High Costs and Diverted Profits In the “real world,” payment processing costs as little as 0% (cash), typically maxes out at 2.5% (standard credit card purchases), and sometimes reaches 5% (in the case of low-dollar-value transactions with high minimum fees). These figures are low because of robust competition between payment rails (wire versus ACH, for example) and within them (Visa versus MasterCard and American Express).
