Payments
Payment processing audit — what your merchant statement is actually charging you
Merchant statements are built to be unreadable: interchange, assessments, processor markup, and a page of acronym fees. We decode yours, compute the effective rate you actually pay, and benchmark it — then manage the renegotiation or the processor switch you approve.
No vendor changes without your approval. No guaranteed savings.
- No vendor changes without your approval
- Human-reviewed — a person checks every case
- Your documents stay private
- Takes about 2 minutes. No credit card.
What processing bloat looks like
The patterns a human finds inside the statement, not on the pricing page.
- An effective rate (total fees ÷ card volume) far above what your volume and card mix should command.
- Junk line items — statement fees, PCI 'non-compliance' fees, batch fees, annual fees — that pad the processor's margin.
- Tiered pricing quietly routing your transactions into the most expensive bucket.
- A rate that crept up through scheduled increases nobody flagged, because the notice lived in fine print.
How the processing audit works
Human-reviewed, evidence-first.
- Send a merchant statement or book a call One full monthly statement — the multi-page one with the fee detail, not the deposit summary.
- We compute your effective rate and decode every fee A human separates true interchange from processor markup and benchmarks the total against your volume and card mix.
- We renegotiate or switch — you approve Rate reduction with your processor, or a managed move to interchange-plus pricing elsewhere. Nothing changes without your sign-off.
On the record
Exhibits for this category ship here once one is cleared for publication. Never a fake case.
RECEIVED — · EXAMINATION PENDING
Coming to the file
The audit reads the statement, not the sales pitch
Every processor promises low rates; the truth is only in the statement. The number that matters is your effective rate — total fees divided by card volume — and most owners have never computed it.
We compute it, show the math from your own statement, and tell you honestly whether it's worth acting on. If it is, we handle the negotiation or the switch, approval-gated at every step, and we disclose how we're paid before you decide.
Questions, answered plainly.
Q.Do I have to switch processors to save?
Often not. Processors have room in their markup, and a documented benchmark is usually enough to move the rate. When a switch genuinely wins, we manage it — hardware, gateway, and cutover — with your approval at each step.
Q.What's a good effective rate?
It depends on your card mix, average ticket, and volume — a card-present retailer and an online business have different floors. That's exactly what the audit benchmarks: your rate against what your profile should command, with the math shown.
Q.Will you look at my POS bundle too?
Yes. POS-bundled processing is convenient and often expensive — the audit separates the software you use from the processing markup you don't have to accept.
Q.What does the audit cost?
Free. If you act on a finding, we may share in the savings or be compensated by the vendor you choose — disclosed before you approve anything. No guaranteed savings.
More bills we read
Ready for a human to read your payments bill?
Open a free Bloat Audit in about two minutes. No credit card. We pre-selected Payments for you.
You keep the written findings, even if you never hire us.
Bloatweiler may be paid by partners or vendors in some categories — always disclosed before any change. No guaranteed savings.