Merchant Fee
A merchant fee is what a card processor charges you for accepting a card payment — usually a cut of the sale plus a small fixed amount. Your own processor sets the real number.
What it means
Every card payment you take passes through a processor first, and the processor keeps a slice before the rest reaches your account. That slice is the merchant fee — a card machine, a payment link provider, and an online checkout can each charge a different amount for the same sale.
The fee comes off before the money lands, not as a separate bill later, so what actually reaches your account is already net of it. Check your own processor’s statement or agreement for the real number, since it moves by provider and by country — no figure here would be worth trusting over your own paperwork.
You take a card payment on a $600 invoice. Your processor’s statement shows $582.60 landed in your account — the missing $17.40 is the merchant fee for that one transaction.
Quoting a job at the full invoice number and forgetting the merchant fee comes off the top — the amount that actually lands is always a little less than the invoice said.
See also
Where this shows up
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