Card fees by business · Mechanics
Card fees for mechanics and auto repairers
Updated
A service bill is big, often paid on credit, and sometimes on a company fleet card or an Amex. That mix matters more here than in most businesses, because some bank plans don't cover Amex at all.
On the example numbers
For the example workshop, Westpac EFTPOS Now is cheapest of the plans we compare at $5,276 a year. On a 1.6% flat rate, a $420 service needs $5.79 more to cover card fees.
The example business, at three sizes
Worked figures for a workshop taking $50,000 a month by card at a $420 average job, with 85% of sales by card. Card mix: eftpos 22%, Visa/Mastercard debit 30%, Visa/Mastercard credit 38%, Amex 7%, Overseas cards 3%. These are illustrative inputs, not an industry average; change them in the calculator to match your statement.
Fees a year for the example, by plan and monthly card takings
| Plan | $20,000 a month | $50,000 a month | $110,000 a month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Westpac EFTPOS Now | $2,2890.95% | $5,2760.88% | $11,2520.85% |
| CommBank Smart Mini | $2,3760.99% | $5,9400.99% | $13,0680.99% |
| CommBank Smart terminal | $2,7301.14% | $6,2941.05% | $13,4221.02% |
| Worldline Move 5000 | $2,7821.16% | $6,5051.08% | $13,9511.06% |
| Square Reader (Free plan) | $3,8401.60% | $9,6001.60% | $21,1201.60% |
A one-bay workshop at $20,000 a month pays $2,289 a year on Westpac against $2,376 on the Smart Mini, a gap small enough that Amex approval or settlement speed should decide it. On this mix, with 7% Amex, the crossover sits at about $15,459 a month. A dealership-sized service centre at $110,000 a month saves $7,228 a year against a 1.4% flat rate.
Amex: which plans cover it
CommBank's 0.99% covers Mastercard, Visa, Amex, JCB, UnionPay and eftpos, with Amex subject to approval. (CommBank Smart Mini, checked )
Westpac's 0.79% flat rate doesn't apply to American Express or JCB; Amex needs a separate agreement. (Westpac EFTPOS, checked )
Where a plan publishes no Amex rate, we price Amex at the RBA's average Amex merchant fee of 1.36% so the plans stay comparable. For this workshop, with 7% of takings on Amex, that adds about $239 a year to Westpac's cost, which still comes to $5,276 in all.
Fleet and business cards
The no-surcharge rules cover commercial and corporate cards as well as personal ones. (Australian Payments Network, checked )
The interchange cap on domestic commercial credit cards stayed at 0.8% while the consumer credit cap fell to 0.3%. (RBA Conclusions Paper, checked )
So fleet cards cost providers more than personal credit cards. A flat-rate plan absorbs that difference; on a plan priced card by card, ask how commercial cards are charged.
On big bills the percentage is everything
On a $420 job a 10-cent per-sale fee is 0.02%, which hardly matters. The rate does: every 0.1 percentage point is 42 cents a job, and $600 a year on this workshop's takings.