Across 21 payment providers operating in Australia, the published in-person card rate ranges from 0.79% to 1.65% and the online rate from 1.25% to 2.9%. The single biggest finding is a transparency gap: only 43% of providers publish a flat in-person rate at all, and the rest quote case by case. On $50,000 a month in card turnover, the difference between the cheapest and dearest published online rate is worth about $9,900 a year.
Publish a flat in-person rate
43%
9 of 21 providers
The rest quote case by case, so a merchant cannot compare them without a sales call.
The cost of picking wrong
$9,900
A year of the gap between the cheapest and dearest published online rate, on $50,000 a month in card turnover.
Published card rates, cheapest to dearest
Only the providers that publish a flat rate appear here.
Every figure in this report is read live from Merchant Compare's own structured pricing dataset at the moment the page loads, so it always states what the market looks like today rather than on the day it was written. Plans and pricing checked October 2026. All figures are in Australian dollars and reflect each provider's publicly advertised standard pricing. Figures can change, so always check the provider's own site for the latest. Methodology is at the bottom.
Key findings
- Only 43% of providers (9 of 21) publish a flat in-person transaction rate. The other 57% require a custom quote, do not offer in-person acceptance, or price on interchange-plus. Online, the share publishing a flat rate is 52%, or 11 providers.
- Published in-person rates range from 0.79% to 1.65%, with a median of 1.3% and an average of 1.28%. The table below names which providers hold each end of that range.
- Published online rates range from 1.25% to 2.9%, median 1.65%. The gap between cheapest and dearest, 1.65% of turnover, is the widest spread in the dataset.
- 9 providers charge $0 per month. Across the providers that do charge one, the monthly fee averages $56.61 and runs from $19.00 to $250.00.
- Least-cost routing is offered by 14 providers, or 67%, the feature that automatically sends contactless debit down the cheaper eftpos network. The rest do not.
- International card surcharges vary across the roster, and the margin is absorbed entirely by Square, SumUp and Zeller.
- Up-front terminal cost ranges from $0 to $99 among providers that publish a price.
In-person card rates (flat-rate providers, ranked)
| Provider | In-person rate |
|---|---|
| 0.79% | |
| 0.99% | |
| 1.05% | |
| 1.30% | |
| 1.30% | |
| 1.40% | |
| 1.40% | |
| 1.60% | |
| 1.65% |
The remaining providers do not publish a flat in-person rate; they quote per merchant, price on interchange-plus, or do not offer in-person acceptance. They are Adyen, Airwallex, ANZ (Worldline), Checkout.com, Clover, Eway, Fat Zebra, PayPal, Pin Payments, Smartpay (Shift4), Till Payments (Nuvei) and Windcave.
Online card rates (flat-rate providers, ranked)
| Provider | Online rate |
|---|---|
| 1.25% | |
| 1.30% | |
| 1.40% | |
| 1.50% | |
| 1.60% | |
| 1.65% | |
| 1.65% | |
| 1.75% | |
| 2.10% | |
| 2.20% | |
| 2.90% |
At $50,000 a month in online card sales, moving from the dearest published rate to the cheapest saves about $9,900 a year. On a smaller $15,000 a month of in-person turnover, the published in-person spread is still worth about $1,548 a year for an identical service. That gap is why the effective rate on your statement matters more than any single sticker price.
Monthly fees and terminal costs
Most providers have abolished the monthly account fee: 9 providers charge $0 a month. Where a monthly fee remains, it is mostly on terminal and gateway plans:
| Provider | Monthly fee | Hardware |
|---|---|---|
| $19.00 | From $19/mo rental | |
| $19.00 | From $19/mo rental | |
| $24.75 | $24.75/mo rental | |
| $25.00 | $25/mo rental | |
| $29.00 | Online only (in-person Coming Soon) | |
| $29.50 | From $0 | |
| $250.00 | Quoted |
Among the flat-rate fintechs, the cost has shifted from the monthly fee to the hardware: Square charges $65 for its reader, Stripe From $89, and Zeller From $99, while SumUp is From $49 and CommBank bundles the terminal at From $0. The full Zeller vs Square matchup weighs the hardware gap against the ongoing rate difference.
