How we compare providers

From 1 October, the surcharge reforms mean most merchants can no longer pass card costs on to customers. What used to be a line on the receipt becomes a cost on the P&L, which makes knowing your real rate — and whether it is competitive — a different order of question than it was. That is what this tool is for.

1. We rank on the cost of card acceptance — not the headline rate

A provider's advertised percentage is only part of the story. We rank on the cost of card acceptance: the transaction pricing and recurring account fees you pay each month to accept cards, at your real turnover and card mix — so a low headline rate with high per-transaction or account fees does not beat a slightly higher rate with none.

Cost of card acceptance means card transaction cost, not equipment. We do not rank on terminals, POS hardware or software. That is a deliberate choice: equipment needs vary enormously between businesses, it is bought or rented on terms specific to you, and blending it into a single figure hides the number this site exists to expose. We show each provider's equipment costs so you can see them — we just do not rank on them. Section 2 sets out exactly what is in and what is out.

There is one ranking, and it is ordered on cost of card acceptance. We do not offer alternative sort orders that would let a provider look best on a measure that is not what it costs you to process. Where a provider is stronger on something that does not show up in that number — settlement time, hardware, integrations — we show it on the provider's own detail, without moving it up the ranking.

2. What "cost of card acceptance" includes

Processing cost — the percentage (and any per-transaction fee) applied to your card turnover.

Recurring account fees — monthly account, service or facility fees charged for the ability to accept cards, and any monthly minimum.

Transaction-linked charges — foreign-card surcharges and any per-transaction fee applied on top of the percentage rate.

We total these at your numbers and rank from lowest to highest.

Equipment: shown, but not ranked

Terminals, POS hardware and software are not part of the cost of card acceptance and do not affect the ranking. We show them anyway, next to each provider, because they are a real cost and you need to see them before you decide: terminal rental as a monthly figure, and hardware purchase as an upfront figure, exactly as the provider quotes them. We do not spread hardware over an assumed life, because that requires us to guess how long you will keep it — so there is no amortisation assumption in our model at all.

This means the cheapest provider on our ranking is the cheapest on transactions, and may not be the cheapest once you add equipment. Where a provider charges monthly rental, that figure is shown beside its rank so you can add it yourself. If two providers are close on transaction cost and one rents terminals at $25 a month, that difference is likely to matter more than the gap we have ranked on — so look at both numbers, not just the order.

Fees we do not currently model

Beyond equipment, the ranking also excludes chargeback fees, PCI compliance fees, refund fees and instant-payout fees, because these depend on how often you incur them rather than on your turnover. They vary between providers and can matter to you, so we show them on each provider's detail even though they do not enter the ranked cost. If they are significant for your business, weigh them alongside the ranking.

Currency and GST

Figures are in Australian dollars and are shown including GST by default — the basis providers quote on — with an ex-GST view one tap away. GST-registered businesses claim the GST back, so the ex-GST figure is their true cost. Every figure is labelled with the basis it is shown on.

Note that GST treatment differs by fee type: merchant service fees for card processing are generally treated as input-taxed financial supplies and do not attract GST, while terminal rental, hardware and add-on services generally do. We follow each provider's published basis and compare like for like. Confirm the GST position of any quote with the provider or your accountant — we are not tax advisers.

What it does not include

Cost of card acceptance covers transactions and the recurring fees attached to them. It excludes equipment of every kind — terminal rental, hardware purchase, POS software and add-on subscriptions — which are shown separately as described above. It also excludes what it may cost you to leave your current provider, because that is a one-off cost specific to your existing agreement and we cannot see your contract; see section 3, and where you tell us your exit cost we show it alongside your saving. It also does not include, and our comparison does not extend to, any deposit account, credit or other banking or financial product a provider may separately offer you. Where a provider is a bank or authorised deposit-taking institution, we compare only its published fees for accepting card payments, not any other product it provides.

Settlement times: shown, but not ranked

We show how long each provider takes to settle, because it tells you when you get your money. It does not affect the ranking. We measure it the same way for every provider: the time until funds are available in the bank account you nominate. Where a provider settles into an account of its own rather than to an external account, we say so instead of showing a figure. Any facility a provider offers to draw on funds before they settle is a feature of that provider's own account, not a faster settlement time, and we do not measure or rank it.

What we do not normalise

We compare transaction cost at your turnover and card mix. We do not adjust for differences in service: hardware quality, support, integrations and reporting differ between providers, and a cheaper provider is not necessarily an equivalent one. A saving we show is a saving on the cost of accepting cards, not a like-for-like swap of an identical service, and not a saving on your total bill once equipment is counted. Where a provider is stronger on something that does not appear in transaction cost, we say so on that provider's detail — we do not move it up the ranking for it, and we do not discount it from the saving either. Read the ranking as "what this would cost me to process cards", not "this is the better business decision"; the second is yours to make.

