How do I pass credit card fees onto my customer?

According to Visa, MasterCard and American Express merchant rules, merchants generally cannot charge a service fee when customers use their credit card. However, Visa, MasterCard and American Express permit eligible merchants to charge a service fee (also known as a convenience fee) for certain types of transactions.

To pass credit card fees onto your customer, you can:

• Add a line item for credit card surcharge to the invoice and add a standard amount to each invoice
• Calculate to offset the 2.9% + $0.30 charge per invoice.

The following is a formula to calculate credit card fees:

If you want to 'take home' $100 from a credit card payment, all we need to do is fill in the take home amount, which is y:

x = (y + .3) / .971

x = (100 + .3) / .971
x = ~103.30

In order to receive 100.00 from this credit card payment, you would add a convenience fee of $3.30.

In some cases, we will want to double check the total for a missing penny rounding error but this formula is the best way to calculate the fee.

You’re done!