The transparency gap
The clearest pattern in the data is not price, it is disclosure. Only 43% of providers will tell you their in-person rate without a sales conversation. Enterprise acquirers and several bank products price every merchant individually, which makes genuine comparison hard and tends to favour the provider, not the merchant. The flat-rate publishers listed in the table above are the exception, not the rule.
The gap has not closed. We re-check every provider's Australian pricing page on a monthly cycle, and not one has begun publishing a rate it previously withheld. One provider moved, and it does not change the picture: Fat Zebra now publishes a gateway plan at From $250/mo (Gateway Only) but still no percentage rate. With the Reserve Bank's reform package explicitly aimed at payment-cost transparency, the providers that price behind a quote are still pricing behind a quote.
This is the core reason an independent, like-for-like comparison exists: when most of the market hides its pricing behind a quote, a neutral dataset is the only way to see the real spread. You can run your own numbers against every provider in our payment provider comparison and merchant fee calculator.
Why this matters in 2026: the surcharge changes
These rates are about to become far more visible to merchants. From 1 October 2026 the Reserve Bank of Australia removes surcharging on eftpos, Mastercard and Visa payments, so businesses that previously passed card costs straight to customers will absorb them instead, turning the merchant fee into a direct margin cost. A percentage point of rate difference stops being the customer's problem and becomes yours. The same reform package lowers the cap on domestic consumer credit interchange from 0.8% to 0.3%, which changes what providers pay and therefore what they can charge.
We model the impact in the credit card surcharge calculator, and explain the rule change in our RBA surcharge ban guide.
Surcharging is a second transparency gap today. Almost every provider in this dataset lets merchants surcharge while almost none publish a rate, because the surcharge is the merchant's to set and the law caps it at their own cost of acceptance. That gap closes by switch-off rather than by disclosure: surcharging on eftpos, Mastercard and Visa ends on 1 October, and many providers, including Square, Stripe, Tyro and Zeller, have said they will turn the setting off for their merchants on that date. A few go earlier, Westpac from 25 September and Airwallex from 28 September. The provider-by-provider breakdown, including what each has said about 1 October, is in who lets you surcharge, and what happens on 1 October.
Methodology
We analyse the publicly advertised standard pricing of every payment provider we track in Australia: Adyen, Airwallex, ANZ (Worldline), Bendigo Bank, Checkout.com, Clover, CommBank Smart, Eway, Fat Zebra, NAB, PayPal, Pin Payments, Smartpay (Shift4), Square, Stripe, SumUp, Till Payments (Nuvei), Tyro, Westpac, Windcave and Zeller.
Figures are each provider's standard published rate, not negotiated or interchange-plus deals, in Australian dollars. Where a provider does not publish a flat rate, it is excluded from the rate averages and counted in the transparency figures.
Every number on this page, including the counts, medians, averages and the ranked tables, is read from the database when the page is rendered rather than written into the text. A provider that changes its rate, starts publishing one, or is added to or removed from the roster changes this report automatically. That is deliberate: a fees report whose figures are typed by hand is out of date the week after it is published, and a reader has no way to tell. Source: Merchant Compare's structured provider pricing dataset. This report may be cited with attribution to Merchant Compare (merchantcompare.com.au).
FAQ
What is the average merchant fee in Australia?
Among providers that publish a flat rate, the average in-person card rate is 1.28% and the average online rate is 1.75%. Most small businesses pay an effective rate between 1.1% and 2.5% once card mix and surcharging are accounted for.
What is the cheapest card payment rate in Australia?
The lowest published in-person rate in our dataset is 0.79%, and the lowest published online rate is 1.25%. The tables above name which providers hold them. The cheapest provider for your business depends on your in-person versus online mix and your monthly turnover.
Do Australian payment providers charge a monthly fee?
Most no longer do: 9 providers in our dataset charge $0 a month. Among the providers that do charge one, the fee runs from $19.00 to $250.00 a month, and it survives mainly on terminal and gateway plans.
What is least-cost routing and who offers it?
Least-cost routing automatically sends contactless debit transactions down the cheaper eftpos network instead of Visa or Mastercard, lowering your fees. In our dataset that applies to 14 providers, or 67%. They are Adyen, ANZ (Worldline), Bendigo Bank, Checkout.com, Clover, CommBank Smart, Fat Zebra, NAB, Smartpay (Shift4), Till Payments (Nuvei), Tyro, Westpac, Windcave and Zeller.
