Hello all, I'm new to the forum and I was looking for points help when I came across this post. I own a merchant services company, so I thought I might could shed some light on this subject. The answer to the original question is......it depends . It depends on the average ticket. Every transaction comes with a corresponding "interchange" cost which is mandated by the card associations. Then, it is marked up from there by a company like mine that actually moves the money over the networks. Here is the catch. V, MC, & Discover allow us to control pricing for the merchants. If we price it below cost, we simply lose money. Amex controls their own rates based on the category a merchant falls into. So, generally speaking, YES Amex is more expensive to accept than the others. That being said, the highest interchange rate is below 3% for Visa/MC/Dis, but it has a corresponding transaction fee. There are many cards with MUCH lower interchange rates (check cards for instance). So, the transaction fee is what drives the costs up on a small ticket merchant. That being said, there are interchange breaks in some cases if a company is with a reputable provider who will pass that on. With Amex, there is a trans fee and a % fee of usually 3% plus on ALL cards. Part of the horror stories you hear come into play when a merchant wants "FREE" terminals or a processor to pay a previous cancellation fee. Just like anything else, nothing in life is free, so they wind up getting gouged by the new company to make up for it. That's how you get rates of 4% plus. As a rule, if you're paying more than 3.5% total, you need to shop it. Anything taking a higher % of check cards (restaurants for instance) should be far lower than that and you definitely need to look around. There are obviously some exceptions for high risk or high maintenance accounts, but it shouldn't be that expensive in the big scheme of things. Sorry to ramble.