Mastercard charges your payment service provider an annual fee for each of your active business locations. Some providers absorb this cost, but others pass it along to your bill.
This guide answers the most common questions small business owners ask about the Mastercard merchant location fee.
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What Is the Mastercard Merchant Location Fee?
Mastercard applies the merchant location fee to every active physical and online space where your company takes credit cards for its products and/or services. Active locations conduct at least one transaction in at least one month of the year.
Only a few exceptions exist for this fee. For example, you may be able to avoid it if your business has an MCC code of 8661 or 8398, or if the location's Mastercard transaction volume is less than $200 a month.
When Is the Mastercard Merchant Location Fee Charged?
Although the merchant location fee is an annual charge, Mastercard bills payment services providers a portion of the fee each quarter. If your provider passes these fees along to your business, they may switch to a monthly or yearly schedule.
How Much Is the Mastercard Merchant Location Fee?
If your payment service provider is a traditional financial institution, Mastercard charges a fee of approximately $15 per merchant location per year.
The Benefits of Using Pay.com as Your Payment Service Provider
Pay.com provides the transparency you should expect from a trustworthy payment service provider. You can see every transaction whenever you log into your Pay Dashboard.
Consumers tend to trust companies that protect their online information, another benefit of picking Pay.com as your provider. You can show off a PCI DSS badge on your checkout page to emphasize your commitment to securing credit card data and other private customer information.
Pay.com lets you accept credit cards, debit cards, and a variety of alternative payment methods. You don't even need an active website to start an ecommerce endeavor. You can send secure Pay Links or enter customer card details in your Virtual Terminal.
The Bottom Line
Your merchant service provider may bill you for Mastercard's merchant location fee. The merchant location fee applies to both virtual and real-life checkout transactions customers make with Mastercard.
At Pay.com, we know our small business customers contend with added costs. You can log into your intuitive Pay Dashboard, accessible from any device, to see every purchase and the associated cost in real time.
