Set Up a Fee

You can apply Fees to Groups or individual merchants. The following sections provide instructions on how to set up a fee:

• Set Up a Group or Merchant Fee describes the overall steps required to set up a fee.

• Set Up a Fee by Type builds on the previous section, providing the specific configurations that you need to apply for a particular type of fee.

Important!

To avoid potential compliance issues and legal complications:

• Refer to the each card brand network’s guidelines to maintain compliance while creating specific fee types.

• See Set Up Surcharges before creating or applying surcharges.

Set Up a Group or Merchant Fee

To set up a fee for a group of merchants or a single merchant:

1. Access the group or merchant’s profile page:

   1. Select Groups or Merchants under Management in the main side bar.

   2. Select the group or merchant that you want to configure fees for.

2. Select Fees from the page side bar.

3. Click Add Fee.

4. Enter or select values in each field to configure the fee:

   • Schedule: Defines when the fee is triggered. Time-based schedules, such as Days, require a number interval. For descriptions of each available fee schedule and trigger, see Reference: Fee Schedules.

   • Unit of measurement: Defines how the fee is calculated: Actual, Percentage, or Surcharge.  

   • Amount: The fee dollar amount or percentage in basis points.

   • Fee start date: When the new fee becomes active.

   • Fee name: The optional name to display in the Portal and API responses.

   • Currency: The fee currency: USD or CAD.

   See the Set Up a Fee by Type section for the required parameters for the type of fee you’re setting up.

   Note

   You can also apply fees on a per-transaction basis. See the Transaction Fees section for steps on configuring a fee applicable to transactions or their amounts.

5. (Optional) Click Advanced Options and configure additional parameters to enhance the functionality of your fee:

   • Fee end date: When the fee becomes inactive.

   • Active: Whether the fee currently applies. When the End Date is reached, the fee status automatically becomes inactive.

   • Deduct From Entity: The entity being charged. See Add Fee Modifiers for instructions on redirecting the fee collection flow and adjusting the payer.

   • Charging Entity: The entity receiving the fee.

   • Collection: Determines the base amount for fee calculation: Total Transaction Volume, Total Transaction Volume per Tax ID, or Total Transaction Volume per Merchant.

   • Collection Factor: Time-based multiplier for collection data.

   • Collection Offset: Additional logic refining the schedule.

   • Conditional Rules: Conditions that must be met before charging the fee. See Add Fee Rules for instructions on adding conditions to further refine the fee schedule.

   You can also configure these options after adding the fee to the group or merchant’s profile.

6. Click Add.

Important!

You cannot delete a fee after it has been applied or if it is on or past the current date. This is to ensure that the Payrix Pro system has no orphaned events for a fee schedule that no longer exists. Instead, you can set fees to inactive or modify the fee based on your needs as long as you consider the timing implications of the fee modification.

Set Up a Fee by Type

The following sections list the required parameters for enabling a particular fee type. To set up a fee type, follow the steps in the previous section and use the parameter values below to complete the process.

Tip

If you’re unsure of how much to charge for a specific fee type, refer to the Visa and Mastercard card brand network guidelines.

Boarding Fees

You can create a fee that triggers each time a new merchant successfully boards your platform. After setting up the fee, merchants that successfully board under your platform offering will automatically be assessed a one-time fee for initial access to your payment acceptance offerings.

Use the following table to set up your boarding fee configuration:  

Important!

Include any one-time boarding fees in your terms and conditions and clearly communicate these fees to merchants boarding under your platform. Always refer to local and regional law to ensure compliance.

Chargeback Fees

You can set up a chargeback fee, also known as a dispute fee, that’s charged to merchants for offering them the ability to manage most chargeback cycles through your platform.

A chargeback and dispute handling fee can trigger only during the following stages of the chargeback dispute process:

• New Chargeback: When the initial dispute is opened by the cardholder

• Retrieval: The initial request from the Issuer to the merchant for transaction information

• Arbitration: The final stage of the chargeback that occurs only if the previous stage was challenged by the cardholder or merchant, during which the card issuing institution reviews the dispute information and makes a final ruling

Use the following table to set up your chargeback fee configuration:

Convenience Fees

Merchants can charge their customers a convenience fee for accepting alternative payment method acceptance. Alternative refers to the non-primary payment methods provided by merchants to cardholders.

You can set up convenience fees that triggers when one of your merchants charges a cardholder using an alternative payment method. This convenience fee amount is then charged to the merchant by you, based on your fee modifier settings.

Use the following table to set up your convenience fee configuration:  

Important!

Convenience fees can cause legal complications if configured incorrectly. A convenience fee must meet general card brand network requirements, including the following:

• Convenience fees must be disclosed to customer before completion of a transaction.

• You must allow cardholders to cancel the transaction upon reading this disclosure.

• Convenience fees are only allowed for credit and signature debit card types.

• Convenience fees are only allowed for card-not-present transaction types.

• Convenience fees cannot be applied to recurring, subscription, or installment transactions.

Tip

Use a fee rule to only charge convenience fees over a specific amount.

Interchange and Processing Fees

If you want to pass along interchange or processing fees to your merchants, you can set up an interchange fee schedule at 100% so that they are responsible for covering the fees.

Interchange fees require a more involved setup due to the various types of interchange events that occur. To get started, create a percentage-based fee triggered by Interchange events. Use the following table to set up your fee configuration:

Notes

• Use a fee rule to define the interchange type or specific processor.

• Use conditional rules to apply PIN debit network interchange and annual participation fees to merchants enabled for PIN Debit on triPOS.

PIN Debit Network Interchange Fees: Conditional Rules

After creating your initial interchange fee, you must apply Conditional Rule settings to assess PIN debit network interchange fees.

