More On the Plastiq Fee
Why Does Plastiq Charge a Fee?
Many merchants choose to NOT accept credit or debit cards, usually because it doesn’t make sense for them to pay the transaction fees associated with doing so. While your favorite restaurant might see fewer diners if they don’t accept cards, other businesses like landlords, insurers, schools, and contractors don’t have strong reasons to make payments convenient — after all, it’s unlikely that you will reject an apartment or school just because they don’t accept cards! These payments also tend to be some of the largest payments that any of us will make on a monthly or yearly basis.
Plastiq’s mission is to provide you the option of making virtually any bill payment using your card. To fulfill this mission, we’ve set up with the card networks to process your cards, and we’ve plugged into the banking systems to send your payments out via bank transfer or physical check. Plastiq gets charged transaction fees for every payment, which we negotiate to industry-low rates and then pass onto you as a cost of using our service.
The Value of Cards
- Rewards: For most customers, the fee we charge is largely offset by the value in rewards that they earn by putting payments on card.
- Access to Credit: Using your credit card can help you deal with unexpected expenses or buy extra time to move your money around.
- Security: Cards offer additional protection and security over other payment methods, backed by the authority of your issuing bank.