Frequently Asked Questions

Sympli5 only includes gateways, bank acquirers, and payment rails in our fee tables and calculators when we can verify a standard, publicly published fee schedule from the provider's official documentation. Providers that operate in a country on custom, volume-negotiated, or interchange-plus pricing without a published flat tier (such as Adyen, Checkout.com, Worldline, or Powertranz) are listed in the market availability directory as Custom pricing so we never guess or fabricate numbers.

For each transaction amount you enter, we compute (amount × percentage rate) + fixed fee. Where a provider publishes a hard fee cap—such as Nigeria's ₦2,000 cap on Paystack, Flutterwave, and Monnify (or ₦1,500 on Squad), Kenya's KES 200 cap on M-Pesa Buy Goods, or GoCardless's €4 / £4 / $4 / C$5 direct-debit cap—our calculator applies the cap automatically. When you check International card, we add the provider's published cross-border card surcharge on top of the domestic rate.

Effective rate is the total fee divided by the transaction amount, expressed as a percentage. For example, a 2.9% + $0.30 rate on a $5.00 sale equals $0.45 in fees—an effective rate of 9.0%. On small tickets, the fixed fee dominates; on large tickets, the percentage rate or fee cap dominates. See our payment glossary for every term we use.

Most gateways quote their headline rates excluding applicable local tax on the processing fee itself—for example, 16% IVA in Mexico, 18% GST in India, or 15% GCT in Jamaica. Where a provider explicitly documents its tax rule in its schedule (such as WiPay charging 15% tax on the percentage fee in Jamaica, Barbados, Grenada, and Guyana, and zero tax on fees in Trinidad & Tobago), we state that rule in the provider note.

Per-transaction calculators do not include monthly gateway or account maintenance fees (common on bank merchant accounts and paid gateway plans), chargeback/dispute fees (typically $15–$25 per dispute), wire payout or batch settlement fees, or FX conversion spreads (usually 1%–3% when settling into a currency different from the presentment currency).

Out of 118 currencies on Sympli5, 117 have verifiable fee tables. In Bermuda (BMD), online acquiring is handled by Powertranz and local banks (such as Butterfield Bank and Clarien Bank), all of which underwrite and quote merchants individually rather than publishing a public flat-rate schedule.

Because we only list a provider on a currency page when merchants registered in that country/territory can legitimately onboard, or when the gateway settles natively in that currency. Stripe is not available to merchants incorporated in CARICOM nations, most of Africa, or parts of Asia. Our Regional Guides highlight the regional specialists that actually serve those markets.

Several currencies serve multiple countries or territories: USD covers the United States plus dollarized markets (Ecuador, El Salvador, Panama, Puerto Rico, British Virgin Islands, Turks & Caicos, BES Islands, Timor-Leste); EUR covers the Eurozone plus Montenegro and Kosovo; XCD covers 8 Eastern Caribbean states; XOF and XAF cover 14 West and Central African countries; and XPF covers French Polynesia, New Caledonia, and Wallis & Futuna.

No. In Jamaica and across the Caribbean, Visa Cybersource and Powertranz are technical payment gateways, not acquiring banks—they do not hold or settle your funds on their own. To use them directly, you apply for an e-commerce Merchant ID (MID) at a local acquiring bank (NCB, Scotiabank eCom+, CIBC Caribbean, Republic Bank, RBC EZPay, Butterfield, or MCB). Once the bank underwrites your business, it issues your Cybersource or Powertranz gateway credentials.

Choose a fintech aggregator / PayFac (such as WiPay, DimePay, Tilopay, CXPay, Wompi, or Paystack) if you want fast onboarding (1–5 days) with no monthly gateway fee and no bank underwriting hurdle. Choose a direct bank MID + gateway (such as NCB, Scotiabank, CIBC, Republic Bank, BAC Credomatic, or Getnet Santander) once your monthly volume exceeds ~$10,000–$15,000 USD equivalent, where a lower per-transaction MDR (typically 2.25%–3.5%) outweighs the $35–$100 monthly gateway fee.

Instead of charging a single blended rate like 2.9% + $0.30, interchange-plus processors pass through the exact wholesale card network interchange fee (which varies from ~0.3% on regulated debit to ~2.1% on rewards credit cards) plus a small transparent markup (for example, Helcim's interchange + 0.50% + $0.25). For most merchants with healthy average order values, interchange-plus is 0.3%–0.6% cheaper than flat-rate pricing.

Because in many regions, cards are neither the cheapest nor the primary way consumers pay. National instant rails and mobile wallets—such as Pix in Brazil (0%–0.99%), UPI in India (0%–0.4%), M-Pesa in Kenya (0.5% capped at KES 200), Wave in West Africa (1%), Yappy Comercial in Panama (1%), SINPE Móvil in Costa Rica (1.25% via ONVO Pay), Kaspi Pay in Kazakhstan (0.95%), and GoCardless SEPA/ACH/PAD bank debit (1% capped)—settle at a fraction of card fees. Separating them lets you compare like-for-like.

Yes. Many regional gateways act as hybrid aggregators—for example, Paystack and Flutterwave accept both Visa/Mastercard and M-Pesa / MTN MoMo; Xendit, Midtrans, and PayMongo accept both cards and QRIS / GCash / QR Ph; and Conekta and Mercado Pago accept cards alongside SPEI, Pix, and cash vouchers.

Every calculator, comparison table, regional guide, and glossary entry on Sympli5 is 100% free with no signup. We are independent and not owned by any payment processor. Calculator rankings are determined strictly by the mathematical net payout from verified public fee schedules.

Every page displays our centralized Fee data last updated stamp in its top metadata bar and footer. We audit published schedules quarterly and track breaking rate changes, new instant-payment rails, central-bank interchange caps, and digital-services tax proposals continuously in our Flash updates feed.

Send us the provider name, currency, and a link to its official public fee schedule via our Contact page. Once we verify the schedule from primary documentation, we add it to the dataset on the next build.