Compare EFTPOS providers in Australia

Here’s the thing nobody tells you when you set out to compare EFTPOS providers in Australia: the hard part isn’t how many of them there are. It’s that they don’t quote in the same units.

One provider gives you a number. Another gives you a number. The numbers look comparable. They are not, because they are describing different things — and unless you already know how merchant pricing works, there is no way to tell from the outside.

That’s the whole problem, and it’s why this used to be close to impossible for a normal business owner to do on their own.

Different providers charge in different rate styles

This is the bit that makes an apples-to-apples comparison so hard.

Now put two quotes side by side. One says 0.5 per cent. The other says 1.2 per cent.

The 0.5 looks like less than half the price. But if the 0.5 is interchange-plus, it is a margin sitting on top of a wholesale cost you have not been shown, and the 1.2 might be the whole thing. The merchant has no way to know that from the number alone.

And it goes further than the model. Different providers slice the bill differently:

• CBA will often quote interchange-plus-plus or blended, but they almost always strip out international scheme fees as a separate line item.
• NAB does interchange-plus or blended only — no IC++, because their systems can’t do it.
• Others run a blended rate but with a different fee structure underneath again — a different international rate here, a different rate for business and premium cards there.
• And then someone throws in a free terminal, which is not free, it’s in the rate.

Six quotes, six different shapes. Nobody is doing anything wrong. But nobody is comparable either.

The people quoting you often don’t understand it either

I’ll put a number on this from what I’ve seen: 99 per cent of bankers don’t properly understand merchant pricing, and about 95 per cent of resellers don’t either.

That’s not me being unkind. Most resellers sell for a single brand, and a lot of them have no payments specialisation at all — they’re a specialised sales arm, not an advisory. They know the product they sell and the commission they earn on it.

So the advice is bad. Not always dishonest, often just uninformed. But the effect on the merchant is the same.

The trick that costs merchants the most

Here is how it actually plays out, and I’ve watched it happen more times than I can count.

A salesperson quotes a rate. The merchant hears a number. What the merchant does not register is that it is interchange-plus — the number is a margin, not a price. Or it’s IC++, with scheme fees on top of that.

“Yeah mate, you’ll end up around 0.9 per cent.”

First statement arrives. It’s 1.2.

And the salespeople know exactly what they’re doing. By that point the deal is written, the commission is paid, and the merchant has been handed off to the bank. The person who promised the rate is gone.

Now think about what that merchant has just been through to get there. The IDs. The forms. The bank details. The trust deed. Getting the wife to sign. Getting a trustee who lives overseas to sign. A week of admin for a rate they were told was better.

So when they work out they’ve been done over, what do they do? Mostly, nothing. It takes them six months to move, because switching again is too big a job to face.

That’s six months of commission the salesperson banks off a dodgy sale. That’s not a side effect. For some of them, that is the business model.

It’s sad, and the merchant wears all of it.

A bank is not an adviser

This one is simple and worth saying plainly.

If you go to a bank, they will sell you their own product. There might be something in the market that suits your business far better. There might be something cheaper. They will not tell you about it, because they don’t sell it.

Banks aren’t advisers. They’re sellers of their own product. That is a perfectly reasonable thing for them to be — just don’t mistake it for advice.

What you’re plugging into changes who you can even talk to

There’s a step before comparing rates that most people skip: work out what the payment is actually connecting to. That decides which providers are genuinely in play, and it narrows the field faster than any price.

Hospitality — look at the point of sale first

If you’re a cafe or a restaurant, the point of sale is not a side issue. Most of the time these days it comes bundled with the payments, and those bundled deals are where merchants get done over.

So put the POS in the comparison, not after it. Do you actually need a fancy point of sale with every bell on it? Or would a basic one do the job? Because you may well be paying for a system you don’t use, in a rate you can’t see, on a contract you can’t leave.

Unattended — this one is genuinely hard

Vending, car parks, car washes, kiosks, laundromats. If that’s you, ringing the banks will get you nowhere, because no bank knows what they’re talking about on unattended.

There are only a handful of specialists in this country who do, and it’s a real specialisation — it’s about integrating into different devices as much as it is about the payment. The dedicated unattended providers are Circumtech and Transact4Less, and I’d say Transact4Less is the best of them. DataMesh and Quest Payment Systems also do this work as part of a broader offering.

So the honest answer for unattended is that it’s much harder to compare, because the field is small and finding it is most of the work.

Online — Stripe is the default, not the only option

Stripe is an absolute rip-off. A lot of businesses end up on it because they believe it’s the only thing they can use. Often it isn’t.