To apply this conditional rule, click Advanced Options. Use the following table to set up your conditional rule:

PIN Debit Network Annual Participation Fees

In addition to PIN debit network interchange for individual transactions, Accel, CULIANCE, NYCE, PULSE, and STAR debit networks assess an annual fee for participation on their networks.

To get started, set up your debit network annual participation fees as a percentage-based fee to charge 100% of cost. Use the following table to set up your fee configuration:

Important!

If your platform processes payments from multiple debit networks that charge annual participation fees, you must create separate fees for each specific debit network.

Platform Service Fees

This customization enables you to implement a portfolio-wide or individual new account creation fee to collect from your merchants. Creating a custom platform service fee in Payrix Pro is an ideal way to automatically bill your merchants for your services based on your user agreement with them.

To configure your custom platform service fee, create a fee for the actual amount you want to charge your merchants. Use the following table to set up your fee configuration:  

Risk Decision Fees

Risk decision fees enable you to charge fees to a merchant when core platform risk services are used to evaluate when a risk decision is made for a boarding merchant or when a processed transaction has risk checks performed to ensure compliance.

Tip

Use fee rules to refine the specific risk decision status or additional misuse criteria.

Risk Service Fees

Risk service fees enable you to charge additional fees for the use of integrated third-party risk service. You can assess fees to merchants that are higher risk, requiring manual validations of the entity and its transactions on a regular basis in addition to fees assessed from the given risk services.

Use the following table to set up your risk service fee configuration:  

Surcharge Fees

Surcharging allows you to charge a per-transaction fee each time a credit card is used by cardholder that is charged to the merchant but can be passed to the cardholder directly.

Important!

• There are individual registration requirements and regulations by card brand before you can enable surcharges. The following steps demonstrate how to enable the surcharge after all prerequisites are met. See Set Up Surcharges for more details on the enablement requirements.

• Surcharging is still illegal in a few US states and territories: Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Puerto Rico. Be sure to follow your local and regional regulations accordingly.

Use the following table to set up your surcharge fee configuration:  

Transaction Fees

You can charge fees on a per-transaction basis to generate revenue for every transaction that is authorized or captured by a merchant. This is commonly referred as flat-rate pricing, which combines a percentage of the transaction amount, or discount rate, with a fixed per-item fee. A per-item fee is a flat fee added to each transaction, regardless of the number of products or services included. Flat-rate pricing is widely used in the payments industry and mirrors how interchange fees are typically structured in the U.S.

Tip

We recommend setting up a group fee. This way, any merchants boarded to that group in the future will automatically incur the same transaction fee as soon as they begin processing payments.

To configure your flat-rate pricing model using transaction fees on the Payrix Pro platform, you must create two fee layers:

1. A percentage-based fee to apply your discount rate.

2. A fixed per-item fee for each authorization or capture transaction.

The percentage fee ensures the discount rate is assessed to the merchant, while the fixed per-item fee covers interchange-related costs for authorizing and capturing funds during batching and settlement. This process is required in two steps to ensure that both layers of your flat-rate pricing model fee, the discount rate and per-item amount, are assessed simultaneously.

Important!

Ensure your transaction fees are set to charge the per-item fee at either authorization or capture, based on the rates outlined in your contract.

• Auth: Applies the per-item fee to all transaction attempts, including declines.

• Capture: Applies the per-item fee only to successful transactions.

Refer to your platforms contract, card brand policies, and payment processor policies on transaction fees to ensure compliance.

To create a flat-rate pricing model using transaction fees:

1. Create a percentage-based transaction fee to assess your discount rate. Use the following table to set up your fee configuration:  

   Add Fee Parameter	Required Value	Notes and Valid Values
   When to trigger the fee?	Capture	The fee triggers at the capture time of a transaction.
   How much is the fee?	Percentage	None
   Amount	{yourFeeAmount}	The fee percentage amount. For example, 3.00%.
   Fee start date	{yourStartDate}	We recommend using today’s date as the start date to make the fee effective immediately. Note: If you increase your flat-rate pricing for a Group, set the Fee end date on the existing flat-rate fee, then create a new fee with the updated rate and set its Fee start date accordingly. Apply the new fee to the same Group to ensure a smooth transition.
   Transaction Fee	Enabled	Checkbox available under the Advanced Options section of the dialog.

2. Create another flat-rate transaction authorization fee to assess your per-item fee. Use the following table to set up your fee configuration:

   Add Fee Parameter	Required Value	Notes and Valid Values
   When to trigger the fee?	Auth	The Fee is triggered at the time of authorization of a transaction. Note: You can also use the Capture fee trigger to only apply your per-item fee to Captured transactions after initial approval.
   How much is the fee?	Actual	None
   Amount	{yourFeeAmount}	The fee amount in dollars and cents. For example, $0.10.
   Fee start date	{yourStartDate}	We recommend using today’s date as the start date to make the fee effective immediately. Note: If you increase your flat-rate pricing for a Group, set the Fee end date on the existing flat-rate fee, then create a new fee with the updated rate and set its Fee start date accordingly. Apply the new fee to the same Group to ensure a smooth transition.
   Fee end date	{yourEndDate}	Optional. See Fee start date.

Tip

Use fee rules to define the specific method of payment acceptance that can trigger your transaction fee.

Value-Added Service Fees

Value-Added Service fees are fees assessed to partners for using services like Account Updater and Omnitoken. If you want to pass these costs along to the merchant who incurred them, you can use this fee type configuration. You can also apply a markup to this fee to charge additional costs for enabling these services through your platform.

Use the following table to set up your fee configuration: