numbers, nor should you. In terminal operations, the PCI DSS standard mainly requires the traceable basics from you: up-to-date software, protected devices, a self-assessment questionnaire.

Strong customer authentication under PSD2 is the reason the PIN prompt returns after several contactless payments. That is not a device fault — it is regulation, and a point where good staff training saves waiting time at the checkout.

Accepting cards is mandatory. Overpaying is not. We are vendor-independent, free of charge for you, and earn our living from provider commissions — which is why we disclose both the offers and our own math behind them.

Give us four numbers — card revenue, transaction count, current provider, remaining contract term. You will receive a side-by-side comparison of the top providers based on your real figures. If your existing contract is the better one, we will tell you that too.

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