Take WooCommerce. There are plugins that connect straight into a number of Australian banks rather than routing through Stripe, and the difference can be 0.25 to 0.30 per cent or more — before you count the international fees Stripe layers on top, which are the ones that quietly hurt.

The problem isn’t that the alternatives don’t exist. It’s that merchants can’t find them, because nobody advertises to a business that already thinks the decision is made.

What comparing properly actually involves

If you want to do it yourself, here is the real job. Ring every bank. Ring every payment company — the likes of Tyro and Zeller and everyone else promising the world. Get pricing from each. Then sit down and work through the things that are not the rate:

• Settlement. What time do you get your money? Can you change the settlement time? Is same-day available, and what does it cost?
• MOTO. Is phone and mail order included, or extra, or not available?
• Refund limits. Is there a daily refund cap? Plenty of merchants don’t find out until the day they need it.
• POS integration. Will it talk to the point of sale you already have? What does that integration actually do?
• Tipping. Do you need it? Does the provider support it? (For a venue, this one can be worth more than the rate.)
• Pay-at-table. Same question, and the coverage is patchy.
• What they need from you. Every provider has a different onboarding list.

You can absolutely build that comparison yourself. It’s tough, it takes a while, and here’s the honest bit: you’ll probably still end up paying more than if you’d used a broker, because you’re negotiating one deal on your own against a provider who does this every day.

If you want to put real numbers against it first, the side-by-side machine comparison and the fee calculator are both a faster starting point than a spreadsheet. And if you want the actual method — how to get two quotes into the same units, and what the costs outside the rate are really worth — that’s all in compare EFTPOS fees and costs.

So what’s the answer

Before EFTPOS broking businesses existed in this market, there wasn’t one. You shopped around blind or you took what your bank gave you.

Now there is. A broker sells for a number of providers, so they can put the quotes side by side in the same units, tell you what’s actually being charged, and match the features to how your business runs rather than to what one bank happens to sell.

I think you’ll see more and more merchants go that way, and I think it’s a good thing. It’s created real competition in a market that didn’t have much, and competition is always good for the people buying.

If you want a hand putting the quotes side by side, get in touch.

FAQ

Why is it so hard to compare EFTPOS providers?

Because they don’t quote in the same units. A blended rate, an interchange-plus rate and an IC++ rate are three different kinds of number, and a smaller one can easily mean a bigger bill. Without knowing which model you’re being quoted, the comparison is meaningless.

What’s the difference between blended, interchange-plus and IC++?

Blended is one rate across everything, with the provider’s margin hidden inside it. Interchange-plus is a margin on top of interchange, which varies by card. IC++ is a margin on top of interchange and scheme fees. IC++ is the most transparent; blended is the easiest to quote and the hardest to check.

Is a low quoted rate always better?

No, and this is the trap. A quoted 0.5 per cent on interchange-plus is a margin sitting on top of a wholesale cost you haven’t been shown. A quoted 1.2 per cent blended might be the entire bill. Ask which model the number belongs to before you compare anything.

Should I just go to my bank?

Your bank will sell you its own product, and it won’t tell you if something else suits you better — that isn’t what it’s there for. Worth a quote. Not worth treating as advice.

I’m a cafe — what should I look at first?

The point of sale, before the rate. Hospitality payments are usually bundled with the POS, so you’re really comparing two products at once. Work out whether you need a full-featured system or a basic one, because you may be paying for software you never use, inside a rate you can’t see.

Who do I talk to about unattended payments?

Not your bank — they generally don’t know. Unattended is a genuine specialisation and only a handful of providers in Australia do it properly, because it’s as much about integrating with the device as it is about the payment. Circumtech and Transact4Less are the dedicated specialists, and DataMesh and Quest Payment Systems do it alongside their broader offering. The field is small, and finding it is most of the work.

Do I have to use Stripe for online payments?

No, and a lot of businesses assume otherwise. On WooCommerce there are plugins that connect directly to Australian banks instead, and the saving can be 0.25 to 0.30 per cent or more — before the international fees, which are where Stripe quietly costs you.

What should I compare besides the rate?

Settlement time and whether you can change it, MOTO, daily refund limits, POS integration, tipping, pay-at-table, contract length and terminal cost. For a lot of businesses one of those matters more than a few basis points on the rate — we go through each of them here.

How do I know if I’ve been quoted honestly?

Ask one question in writing: is that rate blended, interchange-plus, or interchange-plus-plus? An honest quote answers it immediately. If the answer is vague, you have learned something.