Flat-rate pricing is usually fine for small or new businesses under roughly 10,000 dollars a month that value simplicity, while interchange-plus is usually the lowest true cost for established businesses with steady volume. The crossover where switching starts saving you money depends on your card mix and average ticket, but it generally arrives somewhere above 10,000 to 20,000 dollars in monthly card volume.
The three pricing models, plainly
Flat-rate pricing, the model behind Stripe and Square, charges one simple percentage plus a fixed fee on every sale, with no monthly minimum. Square's in-person free-plan rate is 2.6 percent plus 15 cents, its online rate rose to 3.3 percent plus 30 cents in January 2026, and Stripe charges 2.9 percent plus 30 cents online. It is dead simple, and it is best for small or new businesses under about 10,000 dollars a month that value simplicity over squeezing out every basis point.
Tiered pricing sorts each card into a qualified, mid-qualified, or non-qualified bucket. It is an older, opaque model where the processor decides which tier a card falls into and pads its margin inside the buckets. The advertised qualified rate rarely applies to most of your cards. It is generally the worst value, and worth leaving.
Interchange-plus is the most transparent model and usually the lowest true cost for established businesses. You pay the real interchange, the wholesale cost set by the networks, plus one fixed, visible markup. Cost and margin are separated on the page, so you can audit your deal any month instead of trusting a blended number.
Where the crossover happens
The crossover is the volume at which interchange-plus becomes cheaper than your flat rate. Below about 5,000 dollars a month, flat rate often wins on simplicity alone, because the dollar difference is small and the predictability is worth it. Above roughly 10,000 to 20,000 dollars a month, interchange-plus usually wins decisively, because you stop paying a blended rate that hides the markup and start paying true cost plus a small fixed amount.
Picture a business running 30,000 dollars a month on Square's in-person rate of 2.6 percent plus 15 cents, on about 1,000 transactions. That is roughly 780 dollars in percentage fees plus 150 dollars in per-transaction fees, near 930 dollars, an effective rate around 3.1 percent. On interchange-plus, with true interchange and assessments near 2.0 percent plus a transparent markup of, say, 0.3 percent and a dime per transaction, the same month lands closer to 690 dollars plus 100 dollars, near 790 dollars, an effective rate around 2.6 percent. That gap of roughly 140 dollars a month is about 1,700 dollars a year, kept in the business.
The exact crossover depends on your card mix and average ticket. A business with many low-cost debit and tapped transactions reaches the crossover sooner than one running mostly rewards cards or keyed-in sales, and a low average ticket makes those fixed per-transaction fees bite harder. That mix is exactly what a statement review reads for you.
How to tell which model you are on now
You can usually identify your model from the statement itself. If you see a single rate applied to everything with no interchange detail, you are on flat rate. If you see qualified, mid-qualified, and non-qualified lines, you are on tiered pricing, the model to leave. If you see itemized interchange categories with one consistent markup labeled separately, you are already on interchange-plus.
If you cannot tell, that opacity is itself the signal. Our companion guide on how to calculate your real effective rate from your statement shows how to reduce any of these models to one honest percentage, and our guide on statistical package, PCI non-compliance, and other hidden ISO fees helps you spot the padding that distorts the comparison.
How to know your own number
There is no single good rate, because it depends on your size and your model. The honest answer is to compare your current effective rate against an interchange-plus quote built on your actual card mix, not on a headline figure from an ad.
Start with our savings and effective-rate calculator to find what you pay today, then check the comparison tool on the rates page to weigh the published North plans against your real numbers. North offers interchange-plus pricing and, as the largest privately owned processor in the country, gives you direct buy-rate access without a third-party ISO marking it up.
When you are ready, send me your statement through the free statement review and I will show you the crossover math for your business, with real numbers, before you change a thing. If a flat rate is genuinely still your best option at your volume, I will tell you so.
Want this read for your own statement?
Send your last processing statement and Alex will show you your true effective rate, what is interchange, and what is pure markup. It costs nothing either way.
