If you use QuickBooks to take card payments, you’ll pay processing fees every time a customer pays by credit or debit card. The exact cost depends on how you accept the payment, which QuickBooks product you’re using, and your overall business profile.
This guide walks through how QuickBooks credit card fees generally work, what affects them, and what to look at in your own account so you can estimate your true costs.
QuickBooks doesn’t process card payments for free. Like other payment processors, it typically charges:
You’ll see this fee when customers pay you:
You won’t see one single “QuickBooks credit card fee” for everyone. Instead, your rate usually varies based on:
QuickBooks usually shows these fees in your Payments or Merchant Services area, and they are often deducted automatically from each payout deposited to your bank.
The way your customer pays is one of the biggest drivers of your credit card fee. Most processors — including QuickBooks — distinguish between:
These are payments where the card is physically there, such as:
These are usually considered lower risk because there’s more proof that the cardholder was present. As a result, fees for card-present transactions are often lower than for online or key-in payments.
These include:
These are considered higher risk for fraud and chargebacks. Because of that, fees are typically higher than in-person payments.
Here’s a simple comparison of how the fee types often differ:
| How the card is run | Typical category name | Relative cost level |
|---|---|---|
| Swiped/chipped/tapped | Card-present / in-person | Usually lower |
| Online invoice or website | Card-not-present / e‑commerce | Usually higher |
| Manually keyed in | Keyed / MOTO (phone/mail) | Often highest |
Your own QuickBooks account will show the actual rate for each category. The important thing to know: the more “remote” the transaction, the more you generally pay.
QuickBooks has several ways to accept credit card payments. The exact names and availability vary by country and over time, but in broad terms you might be using:
Your rates and fees are tied to whichever payments setup you activated, not just the accounting software itself.
For example:
To see what you are actually paying, you’d usually:
In the context of QuickBooks, a “credit card payment” usually means anything paid via:
These are different from:
If you’re trying to figure out “What does QuickBooks charge me for credit card payments?”, make sure you aren’t mixing in:
Beyond how you run the card and which product you use, a few more variables shape what you pay:
Your total costs are a mix of:
This means:
If your business does many small payments (like under $20), your cost profile will look different from a business that charges a few large invoices each month.
Behind the scenes, different card types cost the processor different amounts. You may see different effective costs when customers pay with:
QuickBooks usually rolls this into your contracted rate, so you’re not billed separate fees for each card type. But it’s one reason why rates are averages and can differ from one merchant account to another.
If a customer disputes a charge:
Chargeback fees are separate from your normal processing rate. They usually appear as a separate line item rather than part of your per‑transaction percentage.
Depending on your setup and region, your QuickBooks payments account may have:
These aren’t tied to a specific transaction, but they do affect your total cost of using QuickBooks for card payments.
To understand what you’re paying in practice, it helps to know where to look.
QuickBooks often:
This lets you see:
If you want to calculate your effective rate, you can:
That gives you your average fee percentage across all card transactions, which you can compare month to month.
Many businesses want to know whether QuickBooks is “expensive” or “cheap” for card processing. That really depends on:
Here’s a neutral way to look at it:
| Option | What you compare |
|---|---|
| QuickBooks built‑in payments | Rates for in‑person + online + keyed |
| Third‑party processor | Their published/quoted rates + extra fees |
| Your current provider | Your effective “all‑in” rate over a few months |
To compare fairly, you’d want to look at:
Some businesses are willing to pay a bit more per transaction to keep everything fully integrated in QuickBooks. Others prioritize the lowest possible rate and don’t mind extra steps to sync data.
There isn’t one right answer here — it depends on your specific priorities.
You don’t need to guess your costs. You can usually answer “How much does QuickBooks charge me for credit card payments?” by walking through a few steps in your own account:
What’s my rate for each type of transaction?
Do I pay any monthly or account fees for payments?
How much did I pay in card fees last month or last quarter?
What’s my effective rate?
Are there any extra fees I should know about?
Once you’ve answered those, you’ll have a clear picture of:
With that information, you can decide whether your current QuickBooks payment setup fits your business — or whether you want to explore adjusting how customers pay you, or which tools you use to process those payments.
