There's a bit of confusion out there as it relates to what these types of programs are called and how they work.

The card brands make it very clear that a merchant can NOT penalize a customer for paying with a credit card.

If you’re adding a fee at the register, whether you call it a “service fee” or a “non-cash adjustment fee”, it is a surcharge and is considered non-compliant.

The Durbin Amendment, included as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank law, permits businesses to transfer all or a portion of their processing fees onto their customers.

Merchants may not charge more than 4%.

3% is the maximum allowed effective April 15, 2023 for compliant surcharge merchants. Complaint surcharge programs require registration & regulatory compliance reviews and annual costs to participate.

Thanks to the amendment, companies can now legally offer a discount to those who pay with cash or check instead of a credit or debit card.

There are no registration or regulatory requirements for cash discounting and it is legal in all 50 states when implemented correctly.

The card brands make it very clear that a merchant can NOT penalize a customer for paying with a credit card.

Business owners should understand the key differences between both programs to ensure they are on the right side of the law and avoid card brand regulatory compliance issues, which can result in fines and other penalties assessed from the card brands.

Having a personal payments consultant like Christopher Swift on your side makes all the difference. Chris will train you and your team to provide a beautifully transparent and enjoyable customer experience for your valued patrons. You can learn more about how Chris can help you by clicking here

A “cash discount” means you offer a discount off the listed price as it appears on the shelf or a menu if somebody pays with cash.

A method of implementing an increase in price to all your customers, while giving a discount to those who pay with cash. When a customer pays with a card, our technology isolates the price increase and applies it to your processing fees so that you never again have to worry about an unpredictable processing bill!

Unfortunately, until now, true dual pricing was not available to most retailers and restaurants due to both limitations of POS software to support dual pricing and the unpredictability of exact payment processing cost on each transaction.

Therefore, business owners with many different items or SKU’s could not easily know exactly how to price merchandise under a dual pricing model.  More importantly, business owners were unable to offer dual pricing while providing a beautifully transparent and enjoyable customer experience to their valued patrons.

All that has changed!

There are 3 things needed for a business to run a true, honest and transparent dual pricing program.

A business owner willing to take the time and care to present a beautiful customer experience to all of their valued customers.

Your customer deserves to know how much each product will cost when they decide to purchase it.

A merchant services provider who offers a flat rate percentage that aligns with the difference between the regular and cash prices without any additional charges.

You need to know your cost on each item in order to price correctly.

A POS system capable of supporting a dual pricing model with both a regular price and a cash price for each product or SKU in a business while providing the accurate reporting needed to support the business operations.

The Business Owner’s Experience

The benefit of the dual pricing program to the business owner is you no longer have to concern yourself with the rising costs of accepting payments. 

You profit the same as if all transactions were cash.

Our processing partners simply retain the difference between the regular price and cash price to pay all processing and program costs for you.

All those fees you're used to seeing with your current payments provider like PCI compliance fees, batch header, transaction and statement fees etc., are all rolled into your flat rate we pay them on our end.

No more surprises.

Your customers will check out as normal and your POS will keep a running total of both the regular price and the cash price.  

When your customer chooses their payment method, the POS will print-off the itemized receipt with the correct corresponding prices.

Advertising credit prices and offering a discount if paid with cash.

This is the most straight-forward method of cash discounting.

In this example the merchant simply raises all of their prices by 3-4%.

So if the price was $100 now it would be $103-$104.

If the customer pays by cash, the merchant can opt to press a button on their compliant point of sale equipment / software.

This will automatically adjust the price back to $100 allowing the discount for paying by cash.

Be careful as commonly used but considered a non-compliant program is disclosing a customer service charge at the register and waiving it if the customer pays with cash.

Having a personal payments consultant like Chris on your side makes all the difference.

Chris will train you and your team to provide a beautifully transparent and enjoyable customer experience for your valued patrons. You can learn more about how Chris can help you by clicking here

The words cash discount seem to have have different meanings which can be confusing.

The Durbin amendment allows a business to incentivize cash as their preferred method of payment.

As I'm sure you know, every-time you accept a credit card payment you're losing between 2-4% of your profits.

Both programs allow you to level your margins so cash and credit sales are equal.

Both programs allow merchants to not have to pay processing fees and get 100% of their money.

This is done (2) ways.

Flat Rate Pricing

Business increases their price.

If the thought of doing this makes you feel like you'll lose customers, I promise thousands of merchants had that concern before working me.

I think it’s important to remember that this is a fair price increase that will most likely go unnoticed. We’re really talking about cents on the dollar to make this problem of rising processing costs that keeps getting worse over time go away for good. 

I understand the concern, losing customers means you’re risking losing money.

However this is probably the least riskiest action you can take in your business to make money.

Any other risk you take costs money and isn’t guaranteed.

We’re guaranteeing you’ll make money by implementing this program. 

