DrivenSuite: FeeQuery — Stop Overpaying on Card Fees

Payment processors quietly take 2-4% of every card sale. Most owners never check what they're actually paying — and the bill creeps up year after year. FeeQuery does that audit for you.

What FeeQuery does

You upload your monthly merchant statement. FeeQuery reads it line by line and tells you:

• What you actually paid — total fees, broken down by card type, transaction type, and processor add-ons.
• What you should be paying — based on interchange-plus pricing benchmarks.
• Where you're being overcharged — junk fees, padded markup, hidden monthly minimums.
• Your savings opportunity — in real dollars per month and per year.

Running an analysis

1. Go to FeeQuery → New Statement.
2. Drag in your processor's monthly statement (PDF works).
3. Click Analyze.
4. In 60 seconds or so, you see a summary with a clear bottom line: "You're paying $X more than you should each month."

The report

The report breaks down:

• Interchange — the base rate the card networks charge. Non-negotiable.
• Assessments — Visa/Mastercard's small slice. Also non-negotiable.
• Processor markup — your processor's profit. This is where the savings usually live.
• Junk fees — PCI fees, statement fees, regulatory fees, "compliance" fees. Most of these can be removed or negotiated away.

Getting a better rate

If FeeQuery shows you're overpaying, you have two options:

1. Renegotiate with your current processor — print the FeeQuery report and ask. Many processors will quietly lower your rate when shown the numbers.
2. Get a quote from a different processor — click Request Quotes in FeeQuery to compare two or three alternatives side-by-side.

Monthly check-up

Set FeeQuery to auto-analyze each new statement when it arrives. You'll get an email if anything changes month-over-month — a creeping fee, a new line item, a rate hike. Most processors raise rates quietly; FeeQuery catches it the same month it happens.

Why this matters

A typical small business pays $400-$1500/month in card fees. A 0.4% savings on $50k of monthly card sales is $200/month — $2,400 a year — for an hour of work.

Tips

• Run your last 12 months first. The year-over-year trend usually shocks people.
• Don't accept "all processors charge that". PCI fees, statement fees, and "non-compliance" fees are negotiable or removable.