What we found
High-ticket retail is where percentage games get expensive. This statement carried a tiered pricing plan that routed most sales into the priciest tier, plus a monthly parade of add-on fees with names long enough to deserve their own display case. On four and five figure sales, that padding is real money.
The effective rate worked out to 4.1%. That number appeared nowhere on the statement, which is rather the point of how these statements get written.
Representative examples based on typical merchant savings. Individual results vary. Real client stories are added as merchants agree to share them.
What changed
The audit priced every line item, and the numbers made the decision easy. The shop moved to interchange-plus pricing suited to large tickets, arranged through the processing partner, with the same counter setup and no downtime on the switch.
The effective rate landed at 2.9% and the savings run about $11,900 a year. The audit cost the owner nothing: we are paid by the processor when a merchant switches and saves, so we only win when the shop does.