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Credit Card Processing Fee Calculator
Put in your monthly sales and the terms from your quote. This credit card processing fee calculator shows what you'll pay each month, your effective rate, how much cash a rolling reserve will hold back, and how close your chargebacks are to the card networks' limits. It covers standard and high-risk accounts.
- Standard and high-risk
- Reserve and chargebacks
- Nothing stored
The calculator
Your numbers
Results update as you type. Everything runs in your browser and nothing is sent or stored.
Monthly processing cost
$0
- Orders per month
- Cost per order
- Cost per year
- Chargeback fees
Rolling reserve
Chargeback ratio
Your processor's own limit can be lower than the networks'. Check your merchant agreement.
The maths
How the calculator works
Reserves
What a rolling reserve usually looks like
Reserves are set per merchant, so these are typical ranges that processors publish, not rules.
| Source | Reserve | Held for |
|---|---|---|
| PXP glossary | "typically 5-10%" of daily settlement | "typically 90-180 days" |
| Corepay | "typically range between 5 and 15 percent, but they can be higher" | "usually falls between 90 and 180 days" |
| Binderr, for peptide merchants | 5% to 10% of sales | 120 to 180 days |
Not every account has a reserve; Payline says so plainly. Binderr also puts typical high-risk card rates for peptide merchants around 3.5% to 5%, which is where our high-risk example starts.
Chargebacks
Chargeback limits the card networks use
| Program | Threshold | How it's counted |
|---|---|---|
| Visa VAMP, "Excessive" (US, Canada, EU, AP) | 1.5% or more, once you have at least 1,500 fraud reports and disputes a month (lowered from 2.2% on April 1, 2026) | (Fraud reports + disputes) ÷ settled transactions. Excessive merchants pay $8 per dispute or fraud report. |
| Mastercard Excessive Chargeback Merchant | 100 to 299 chargebacks and 1.5% to 2.99% in a month | This month's first chargebacks ÷ last month's Mastercard sales transactions. Both the count and the ratio must be exceeded. |
| Mastercard High Excessive | 300 or more chargebacks and 3% or more | Same method as above. |
| MATCH list, reason 04 | More than 1% of monthly Mastercard sales transactions and at least $5,000 in the same month | A terminated merchant listed under this reason stays on MATCH for 5 years. |
Sources: Visa's VAMP fact sheet, the J.P. Morgan and Chargeflow summaries of Mastercard's program, and Mastercard's MATCH reason codes, as of October 2026. Most small merchants never reach the network counts, so the limit that bites first is usually the one in your own merchant agreement.
FAQ
Questions people ask
How do I calculate credit card processing fees?
Multiply monthly card sales by your percentage rate, add the per-transaction fee times your number of orders, then add gateway fees and fixed monthly fees. Divide the total by sales to get your effective rate, which is the number to compare between quotes.
What is a rolling reserve?
A share of each day's sales that the processor holds back for a set period, then releases. It covers the processor if refunds and chargebacks outrun your balance. Published ranges are usually 5% to 15%, held for 90 to 180 days, though not every account has one.
What are typical high-risk merchant account fees?
For peptide merchants, Binderr puts card rates at around 3.5% to 5%, with a 5% to 10% reserve held 120 to 180 days. Expect per-transaction, gateway and monthly fees on top, and compare quotes on effective rate and reserve together.
What chargeback ratio is too high?
Visa's VAMP marks US merchants as Excessive at 1.5% once they pass 1,500 fraud reports and disputes a month, and Mastercard's program starts at 1.5% with 100 chargebacks. Your processor can set a lower limit in your agreement, and that's usually the one that matters first.
Does this calculator save my numbers?
No. Everything runs in your browser and nothing is sent or stored.
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