Merchant Processing Statement
Cedar Ridge Auto & Tire • July 1–31, 2026
•••• 4821
Interchange & network costs
| Fee | Amount | Tenmile view |
|---|---|---|
| Interchange | $1,865.42 | Generally pass-through |
| Card-network assessments | $260.42 | Generally pass-through |
Processor pricing
| Fee | Calculation | Amount | Tenmile view |
|---|---|---|---|
| Processor markup | 0.55% of volume | $652.53 | Negotiable |
| Processor per-item fee | $0.10 × 2,431 | $243.10 | Negotiable |
Account, compliance & add-on fees
| Fee | Amount | Tenmile view |
|---|---|---|
| PCI non-compliance fee | $79.95 | Often avoidable |
| PCI program / admin fee | $19.95 | Ask about it |
| Monthly account fee | $49.95 | Negotiable |
| Statement fee | $12.95 | Negotiable |
| Batch fees | $4.50 | Negotiable |
| Gateway fee | $25.00 | Depends on setup |
| AVS fees | $30.75 | Depends on setup |
| Annual membership fee | $99.00 | Worth challenging |
| Regulatory / admin fee | $19.95 | Ask what it is |
| Chargeback fee | $25.00 | Check contract |
| Next-day funding fee | $30.00 | Optional if unused |
| Total processing fees | $3,418.47 | |
What jumps out first?
The statement is not terrible just because the effective rate is 2.88%. That number includes interchange and network costs that are not the processor's ordinary markup. The useful question is how much of the bill the processor actually controls.
In this sample, $2,125.84 is interchange and network assessment cost. The processor pricing itself is $895.63, before the account and add-on fees are counted. That is where the review starts getting interesting.
The PCI non-compliance fee deserves immediate attention
The $79.95 PCI non-compliance fee is the kind of line item that can sit on a statement month after month because nobody notices it. PCI DSS compliance is a real obligation. The fee shown here, however, is not a fee charged by the PCI Security Standards Council. In this fictional example, it is a processor or acquirer fee tied to the account being marked non-compliant.
The first move would be to find out why the account is marked that way. If the merchant simply has not completed the required validation, fixing the compliance status may remove the recurring fee. That is different from negotiating a lower price. Sometimes the right answer is to make the fee unnecessary.
Important: PCI requirements vary with the merchant's environment and validation path. A processing-cost review can spot the fee, but Tenmile is not acting as a PCI assessor.
The markup is the biggest recurring negotiation target
The processor is charging 0.55% plus $0.10 per transaction. On this month's volume, that adds up to $895.63. The numbers look small when written as basis points and pennies. They look different once they are applied to nearly $119,000 in card volume.
This is the part of the statement Tenmile would compare against the account, the processing setup and any current offer from the processor. Interchange is not the negotiation target here. The processor's layer is.
The small fees are not actually that small
There is a monthly account fee, statement fee, batch fee, gateway fee, AVS fee, PCI program fee, admin fee and next-day funding fee. Not every one of those should automatically disappear. Some may pay for something the business uses.
But they should at least have a reason to exist. On this sample, the recurring account and add-on fees that deserve a closer look total $273 before the annual fee and chargeback fee are counted. That is enough money to stop treating them as background noise.
What Tenmile would probably leave alone
The $1,865.42 of interchange and $260.42 of card-network assessments would not be presented to the owner as easy processor savings. Visa describes interchange as a transfer fee between acquiring and issuing banks, and Mastercard says its interchange rates are established by Mastercard while acquirer-to-merchant pricing is separate.
Those costs still matter. They help explain the total bill, and transaction qualification can affect what interchange category applies. But calling ordinary interchange “processor markup” would give the owner the wrong picture.
What a negotiated outcome could look like
To make the math concrete, suppose the processor agreed to reduce the markup from 0.55% + $0.10 to 0.25% + $0.05, the merchant completed PCI validation and the processor removed a few account-level fees. This is a fictional outcome, not a promise of what any real processor would accept.
That hypothetical produces about $650.32 in recurring monthly savings, or roughly $7,803.84 over a year if the volume and fee structure stayed similar. Again, those numbers are here to show how statement math works. They are not a savings guarantee.
How Tenmile would handle a statement like this
- Separate the bill. Interchange, assessments, processor markup and account fees get put into different buckets.
- Flag the avoidable items. A PCI non-compliance fee gets investigated instead of quietly treated as a permanent cost.
- Identify the processor-controlled pricing. The basis-point markup, per-item pricing and processor-added fees become the negotiation list.
- Ask the current processor first. A processor switch is not the default answer if the existing setup works.
- Verify the result. New statements are compared with the old pricing so the savings are based on what actually changed.
What Tenmile would ask the owner
Before negotiating anything, there are a few practical questions: Is next-day funding actually needed? Is the gateway separate from the processor? Has PCI validation been completed? Is the annual fee contractual? Has the processor already offered a pricing review? Those answers keep the negotiation focused on fees that can actually move.
Source notes
This sample is fictional, but the distinctions behind it are not. These primary sources explain the parts that matter most:
- Visa: interchange reimbursement fees and merchant pricing
- Mastercard: interchange rates and the acquirer/merchant pricing relationship
- PCI SSC: merchant PCI DSS responsibilities
- PCI SSC: who defines non-compliance fines and penalties