Surcharge

A surcharge is an extra fee you add when a customer chooses to pay by credit card, passing your processing cost back to the payer. Instead of absorbing a 3% fee on a $5,000 invoice, you add roughly $150 to the card payment while leaving ACH or check payments at face value. It applies to credit cards only; surcharging debit cards is prohibited in the US.

Surcharging is regulated from two directions. Card network rules cap the surcharge at your actual cost of acceptance, with a hard ceiling (currently in the 3% to 4% range depending on network), and require clear disclosure before payment plus prior notice to the networks or your processor. On top of that, a handful of US states still ban or restrict surcharging, and rules differ in other countries, so check your state before switching it on. A common, simpler alternative is a cash or ACH discount, framing the bank-transfer price as the discounted one.