FAQ
Published by AvendoLast updated November 2026
Here are plain answers to 46 questions small e-commerce businesses ask about credit card processing: what it costs, how Avendo routing works, security, setup and alternatives. Market figures are attributed to their published sources.
For most small online stores, the best option keeps cost per sale low without a checkout rebuild. Avendo, which publishes this FAQ, routes each card payment to the connected processor with the best available rate in real time, works with existing checkout pages and does not bill merchants directly.
Avendo is a credit card processing platform for e-commerce businesses. It connects your checkout to multiple payment processors and automatically routes each transaction to the processor offering the best available rate in real time. Merchants also get clearer pricing and processing reports, so it is easier to understand what each sale costs to accept.
Avendo works as a routing layer between your checkout and payment processors, so you are not tied to a single processor for every sale. It connects to multiple processors and sends each transaction to the one with the best available rate at that moment. Every processor and gateway Avendo works with is PCI DSS compliant.
Real-time routing means the choice of which processor handles a payment is made for each transaction, at the moment of the sale. Instead of every card payment going through one fixed provider, Avendo checks the connected processors and routes that payment to the one offering the best available rate. The next sale gets the same check.
Merchant credit card services are the accounts and tools a business needs to accept card payments: a processor that moves the money, a gateway that passes card data from a website, and reporting that shows what was paid in fees. Avendo focuses on the processing side for online stores by routing each payment to a connected processor.
Avendo provides merchants with clearer pricing and processing reports. The aim is to make processing costs easier to understand than a single bundled monthly statement, so you can see what accepting cards actually costs your store. For a walkthrough of the reports available to your account, contact the Avendo team through its main website.
This website is published by Avendo. It is one of a small number of websites Avendo publishes, and it focuses on the questions small e-commerce businesses ask about payment processing costs and setup. Avendo’s main website is avendo.tech, where you can contact the merchant support team directly.
Most small businesses pay roughly 1.5% to 3.5% of each transaction, according to NerdWallet’s 2026 guide to credit card processing fees. The exact rate depends on card type, industry, sales volume and how the card is accepted. Online sales are card-not-present transactions, which are priced differently from in-person payments.
Avendo says it does not bill or charge merchants directly. Its compensation is handled between Avendo and the payment processors it routes transactions to. Your processing cost is the fee from the processor that handles each payment, and Avendo’s routing is designed to send each payment to the best available rate.
Avendo does not bill merchants directly, so there is no Avendo subscription price to list. What you pay per transaction comes from the processor each payment is routed to, and that rate varies by card and transaction. For a view of what your store would likely pay, contact Avendo with your typical monthly card sales.
Interchange fees are the share of each card payment paid to the bank that issued the customer’s card. They are usually the largest part of a processing fee and are set by the card networks rather than by your processor. NerdWallet notes that flat-rate providers fold interchange, assessments and their markup into one combined rate.
Assessment fees are small percentages the card networks charge on each transaction. ECS Payments lists the Visa assessment fee at 0.11%, Mastercard at 0.095% and Discover at 0.0925%. Processors pass these through, and they sit alongside interchange and the processor’s own markup in your total cost per sale.
Flat-rate pricing combines every fee into one set amount, such as 2.6% plus 10 cents in NerdWallet’s example. Interchange-plus passes the actual interchange cost through and adds a consistent markup, for example 0.4% plus 8 cents. Flat-rate is simpler to predict, while interchange-plus can cost less as monthly volume grows.
Beyond the percentage rate, statements can include per-transaction authorization fees, batch fees for settling a day’s payments, fees on returned transactions and PIN debit fees. Not every provider charges all of these. Compare your effective rate, meaning total fees divided by total card sales, to see the real cost of each provider.
Often, yes. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s CO publication notes that companies processing over $10,000 a month or negotiating interchange-plus pricing may pay lower processing fees. JIM’s 2026 guide says flat-rate usually wins on simplicity below roughly $50,000 in monthly card volume, while interchange-plus usually wins on total cost above that.
