If you’re running an e-commerce store, you probably have a number in your head for what every sale costs you in fees. Most Shopify or WooCommerce merchants assume it’s a flat percentage.
But there is a massive gap between your Processing Fee and your Actual Transaction Cost (ATC).
What is ATC?
Actual Transaction Cost is the real percentage of revenue you lose to the payment process. While you pay fees on 100% of your gross sales, you don’t get to keep 100% of that money after returns, chargebacks, and hidden surcharges.
How Hidden Fees Eat Your Margins
We built the Trustap ATC Calculator to help merchants see the truth. Here is why your costs are higher than you think:
1 – The “Return” Penalty
When a customer returns a product, you refund the money, but your payment processor almost never refunds the fee. You’ve lost the sale, but you’ve still paid the cost of the transaction. This “inflates” your effective rate because you are paying fees on money that isn’t in your bank account anymore.
2 – The Surcharge Trap
Did you know that Premium & Business cards and International cards often come with hidden surcharges? In the US, premium cards can account for over 40% of your transactions. If you aren’t accounting for that extra 1-2%, you’re losing thousands of dollars a year in “ghost fees.”
3 – The “Disconnected Plugin” Drain
Most merchants use a patchwork of different tools, one for payments, another for chargeback protection, and a third for fraud prevention. Each of these plugins has its own subscription fee or “per-transaction” cost that quickly adds up. Trustap consolidates all of these into one platform, eliminating the need for multiple expensive subscriptions and reducing your overall technical workload.
4 – The Chargeback “Admin” Tax
A chargeback isn’t just a lost sale, it’s a fee (often $15-$25 per instance) plus the administrative time spent fighting it. Traditional patchwork systems leave you to handle these alone, further driving up your cost per order.
See Your Real Numbers in Seconds
Stop guessing and start optimising. Our new calculator lets you input your:
- Monthly Gross Sales
- Return Rates
- Average Order Value
- International & Premium Card mix
The Result? You might find that you’re paying close to or often greater than 4%.
Try our ATC Calculator Now to see your results
How Trustap Lowers Your ATC
At Trustap, we don’t believe in a patchwork system. We consolidate payment processing, fraud detection, and chargeback protection into one streamlined flow. By eliminating the need for 3rd party fraud tools and managing the dispute process for you, we typically lower a merchant’s ATC by 0.5% to 4%.
Stop leaving money on the table. Calculate your ATC today and see how much you could save by switching to a more intelligent payment partner.
For more information, get in touch with us today – https://www.trustap.com/contact-us/
