When it comes to PayNow and covering the fees, it can be a confusing topic. We hope that this article can assist in understanding it a little further, and help with your decision on whether to charge processing fees for your customers or not.


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Many business choose to absorb the cost of the processing fees. Perhaps they raise their rates slightly to cover the additional costs, or they consider the time saved in manually chasing the payments money well spent.

We've provided the option to pass on a surcharge, and allow the business to set a percentage to pass on. We've set a conservative 1.7% as the default surcharge which will cover the majority of the fee, however it doesn't cover the fixed cost of the transaction (typically $1.30 for Australian cards).

Internationally, there's much variation to these processing costs, which makes it difficult for us to set an amount that covers every transaction. The RBA and ACCC recommend that if you're trying to set a fee that accurately covers your processing fees, then you can average your processing fees over time to determine what a reasonable percentage would work to cover the fees. 

  • For example, Stripe has reports that can be used to calculate your % processing fees covered over a period of 6 months. You can check this periodically to make sure your percentage is still correct.


The correct percentage will be different for each business, as there are variances between countries and credit card providers, as well as the average invoice amounts.


Here's some examples, we hope will help:


On a $100 transaction - with no additional processing charges passed on:

  • Stripe will charge 1.7% + $0.30 (assuming your client pays with a domestic credit card)
  • Formitize will charge a fee of $1.00.
  • You'll receive a payment of $97.00.



If you select the option to pass on a surcharge to your client, you can set your own surcharge percentage. We set the default to a conservative 1.7%.


On the $100 transaction, with 1.7% processing charges passed on:

  • The customer will pay $101.70.
  • You'll receive a payment of $98.67 - you've recovered $1.70 (1.7%) of the $3.03 fees (3.03% total fee).



On a $500 transaction, with 1.7% transaction surcharge:

  • The customer will pay $508.50
  • You'll receive a payment of $498.56 - you've recovered $8.50 (1.7%) of the $9.94 fees (1.99% total fee).



On a $1000 transaction, with 1.7% transaction surcharge:

  • The customer will pay $1017.00
  • You'll receive a payment of $998.41 - you've recovered $17.00 (1.7%) of the $18.59 fees (1.86% total fee).



If you set the surcharge at 2%


  • On $100 transaction, the customer pays $102.00. You recover $2.00 of the $3.03 charges (3.03% total fee).
  • On $500 transaction, the customer pays $510.00. You recover $10.00 of the $9.97 charges (1.99% total fee).
  • On $1000 transaction, the customer pays $1020.00. You recover $20.00 of the $18.64 charges (1.86% total fee).




You can see that the percentage fees vary depending on your invoice amounts. The fixed amount of $1.30 becomes a much smaller part of the percentage as your invoice totals increase.


We hope that helps in understanding how the processing fees work, and to make a decision that suits your business.