3. Switching costs — what leaving your current provider may cost

A lower monthly cost is only part of the picture. Leaving your current provider can carry a one-off cost, and that cost reduces — or occasionally cancels out — what you save in the first year. We cannot see your current agreement, so we cannot calculate this for you. What we can do is tell you to check, and let you include it.

What to look for — an early termination or cancellation fee, a minimum contract term you are still inside, a terminal rental or equipment lease with payments remaining, an unreturned hardware charge, and any minimum monthly processing commitment.

How to find it — these sit in your merchant agreement or terminal rental schedule rather than on your statement. Your current provider must tell you if you ask.

How we use it — enter your exit cost and we show it against your first-year saving, so you can see how long it takes to be genuinely better off. Leave it blank and every saving we show excludes exit costs, and we say so.

Any saving we show is an estimate of your ongoing cost difference and excludes exit costs unless you enter them. Always confirm the cost of leaving with your current provider before you switch.

4. Your inputs

You tell us your monthly card turnover, your current effective rate, and your card mix (debit / credit / international — defaulting to 70 / 27 / 3 if you are not sure). The more accurate your inputs, the more accurate your ranking. Uploading a statement lets us base it on your real figures.

Where you do not supply a figure we use a stated assumption in its place — the 70 / 27 / 3 card mix above. Figures are shown on the GST basis you select, including GST by default. Those assumptions are shown with your results, not just here, so you can see what the ranking rests on. There is no hardware or equipment assumption, because equipment does not enter the ranking.

We also show what each assumption does. Alongside your results you can open the assumptions we have applied and see how the ranking changes if you change them — for instance, raising your international card share penalises providers with high foreign-card surcharges. We would rather you saw the sensitivity than took the order on trust. Where you supply a figure yourself, it replaces the assumption entirely.

5. Which providers we compare

We compare 18 providers serving the Australian market, across three lanes. In-person terminals: ANZ Worldline, CommBank, NAB, Westpac, Square, Zeller, Tyro, SumUp and Smartpay (Shift4). Online payment gateways: Stripe, PayPal, Eway, Pin Payments, Airwallex and Fat Zebra. POS systems: Lightspeed, Shopify and Epos Now, which are shown as bundled POS-and-payments comparisons rather than in the ranked cost list. Some providers appear in more than one lane, which is why you may see 22 listings in total for these 18 providers.

This list is also shown before you run a comparison, not only here, so you know the extent of what is being compared before you rely on it. We do not claim to compare the whole market, and we do not claim to compare more providers than anyone else.

Which of each provider's pricing we compare

Providers often offer more than one pricing arrangement — a standard published plan, a plan tied to hardware or software, and negotiated pricing for larger merchants. Unless we say otherwise on the provider's detail, we compare the provider's standard published plan for a merchant of your size. Where we compare only one of several plans a provider offers, we say so on that provider's detail. We do not model plans a provider does not publish.

We include providers we earn nothing from

A provider's place in our comparison has nothing to do with whether we have a referral arrangement with it. We include providers we are not paid by, and we would rather show you a cheaper option we earn nothing from than a more expensive one we do. A complete comparison is more useful than a profitable one.

Our coverage is still expanding. If a provider you know of is not here yet, that means we have not got to it — not that it was left out. Tell us and we will look at adding it.

Providers that don't publish pricing

Some providers price only by custom quote and publish no rate we can model. We show these as unranked quote tiles, clearly separated from the ranked results and labelled as not compared on cost. They are not part of the ranking, they are not counted as a comparison, and no estimated cost is shown for them. We include them so you know they exist and can approach them yourself — not to imply we have compared them.

6. Where our rates come from

We collect each provider's pricing from their own published information — pricing pages, rate cards and published schedules — and record the date we last verified it, which is shown against the rate. We re-check rates on a rolling basis and after any provider pricing announcement we become aware of. If a rate carries an old verification date, that date is telling you something: treat it as less current, and confirm it with the provider.

7. Keeping our data accurate — and telling us when it isn't

We take care with the figures, and we will still get some wrong. Provider pricing changes without notice, rate cards contain exceptions, and some fees are only disclosed on application.

If you spot an error — a rate that has changed, a fee we have missed, a condition we have described wrongly — tell us at info@compayr.com.au. We aim to correct confirmed errors within two business days and to update the verification date when we do. If you are a provider and we have your pricing wrong, the same route applies and we would rather hear from you than not.

8. Exclusive and preferential rates

Where providers offer an exclusive rate to merchants who come through Compayr — better than their standard published rate — we hold ourselves to six rules:

We label it clearly. An exclusive rate is shown as a "Compayr rate" (negotiated, and confirmed with the provider), distinct from the provider's standard published rate. We never present a negotiated rate as a provider's universal price.

