Who Pays the Processing Fee

When you set up MonuPay in Settings → Integrations, one of the first choices you make is who pays the credit card processing fee. This article explains both options, what the fee rates actually are, how the surcharge is calculated, and how your choice changes the amount your customer sees in the customer portal.

You pick this during the Get Started flow, on the step titled "Who pays the credit card processing fee?"

The two fee models

Card payments carry a processing fee. You decide whether that fee is added on top of the invoice or taken out of your payout. There are two options:

• Customer pays the fee: the fee is added to the invoice total, and you receive the full amount.

• I absorb the fee (Recommended): the customer pays the exact invoice amount, and the fee comes out of your payout.

Either way, the order's balance only goes down by the base invoice amount. The fee is handled separately and never changes what the order still owes.

Customer pays the fee

With "Customer pays the fee," the processing fee is added on top of the invoice. The customer pays a little more, and you receive the full invoice amount.

• The customer sees the fee broken out as a surcharge on their total in the portal.

• You receive 100% of the invoice, because the customer covers the fee.

I absorb the fee (recommended)

With "I absorb the fee," the customer pays the exact invoice amount, with no surcharge added. The fee is deducted from your payout instead, so your shop covers it.

• The customer sees a clean total that matches the invoice, with no extra line.

• The fee is subtracted from the money that lands in your account.

This is the Recommended option because the price your customer sees stays simple and matches what you quoted them.

How the surcharge is actually worked out

Under "Customer pays the fee," MonuDesk does not simply multiply the balance by the rate. It works out the total that leaves you with the full balance after the processor takes its cut — the fee is charged on the whole amount collected, including the surcharge itself. The formula is:

Customer's total = balance ÷ (1 − rate)

On a $5,000 balance at the standard 2.99% rate:

• Customer is billed $5,154.11 — that is 5,000 ÷ 0.9701, rounded to the cent.

• The surcharge line reads $154.11.

• You still receive the full $5,000, and the order's balance drops by $5,000.

The number people expect is $5,149.50 — 5,000 plus 2.99% of 5,000. That is not what MonuDesk bills, and it is the single most common surprise on this screen. The extra $4.61 is the processing fee on the surcharge.

If the customer pays with an American Express card, the same formula runs at 3.99%:

• Customer is billed $5,207.79 — that is 5,000 ÷ 0.9601.

• The surcharge line reads $207.79.

Under "I absorb the fee" there is no gross-up, because there is nothing to add on top. The fee is a straight percentage of the balance, taken out of your payout: on a $5,000 balance that is $149.50 at 2.99%, or $199.50 if the customer pays by Amex. Your customer is billed exactly $5,000 either way.

The 2.99% display rate vs your real rate

The MonuPay card shows 2.99% as the card processing rate. That number is a display rate. It's there to give you a sense of the cost while you're setting up.

Your actual standard (non-AMEX) rate is the merchant rate tied to your own approved merchant account. In most cases it lines up with the 2.99% shown on the card, but it can differ. The rate that's actually charged is always your real merchant rate, not the marketing number — so run the worked example above with your own rate if it is not 2.99%.

The AMEX surcharge (3.99%)

American Express costs more to process than other cards, so AMEX always uses a fixed 3.99% rate instead of your standard rate.

The actual card brand isn't known until the customer enters their card, so the fee is recalculated at the moment of payment based on the real brand. If they pay with an AMEX card, the 3.99% rate applies; any other card uses your standard rate. This is true regardless of which fee model you chose; it only changes who covers that higher rate.

How the choice affects what your customer sees

Your fee model decides whether the customer sees a surcharge in the portal:

• Customer pays the fee: the portal shows the base amount plus the processing surcharge, so the customer's total is higher than the invoice.

• I absorb the fee: the portal shows only the base amount, so the customer's total exactly matches the invoice.

Because the surcharge is figured by real card brand at payment time, an AMEX card under "Customer pays the fee" will show a slightly higher surcharge than other cards. No matter which model you use, only the base amount is recorded as a payment against the order, so the balance always drops by the base.

Changing your fee model later

How hard this is depends entirely on whether you have submitted your merchant application yet.

• Before you submit — you can do it yourself. While the application is still in progress, or if it came back declined, the MonuPay card shows a Start over control. It clears the application and returns you to the fee-model step so you can pick the other option and re-apply. No support ticket needed.

• After you submit — support only. Once the application has gone to PayFactory, Start over disappears and the application can no longer be reset from the app. Switching between "Customer pays the fee" and "I absorb the fee" from that point is a manual change by MonuDesk support, and it may require re-registering as a merchant.

So the practical advice is unchanged: decide before you press submit, because that is the moment the easy path closes.

Related articles:

• How the Customer Portal Works

• How to Log a Payment

• How Billing and Subscriptions Work