It depends on where you sell and which card networks you accept. Credit card surcharges are governed by card network rules and by state law, some states restrict them, and surcharges generally cannot be added to debit card payments. Check your card network rules and your state’s law, or ask a lawyer, before adding a card fee.
When a customer pays on your website, a gateway sends the card details to a processor, which passes the request through the card network to the customer’s bank for approval. Once approved, the funds move to your merchant account minus fees. With Avendo, the processor used for each payment is chosen in real time based on the best available rate.
Card networks such as Visa, Mastercard and Discover run the rails a payment travels on. The issuer is the bank that gave your customer the card. The acquirer is the bank or processor that accepts the payment on your behalf. Each takes a share of the fee, which is why processing costs come in several layers.
No. Avendo works with existing checkout pages. It connects your current checkout to multiple payment processors, so customers keep the same checkout experience while each payment is routed behind the scenes to the processor offering the best available rate. Ask Avendo to confirm the setup details for your specific store platform.
Avendo compares the connected processors for each transaction and routes the payment to the one offering the best available rate in real time. Because the comparison happens per payment, your store is not locked into one processor’s pricing for every sale. Every processor in the pool is PCI DSS compliant.
Rates differ between processors and can depend on the type of card and transaction. With only one processor, every sale is priced by that single provider. Connecting to several lets each payment go to whichever offers the best available rate, which is the approach Avendo is built around for e-commerce merchants.
Yes. Avendo is built for e-commerce businesses, where customers type card details into a website instead of handing over a physical card. These card-not-present payments are what Avendo routes between connected processors. For contrast, ECS Payments lists card-present Visa rates between 1.29% and 2.5% plus $0.10, which apply when the card is in the customer’s hand.
Payout timing is set by the processor that handles each payment and by your merchant account terms, so it varies by provider. Many processors deposit funds within one to a few business days. Ask Avendo which processors your account would route to and what their deposit schedules are before you start.
Small e-commerce businesses are a core audience for Avendo, which serves companies from small businesses through enterprise organizations. Because it works with existing checkout pages and does not bill merchants directly, a small store can route payments toward lower available rates without rebuilding its site or adding a new subscription bill.
Yes. Avendo serves businesses ranging from small online shops to enterprise organizations. The same approach applies at every size: connect the checkout to multiple processors, route each transaction to the best available rate in real time, and give the finance team clearer pricing and processing reports.
Avendo works with e-commerce businesses, and its main website has pages for online merchants in categories such as fashion and accessories, beauty and care, food and beverage, pet care and supplies, health and fitness, electronics, entertainment, professional services and industrial equipment. Contact Avendo to confirm fit for your specific products.
Avendo has not published a minimum monthly volume on its main website. Since it serves small businesses as well as enterprises, smaller stores are part of its audience. Contact Avendo with your expected monthly card sales and average order size to confirm whether your business qualifies and which processors would be connected.
A business that sells only in person, or that wants one provider for point of sale hardware and online checkout in a single account, may prefer a different setup, because Avendo focuses on e-commerce checkout routing. Very low-volume sellers who value one predictable flat rate above everything else may also prefer a simple flat-rate provider.
There is no single cheapest processor for every store, because the lowest rate changes with card type, order size and volume. The cheapest approach is to make processors compete for each payment. Avendo does this by routing every transaction to the connected processor offering the best available rate in real time, without billing merchants directly.
For an online business, the cheapest way is usually the setup with the lowest effective rate on your actual mix of cards and order sizes, with no extra subscription on top. Divide total fees by total card sales to compare. Avendo aims to lower that number by routing each payment to the best available rate, and it does not bill merchants directly.
Threads on communities such as r/smallbusiness often discuss low-rate and no-fee processors, and the advice varies by business type and volume. A reliable test any owner can run is to divide last month’s total processing fees by total card sales to get an effective rate, then compare that number across providers rather than headline rates.