No one wants to increase prices, but let's be real, if a business has a 10% profit margin, inflation goes up by 7% and credit card fees are 3%, the business is going to fail if it doesn't keep up with those costs.

The 3.5% - 4% covers processing fees not only today but ALL FUTURE INTERCHANGE INCREASES... meaning, this isn't a bandaid to merchant account fees, it permanently removes them in the future as they go up TOO".

If the product was $100 now the price would be increased by 3.5% or $103.50.

Card Sale

If a card is used the the $3.50 is isolated at the time of the sale and used to cover the processing expense and all of the usual confusing items normally see on a merchant statement.

Those don't go away and they won't be seen on your processing statement as we cover all of that on the backend so you don't need to worry about it.

Cash Sale

When cash is used you can extend a discount to the customer by pressing a button on your device.

The technology automatically calculates the discount so you never need to calculate a thing!

So the discounted price would be $100

Dual Pricing

Unfortunately, until now, true dual pricing was not available to most retailers and restaurants due to both limitations of POS software to support dual pricing and the unpredictability of exact payment processing cost on each transaction.

Therefore, business owners with many different items or SKU’s could not easily know exactly how to price merchandise under a dual pricing model.  

More importantly, business owners were unable to offer dual pricing while providing a beautifully transparent and enjoyable customer experience to their valued patrons.

All that has changed!

There are 3 things needed for a business to run a true, honest and transparent dual pricing program.

A business owner willing to take the time and care to present a beautiful customer experience to all of their valued customers.

Your customer deserves to know how much each product will cost when they decide to purchase it.

A merchant services provider who offers a flat rate percentage that aligns with the difference between the regular and cash prices without any additional charges.

You need to know your cost on each item in order to price correctly.

A POS system capable of supporting a dual pricing model with both a regular price and a cash price for each product or SKU in a business while providing the accurate reporting needed to support the business operations.

The Business Owner’s Experience

The benefit of the Dual Pricing program to the business owner is you no longer have to concern yourself with the rising costs of accepting payments. 

You profit the same as if all transactions were cash.

Our processing partners simply retain the difference between the regular price and cash price to pay all processing and program costs for you.

All those fees you're used to seeing with your current payments provider like PCI compliance fees, batch header, transaction and statement fees etc., are all rolled into your flat rate we pay them on our end. No more surprises.

Your customers will check out as normal and your POS will keep a running total of both the regular price and the cash price.  

When your customer chooses their payment method, the POS will print-off the itemized receipt with the correct corresponding prices.

Surcharge

A surcharge is a fee added to a credit card transaction to offset credit card processing costs. The customer pays more than the advertised price for paying with credit card.

Cash discount

A cash discount is a discount applied to the total amount when a customer pays with cash. The customer pays less than the advertised price for paying with cash.

If you’re adding a fee at the register, whether you call it a “service fee” or a “non-cash adjustment fee”, it is a surcharge.

According to Visa a merchant is permitted to offer discounts for paying in cash, however, the discount must be given as a reduction from the standard price.

Surcharge

A surcharge is a fee added to a credit card transaction to offset credit card processing costs. The customer pays more than the advertised price for paying with a credit card.

Convenience fee 

A convenience fee is a fee added to a transaction for the convenience of paying with an alternative payment channel that is not standard for the business. For example, movie theaters may charge a convenience fee to pay for tickets online. The fee is not charged when paying in person at the ticket booth because this is the standard payment channel.

Service fee 

A service fee is a fee added to a transaction for providing a service and is limited to certain merchant categories (education and government merchants).

Not at all!

The partners I work with can integrate with almost every technology.

They have multiple POS and terminal options if you're looking to upgrade.

Many are free for as long as you process and cost between $0 - $39 /mo.

Take a look at our hardware options - Learn more.

If you're tired of an unpredictable processing bill every month.

Want to virtually eliminate your processing fees.

Do not want to be locked into a long-term commitment, and need customer support that is efficient and fast; this program is perfect for your business.

This really is like a revenue generating machine that pays you every month and every year.

What would you do with an extra $10,000 every year?

Most of our clients are enjoying an average of $20,000 per year!

I have clients who use that money to take vacations, purchase automobiles, real estate, pay off debt, pay for college, fix equipment and so much more!

What will you do with your savings?

Both the flat rate & dual pricing cash discount programs are simple and flexible programs that operate well across all industries and are legal in all 50 states. Both level your margins so cash and credit sales are equal.

The good news is that most customers are very supportive of small businesses and understand how challenging the last 3 years have been.

They understand that in these hard times businesses need to make good financial decisions in order to stay profitable.

This program is working all over the country.

In the city, in the suburbs, in rural communities, in low income communities, in wealthy communities and everything in between.

These merchants all have the exact same motivation to launch this program.

To create their own revenue generating machine by taking advantage of the Durban amendment.

Now they can legally increase their prices by no more than 4% and provide a discount for cash paying customers just like gas stations have been doing for decades.

