Surcharging allows merchants to offset credit card processing costs by passing a fee directly to the consumer at the time of sale. Quilt charges eligible merchants a standard default fixed flat processing fee based on their vertical, and merchants enabled for surcharging can assess a surcharge to their consumers, up to 3% (the maximum permitted by the card brands), effectively reducing their net total cost of acceptance.
Example: A merchant processing $50,000/month in credit card volume at an effective rate of 2.5% could recover up to $1,250/month in processing costs by enabling a 2.5% surcharge.
Some features, like Surcharge, are available on the PayFac but may not be available to all Brands. This may be due to additional integration work that might be required and/or other factors such as customer demand, dev priorities, or more. In this case, see the table below for which brands have access to this feature as of this moment. If a brand or product is not listed below, then it does not have the ability to do Surcharge.
| Brand | Available |
|---|---|
| IT Retail | ✅ |
| ThriftCart | ✅ |
| eTailPet | ⚠️ Estimated Release: Jun/Jul 2026 |
| Rain Retail | ⚠️ Estimated Release: July 2026 |
<aside> 💡 Note: Surcharge requires additional development to implement. Please have a supervisor speak with your local Product team if you feel this feature may be of interest to your industry or Brand and we can get it enabled.
</aside>
| Brand | Available |
|---|---|
| Adyen | ✅ (P5 Only) |
| Stripe | ❌ |
Surcharge is ONLY supported by App Version 1.520 and greater.
The surcharge amount cannot exceed the merchant’s actual cost of processing, or 3%, whichever is less. This is restricted by each of the card brands.
Only merchants in legally permitted jurisdictions may enable surcharging. Quilt will not support surcharging in restricted states and DealHub will block surcharge quotes for merchants in those states.
| State / Region | Quilt Supported? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| CA | No | Surcharging is restricted. |
| CT | No | Surcharging is prohibited. |
| MA | No | Surcharging is prohibited. |
| ME | No | Surcharging is restricted. |
| MN | No | Surcharging is restricted. |
| NY | No | Surcharging is restricted. |
| TX | No | Surcharging is restricted. |
| NV | No | Surcharging is restricted. |
| PR | No | Surcharging is prohibited. |
| CO | No | Surcharging is capped at 2%. |
| OK | No | Surcharging is capped at 2%. |
| All other US states | Yes | Allowed up to 3%. Signage and disclosure requirements must be met. |
| Canada | TBD | Planning on supporting it through P5 terminal |
Certain transaction types are exempt from surcharging due to card brand rules. The PayFac handles this automatically, but CX should be familiar with the following exemptions as they are a common source of merchant questions:
| Transaction Type | Eligible for Surcharge? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Credit Card (Card Present) | Yes | Most card-present transactions are eligible. |
| Debit Cards | No | Surcharging is prohibited by card brand rules. |
| Prepaid Cards | No | Surcharging is prohibited by card brand rules. |
| Card-Not-Present (eComm, VT, Tokenization) | No | Prohibited. |
| Manual Key Entry | No | Prohibited. |
| EBT (Food / Cash) | No | Surcharging is prohibited by card brand rules. |
| Tip Amount Only | No | Surcharge cannot be applied to the tip portion. |
| Partial Payments | No | Prohibited. |
| Standalone | No | Prohibited. |