Do you know if Toast charges separately the card brands Assessment Fees? Visa is 0.13% for debit and 0.14% for credit. MC is similar. AmEx also has an assessment and BIN fee.
Toast matched my IC rate for both keyed and swiped. When I looked at my statements from 2018 vs 2019, both were close. Yeah, I wish Toast would provide a detailed statement of my card mix, but I knew what I was getting myself into when I signed up.
The $.15 is their swipe fee, but what you didn’t say was they take your average swipe volume and multiply that by $.15, which that sum is subtracted from my avg processing costs. That number is then used to come up with your flat rate. So, really, your math is wrong.
I like your content but you’re starting to sound like CNN going after Trump. We get it, you don’t like Toast. However, I didn’t see you going after Square after they increased their flat rate in Sept 2019. If anything, Square has a larger market presence in my space (QSR) and you haven’t mentioned them in over a year. Not sure this website is being “honest” with itself. You’re losing credibility, Jordan.
Thanks for the info Jason. After reading this article I wondered if Toast would match a lower keyed rate of a competitor if a merchant provided proof. If they’re making some extra profit on passive merchants that’s one thing. But if they’re refusing to lower when challenged by more active merchants, that’s another.
Beside that, it seems to me that Visa would have their rate, then Worldpay (Toast’s processor) is obviously going to add their margin to it, plus any costs involved, plus extra so Toast profits as well. If that’s the case then it seems inaccurate to imply that Toast gets everything in between Visa’s rate and their own.
Lastly I would be curious to know how it compares to other POS + payments companies’ rates for these transaction categories, to put things in perspective. It would certainly be more convenient if the answer was simply that Toast is taking advantage of merchants and COVID, but if their rates are about the same as other companies of their kind, maybe there’s more to it than that.
Hi Matt,
Right before the virus hit, I was talking to a restaurant that was about to open their 2nd location.
They are using Toast at their 1st location and based on their average ticket and volume our fees came in at over $500.00 per month less than Toast.
The merchant asked Toast to reduce their fees which they did for swiped transactions. What they didn’t tell him was they raised his non swipe fees to offset. Then they started moving more of his sales to the non swipe rate. I’ve never seen an upscale restaurant with almost no take out or delivery hand key just over 10% of their transactions.
Our monthly equipment fees came in less too as did the cost of the equipment seeing as how the merchant didn’t want the not so free equipment offer.
None of this matters now that the virus hit Chicago pretty hard and the business didn’t open.
As far as Toast’s cost with WP goes, they are getting most of the mark up based on the monthly sales volume of their merchants.
I’d be happy to share more info if you like.
Sincerely,
Tom Heltmach
There are stories on both sides, but looking at the financial data I have from Toast there are many more Toast merchants in Tom’s camp, they just don’t know it yet.
Everybody in the payments industry who reads this periodical knows exactly how legacy payment companSubscribe or log in to read the rest of this content.
A real eye opener. Thank you.
Called out!
Do you know if Toast charges separately the card brands Assessment Fees? Visa is 0.13% for debit and 0.14% for credit. MC is similar. AmEx also has an assessment and BIN fee.
not sure
Not that anyone cares but a merchant doing 2.5mm in card volume violates card brand rules for sub-merchants under a PF.
Toast matched my IC rate for both keyed and swiped. When I looked at my statements from 2018 vs 2019, both were close. Yeah, I wish Toast would provide a detailed statement of my card mix, but I knew what I was getting myself into when I signed up.
The $.15 is their swipe fee, but what you didn’t say was they take your average swipe volume and multiply that by $.15, which that sum is subtracted from my avg processing costs. That number is then used to come up with your flat rate. So, really, your math is wrong.
I like your content but you’re starting to sound like CNN going after Trump. We get it, you don’t like Toast. However, I didn’t see you going after Square after they increased their flat rate in Sept 2019. If anything, Square has a larger market presence in my space (QSR) and you haven’t mentioned them in over a year. Not sure this website is being “honest” with itself. You’re losing credibility, Jordan.
Thanks for the info Jason. After reading this article I wondered if Toast would match a lower keyed rate of a competitor if a merchant provided proof. If they’re making some extra profit on passive merchants that’s one thing. But if they’re refusing to lower when challenged by more active merchants, that’s another.
Beside that, it seems to me that Visa would have their rate, then Worldpay (Toast’s processor) is obviously going to add their margin to it, plus any costs involved, plus extra so Toast profits as well. If that’s the case then it seems inaccurate to imply that Toast gets everything in between Visa’s rate and their own.
Lastly I would be curious to know how it compares to other POS + payments companies’ rates for these transaction categories, to put things in perspective. It would certainly be more convenient if the answer was simply that Toast is taking advantage of merchants and COVID, but if their rates are about the same as other companies of their kind, maybe there’s more to it than that.
Hi Matt,
Right before the virus hit, I was talking to a restaurant that was about to open their 2nd location.
They are using Toast at their 1st location and based on their average ticket and volume our fees came in at over $500.00 per month less than Toast.
The merchant asked Toast to reduce their fees which they did for swiped transactions. What they didn’t tell him was they raised his non swipe fees to offset. Then they started moving more of his sales to the non swipe rate. I’ve never seen an upscale restaurant with almost no take out or delivery hand key just over 10% of their transactions.
Our monthly equipment fees came in less too as did the cost of the equipment seeing as how the merchant didn’t want the not so free equipment offer.
None of this matters now that the virus hit Chicago pretty hard and the business didn’t open.
As far as Toast’s cost with WP goes, they are getting most of the mark up based on the monthly sales volume of their merchants.
I’d be happy to share more info if you like.
Sincerely,
Tom Heltmach
There are stories on both sides, but looking at the financial data I have from Toast there are many more Toast merchants in Tom’s camp, they just don’t know it yet.