Should I compare every provider or just two or three?

Comparing five is enough for any small business. Beyond that you are mostly looking at near-duplicates. The calculator covers the providers most small businesses actually consider.

How often should I redo this?

Once a quarter, or any time your volume, AOV, or international mix changes by more than about 25 percent. Most small businesses overpay because they signed up at zero scale and never re-compared at real scale.

Do I need a developer to switch providers?

Usually yes for online businesses, often a few hours of work for in-person ones. Always factor migration cost into the decision — a saving that takes two years to break even is rarely worth the disruption.

Guide

How to compare payment providers without guessing

Most provider comparisons fail in the same way: someone reads two homepages, sees similar headline rates, and picks based on brand recognition. A useful comparison starts before you open any provider's site. It starts with knowing five numbers about your own business well enough to plug them in once and trust the result.

Payment Gateways 7 min readUpdated Dec 4, 2025

SMBHelper editorial teamLast updated Dec 4, 2025Reviewed for clarityEditorial standards

The five inputs that decide the answer

These are the five business inputs that move provider economics the most. Get them roughly right and the calculator does the rest.

Monthly card volume — pulls from your last few payout statements.
Average order value — total volume divided by transaction count.
International share — percentage of transactions where the card is foreign.
Refund rate — percentage of transactions refunded each month.
Chargeback rate — percentage of transactions disputed via the card network.

Where each input changes the answer

Volume affects whether monthly fees and minimums matter. AOV decides whether the fixed-fee component dominates the percentage rate. International share controls how much cross-border surcharge and FX margin you carry. Refund rate matters most when the provider keeps the percentage fee on refunds. Chargeback rate matters because the dispute fee is fixed per case regardless of transaction value.

If any of these is wrong by more than about 25 percent, the ranking the calculator produces can change. It is worth taking ten minutes to pull real numbers rather than estimating.

A worked example

An online retailer pulls the last three months of payout statements. Average monthly volume: 42,000 USD. Total transactions in a typical month: 520. AOV: 81. International share from gateway dashboard: 35 percent. Refund rate: 4 percent. Chargeback rate: 0.4 percent.

Plugged into the calculator, the output ranks providers and flags two observations: international mix is significant (so cross-border surcharge matters more than headline) and refund rate is elevated (so providers that retain the percentage fee on refunds are penalised). Without those two flags, the retailer might have picked the wrong provider on headline rate.

What to do with the comparison

If the gap between your current provider and the cheapest realistic alternative is more than 0.5 percentage points and projected annual savings clear roughly 5,000, switching is usually worth the migration work. Below 0.3 points, the friction rarely pays back.

Between 0.3 and 0.5 points, weigh operational fit — payout speed, dispute tools, integration quality, customer support — alongside the dollar saving.

Frequently asked questions

Should I compare every provider or just two or three?: Comparing five is enough for any small business. Beyond that you are mostly looking at near-duplicates. The calculator covers the providers most small businesses actually consider.
How often should I redo this?: Once a quarter, or any time your volume, AOV, or international mix changes by more than about 25 percent. Most small businesses overpay because they signed up at zero scale and never re-compared at real scale.
Do I need a developer to switch providers?: Usually yes for online businesses, often a few hours of work for in-person ones. Always factor migration cost into the decision — a saving that takes two years to break even is rarely worth the disruption.

Related tools

Payment Gateway Optimizer
Compare provider fees against your real volume and product mix.

How to compare payment providers without guessing

The five inputs that decide the answer

Where each input changes the answer

A worked example

What to do with the comparison

Frequently asked questions

Payment fee calculator guide

What affects your effective payment fee rate

How payment gateway fees actually work

Stripe vs PayPal: how their fee logic differs

Payment gateway

Processing fee

International payment

Refund rate