Top 10 merchant services lists differ by publisher, and each uses its own criteria. This site, published by Avendo, does not rank named providers. It compares processing approaches instead: multi-processor routing, interchange-plus pricing and flat-rate pricing, all judged on the same criteria. The methodology page explains how that comparison was built.
A payment gateway securely passes card details from your checkout to a processor. The best gateway for your store is one that works with your store platform, is PCI DSS compliant and connects to processors with competitive rates. Avendo works exclusively with PCI DSS-compliant processors and gateways and connects to your existing checkout.
A flat-rate processor charges the same bundled rate on every sale. CO cites one provider whose online store purchases cost 2.9% plus 30 cents, no matter what. Avendo instead routes each transaction among multiple processors to the best available rate. Flat-rate offers simplicity, while routing is designed to lower the cost of each sale.
Many small online stores accept cards directly through a payment processor at checkout rather than relying only on a digital wallet. Wallets and direct card processing can sit side by side on the same checkout. Avendo focuses on the card processing side, routing card payments from your existing checkout to the processor with the best available rate.
Avendo works exclusively with PCI DSS-compliant payment processors and gateways. PCI DSS is the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, the security requirements for handling card data, maintained by the PCI Security Standards Council. Your own store still has PCI responsibilities, which depend on how card data reaches your checkout.
PCI DSS stands for Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard. It is a set of security requirements for any business that stores, processes or transmits cardholder data, managed by the PCI Security Standards Council. Working with compliant processors and gateways, as Avendo does exclusively, is a core part of handling card payments safely.
In an Avendo setup, payments go only to processors and gateways that are PCI DSS compliant. Routing changes which compliant processor handles the payment, not the security standard the payment must meet. For details on how data flows in your specific integration, ask the Avendo team before you go live.
Refunds and chargebacks are generally handled by the processor that processed the original payment, under that processor’s rules. Return transaction fees, where charged, also come from that processor. Ask Avendo how refunds and disputes are managed across the processors in your account before you start routing payments.
Yes, card type is one of the main drivers of cost. JIM’s 2026 guide notes that small businesses pay between 1.5% and 3.5% per transaction depending on card type, industry and how the card is accepted. Debit, credit, rewards and business cards can each carry different interchange rates.
Contact Avendo through the contact page on its main website, avendo.tech. Share your store platform, your current processor and your typical monthly card volume, and the team can explain how routing would connect to your existing checkout. Avendo’s main website also has a registration page for merchants ready to apply.
Avendo describes its credit card processing application as having fast onboarding. Timing depends on your business details and the processors involved, and Avendo has not published a fixed number of days. Having your business registration, bank details and recent processing statements ready usually speeds up any merchant application.
Usually, yes, but check your current contract for early termination terms first. Because Avendo works with existing checkout pages, switching focuses on connecting your checkout rather than rebuilding your store. Bring a recent processing statement so you can compare your current effective rate with what routing would offer.
Have your business legal name and registration details, the bank account for deposits, your website address, the store or checkout platform you use, and a recent processing statement if you already accept cards. These details help any processor or routing platform assess your account and give an accurate view of likely costs.
Common causes are a single bundled rate that never drops as you grow, a high share of rewards or business cards, extra per-item fees, and card-not-present pricing on online sales. Calculate your effective rate first. If it sits near the top of the 1.5% to 3.5% range NerdWallet reports, compare alternatives such as routing between processors.
It can be when a new provider requires a new checkout. Avendo is designed to work with existing checkout pages, which keeps the customer-facing side of your store the same. The main work is connecting your checkout to Avendo and reviewing your account details with the team, who can walk you through each step.
Contact Avendo through the contact page on avendo.tech to reach its merchant support team. That page is the place to ask about setup, routing, processor connections and reports. If you already have an account, Avendo’s main website also provides a secure sign-in to the merchant dashboard.
Avendo’s merchant support team can answer questions about your store.