Have you ever raised your prices before?

Did you lose customers?

We think it’s important to remember that this is a fair price increase that will most likely go unnoticed. We’re really talking about cents on the dollar to make this problem (your cost to accept credit cards) that keeps getting worse over time go away for good. 

We understand the concern, losing customers means you’re risking losing money. However this is probably the least riskiest action you can take in your business to make money.

Any other risk you take costs money and isn’t guaranteed.

We’re guaranteeing you’ll make money by implementing this program. 

If it doesn’t work like I know it does I can give you your bill back and get you lower rates than what you were paying. I can tell you that the only way I make my money is if you’re processing credit cards. If it didn’t do everything I know it does I’d have lot of in unhappy merchants and I’d be out of business.

No one wants to increase prices, but let's be real, if a business has a 10% profit margin, inflation goes up to 7% and credit card fees are 3%, the business is going to tank if it doesn't keep up with those cost.

The 4% covers cc fees not only today but ALL FUTURE INTERCHANGE INCREASES... meaning, this isn't a bandaid to cc fees, it permanently removes them in the future as they go up TOO".

I would argue that there’s never been a better time in modern history to raise prices. Covid, supply chain, inflation, high gas prices, high interest rates and other rising costs have significantly cut into merchants profits.

How has it effected your margins?

The good news is that most customers are very supportive of small businesses and understand how challenging the last 3 years have been.

They understand that in these hard times businesses need to make good financial decisions in order to stay profitable.

This program is working all over the country.

In the city, in the suburbs, in rural communities, in low income communities, in wealthy communities and everything in between.

These merchants all have the exact same motivation to launch this program.

To create their own revenue generating machine by taking advantage of the Durban amendment.

Now they can legally increase their prices by no more than 4% and providing a discount for cash paying customers just like gas stations have been doing for decades.

Simple & transparent.

All of those fees you used to pay don't go away we cover them.

Every cash discount program we represent are month-to-month subscriptions that allows you to process unlimited credit card transactions and offset up to 100% of processing fees. 

Your monthly subscription price is locked in, meaning your processing bill will never go up for as long as you process.

Even if your transaction volume goes up or our costs go up due to annual interchange increases.

You'll always pay 0% processing fees and have one flat rate and easy to understand bill.

Not at all!

While we believe Payanywhere is an amazing solution that is affordable and brings amazing value, we have plenty of other

solutions we can share with you.

If you decide to move forward; you'll be working with Christopher Swift. Since 1995; Chris has built a large & trusted network of processors, technology partners & equipment providers.

Chris has personally helped thousands of small business owners setup their payment systems and is able to pivot and make recommendations based on your specific needs.

Here are just a few of the partnerships we have:

Processing partners

VizyPay

Electronic Payments

North American Bancard

Paytech Trust

Maverick

Signature
Maverick
CoinSuites

Equipment & technology
Clover
Micros

Pax

Deejavoo

Retail Cloud

Redfox POS

SalesVu

AST POS

Simply 123 Booking

Growthzilla

Hotsauce POS

Poynt

NMI

USAepay

Authorize.net

If you're currently building something into your cost to offset processing expenses, you are the perfect fit to work with us.

The problem when you do it yourself is that you put your merchant account in jeopardy as you can't charge more than the rate you pay.

All businesses have a net effective rate between 2.25-4%

Profiting off your merchant account is a violation of the terms of a merchant agreement. If they found out, they could shut the account down making it very difficult to get another account.  

Since you don’t have a flat rate, a system that isolates the processing cost & pulls it out at the time of the sale, you’re not compliant. 

By law processors need to send a merchant’s credit card sales activity to the IRS. When you build it in yourself; in addition to not being compliant, you can’t write anything off above what you paid as the processor and IRS know what it really cost on each transaction. 

By increasing your price; all you did was make your processing bill larger. And since you can’t deduct what you added to cover the fees; so now the taxable income is higher. 

Obviously, you'll pass your processing expense to your accountant, but you know as well as us that you never seem to get 100% of these things deducted. Especially whatever you added to cover the fees.

By running a compliant program, you get to deduct 100% of the processing expense.

Since we need to come in at a flat rate of 3.5-4% you have a bigger deduction. 

You’re not paying fees anymore so all that money that was going to the processor stays in your pocket each month. 

You’ll enjoy this new revenue stream right away instead of waiting until tax time to get a deduction. 

You'll enjoy a much lower and predictable bill each month.

You always get 100% of your money just like cash.

Yes, of course!

Just understand that you will pay fees with traditional processing.

Since 1995 Chris has been helping all types of businesses accept credit cards. I have a unique ability to help mid to high risk merchants establish credit card processing services through my access to some of most exclusive processing relationships in the world. We understand how important conversion ratios are with your funnels and will show you how to follow FTC regulations and still grow sales. We show you how to reduce chargebacks and build a payment system that will be stable for the life of your business. Learn more.