We show the conditions. If the rate depends on things like a minimum monthly volume, a contract term, or being a new customer, we show those conditions so you know what it takes to qualify.

We rank on what you will actually pay. Where you will genuinely receive the exclusive rate, we rank on it, because it is your real transaction cost. Where a rate is conditional, we make the conditions clear so the comparison stays like-for-like.

The provider honours it. Exclusive rates are ones the provider has agreed to give Compayr-referred merchants; we confirm them with the provider and show the date confirmed.

We target the rate, not the fee. Referral fee and merchant rate come out of the same pool: a provider can offer us a larger fee, or offer you a sharper rate, and the two trade against each other. Where we are given that choice, we target the rate. We would rather earn less on a merchant who saves more than the reverse, and we ask for it that way in every negotiation.

Where a deposit account arises. We only offer an exclusive rate with providers where taking up the offer does not involve opening a deposit or transaction account with that provider. Where it would, we link to the provider's own signup on ordinary terms instead.

Where exclusive rates come from. Exclusive rates can only arise with providers we have a commercial relationship with — a provider we earn nothing from has no reason to negotiate one for us. That has a consequence worth stating plainly rather than leaving you to work out: because we rank on the rate you will actually receive, and only paying providers offer negotiated rates, the mechanism does tend to favour providers we have an arrangement with.

We think ranking on your real cost is still the right call — a rate you will genuinely get is a better basis for a decision than a published rate you will not. But you should know the tilt is there. Two things keep it honest: a provider we earn nothing from is never ranked below one we do because of it, and where a provider's standard published rate beats another provider's negotiated rate, the standard rate wins. The ranking is a calculation on transaction cost, and what we are paid is not one of its inputs.

9. Our ownership, and how we are paid

Our rankings are ordered on the lowest cost of card acceptance to you — nothing else. We do not accept payment for ranking position or placement.

Who operates Compayr

Compayr is a registered business name of Neural Pathways Pty Ltd, ABN 99 684 738 289. We are not owned or controlled by any payment provider, we hold no interest in any provider we compare, and no provider holds an interest in us.

How the handover works. When you choose a provider, we send you to that provider's own signup, carrying a referral code that identifies Compayr — not you. The application is then between you and the provider; we are not a broker and no one calls you.

What we may earn. A one-off fee when a referred merchant activates, an ongoing share while they process, or both. The amount can vary by provider and by whether you complete the signup. We do not seek or receive any payment relating to a provider's position or prominence.

Exclusive rates. Where a provider offers a better rate through Compayr, that lowers your cost — it is a benefit to you, not a payment to us for position, and it never changes the order of our rankings. Where a provider offers us a larger referral fee or a better rate for you, we target the better rate — see section 8.

Which providers pay us, and where we tell you

We do not want you to have to find this page to learn how we are paid. Where we have a referral arrangement with a provider, that is shown on the result itself, next to that provider, with a link here for the detail. Disclosure that lives only in a terms document, or on a page like this one, is not disclosure a merchant will actually see, and we do not treat it as sufficient.

Some providers pay us when a merchant switches through our link — a one-off amount, an ongoing share while you process, or both. Others pay us nothing, and they are compared and ranked on exactly the same basis. What we may earn varies between providers, and we never accept payment for ranking position or placement.

A provider we earn nothing from is ranked exactly as its cost dictates. If it is cheapest for you, it is first.

No paid placement — and what happens if that ever changes

We do not sell ranking position, prominence, or sponsored slots, and we do not accept payment to present a provider's fees differently or to leave unfavourable information out. If we ever introduce paid placement of any kind, we will label it clearly as sponsored, keep it visually separate from the ranked results, and never let it enter the cost ranking. We will also say so on this page before we do it.

10. Estimates — always verify with the provider

Everything we show is an indicative estimate to help you compare and make your own decision. Rates and terms change, and a provider may price you differently. Always confirm the actual price and terms directly with the provider before you switch. Compayr provides general, factual information and is not a financial adviser. We do not hold an Australian Financial Services Licence, and we do not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. We do not deal in, issue, or arrange for you to acquire, any financial product, and nothing on this page is a recommendation, or an inducement, to acquire, dispose of, or vary any financial product.

In one line: we rank on what card transactions cost you and say plainly that equipment is not in that number, cover providers whether or not they pay us, source rates from providers and date-stamp them, show the assumptions behind your result, tell you to check what leaving costs, label any exclusive rate and its conditions honestly, fix errors when you find them, and never sell ranking position.

Enter your numbers and see where you actually stand. No sign-up, no password and nobody calls you.