Card fees: absorb them or pass them on?
On a $15 drop-in, the card fee is about 74¢. The arithmetic on small and large payments, the surcharge rules in Canada and the US, and the cleaner option.
Oct 20, 2026 · 4 min read
On a $15 drop-in paid by card online, 2.9% + 30¢ comes to about 74¢. That doesn't sound like much until you notice it's almost 5% of the class, and that the student who drops in twice a week for a year hands about $76 of it to the card processor. Meanwhile, the family paying $540 for a term pays a fee of about $16, which is just under 3%.
So "should I pass on card fees?" is really two questions: how much are they costing you, and on which payments?
The arithmetic
The 30¢ is what makes the difference. It's the same on every payment, so it weighs heavily on small ones and disappears on large ones.
| Payment | Card fee | Share |
|---|---|---|
| $15 drop-in | $0.74 | 4.9% |
| $85 monthly tuition | $2.77 | 3.3% |
| $540 term | $15.96 | 3.0% |
Now add it up over a month. Say a yoga studio takes 400 drop-ins at $15 and sells 60 ten-class packs at $140. The drop-ins bring in $6,000 and cost about $294 in fees. The packs bring in $8,400 and cost about $262. The packs bring in more and cost less, because there are 60 payments instead of 400.
That's the first and easiest lever, and it has nothing to do with surcharges: fewer, larger payments cost less. Monthly tuition instead of paying by the class, a pack instead of single drop-ins, a term paid once instead of weekly. You'd want most of those for other reasons anyway, because people who've paid ahead come more often.
Passing it on: what the rules say
Adding a surcharge for paying by card is allowed in some places and not in others, and the rules have changed more than once in recent years. In broad strokes:
- In Canada, merchants have been allowed to add a surcharge to credit cards since late 2022, under the card networks' rules: there's a cap, you have to tell the card networks ahead of time, and you have to tell customers clearly before they pay. Debit cards can't be surcharged, and Quebec's consumer protection law doesn't allow it at all.
- In the United States, surcharging credit cards is allowed in most states, with caps from the card networks, but a few states ban or limit it. Debit cards, even when run like a credit card, can't be surcharged.
- In both, offering a discount for paying by cash or bank transfer is generally allowed, and it's a different thing from a surcharge.
These rules are detailed and they move, so check your province's or state's current consumer rules and your processor's terms before you add a fee. Don't take a blog post's word for it, including this one.
Even where it's allowed, a surcharge has a practical problem: you have to know whether the card in front of you is credit or debit, and show the fee before the person pays. At a counter that's manageable. In an online checkout at 9 PM, it's one more line of fine print in the last step, which is exactly where people abandon a registration.
The cleaner option: price it in
Most businesses that run on a calendar end up here. Card fees are a cost of doing business, like the electricity bill and the cleaner, so they go into the price.
To work out a price that leaves you what you wanted after the fee: add the 30¢, then divide by 0.971.
- To keep $15 from a drop-in: ($15 + $0.30) ÷ 0.971 = $15.76. Charge $16.
- To keep $85 from monthly tuition: ($85 + $0.30) ÷ 0.971 = $87.85. Charge $88.
- To keep $540 from a term: ($540 + $0.30) ÷ 0.971 = $556.44. Most studios would just charge $555, or $560.
Nobody notices a $16 drop-in. Everybody notices a line that says "Card fee: $0.74", and a few of them will ask about it at the desk, every single time.
If you'd rather not raise prices across the board, there's a middle ground: keep your posted prices as they are and offer a small discount for paying a term in full, which pulls in the large payments where the fee matters least. That's a discount, not a surcharge, and it's much easier to say out loud.
What to say if you do surcharge
If you've checked the rules and you're going ahead, say it plainly, before anyone pays, in the same place as the price:
Prices include tax. Payments by credit card include a 2.4% card fee, shown before you pay. Debit, cash and e-transfer have no fee.
The percentage there is only an example; use what's allowed where you are and what your cards really cost. And at the desk, when someone asks:
"That's the card company's fee, not ours. If you'd rather avoid it, debit or e-transfer have no fee at all."
Then let it go. Arguing about 74¢ with a regular costs more than 74¢.
Fees that aren't the card's
Look at your statement for what else comes off: a monthly fee for the machine, a fee per refund, a separate rate for cards from other countries, the software's share on top. They often add up to more than people expect, and none of them can be surcharged.
In Caletan, cards go through Stripe. Stripe's fee, 2.9% + 30¢ for cards online in Canada and the US, is separate and goes to Stripe. On Pay as you go, Caletan's own share is 0.2% of a card payment, in Canada and the US alike; on Studio and Pro there's none. Our pricing has the plans, and the payouts guide shows what comes off each payment.
