Shift4 Fee Notation and Pricing Breakdown

“PRICING” COLUMN

This column is where you’ll enter the pricing on the deal–the % you have the merchant at. (4%, 3.75%, etc.)

NOTE: It is first important to understand the difference between how Shift4 reports this number in the “pricing” section of the Partner Portal. If you log into the Shift4 Partner Portal, you may see some numbers in the “pricing” tab on a merchant profile that look different than the more “rounded up” numbers you refer to when signing up merchants. .

If, for instance, the Shift4 portal “pricing” section says a deal’s pricing is at “3.85%” when you know that you signed them up at 4%, don’t worry. (This screenshot shows where you’ll find this number in the portal):

FOR REFERENCE:
2.91: is actually 3%
3.15: is actually 3.25%
3.61: is actually 3.75%
3.38: is actually 3.5%
3.84: is actually 4%

*The left column of numbers may vary slightly, i.e. the screen shot above is 3.85 not 3.84, but it’s still 4%, since that’s the next higher number that is a multiple of .25. You will be rounding up any of these kinds of numbers to that next .25 multiple.

SHIFT4’S REASONING FOR THE LOWER/STRANGE NUMBERS:
The reason the rate is notated this way in the Shift4 portal (and you’ll ALSO see this on merchant contracts that are signed with Shift4) is because there’s something called “dues and assessments” from Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express, etc., and the difference between the lower/strange rate and higher (.25 multiple) version of the rate are the fees from the cards themselves.

i.e. The difference between 3.84% and 4% is .16%, and that .16% represents fees that these cards charge in ADDITION to what Shift4 charges.

Shift4 lowers its rate so that it’s more of an even number of fees (i.e. a more digestible “3.75” vs “3.61”).

For the following calculations to your sheet that are based on this rate number, you may think we aren’t being exact by using the rounded up/.25 multiple number. However, part of the reason we slightly overestimate the “cost” in the formulas below is to offset this^. The other reason we slightly overestimate the cost is because we would rather err on the side of conservative profit estimates and be pleasantly surprised, than be overly-optimistic and be disappointed!