The short version: A card fee has two parts and small food businesses focus on the wrong one. At the standard 2.9% plus 30¢, a $10 order costs you 5.9% and a $100 order costs 3.2%, because the fixed 30¢ is 3% of ten dollars and 0.3% of a hundred. That means raising your average order value does more than switching processors. Moving from a $25 average to $40 cuts your effective rate by 0.45 points; shopping around for 2.7% instead of 2.9% saves 0.2. The exception is bank transfer: on large orders, eCheck at a flat 95¢ against $7.77 on a card is a genuine saving worth chasing.
Every card rate is a percentage plus a fixed amount, and they behave completely differently.
The percentage scales with the order. At 2.9%, a $10 order costs 29¢ and a $100 order costs $2.90. Proportional, predictable, and the number everyone quotes.
The fixed fee does not scale. Thirty cents is thirty cents whether the order is $8 or $800. On a $10 order that is 3% on its own; on a $200 order it is 0.15%.
Add them and you get your effective rate, which is the only number that matters:
| Order value | Fee at 2.9% + 30¢ | Effective rate |
|---|---|---|
| $10 | $0.59 | 5.9% |
| $15 | $0.74 | 4.9% |
| $25 | $1.03 | 4.1% |
| $40 | $1.46 | 3.65% |
| $50 | $1.75 | 3.5% |
| $100 | $3.20 | 3.2% |
| $200 | $6.10 | 3.05% |
Nobody advertises 5.9%, and that is what a small food order actually costs.
One practical note on that table: the percentage a platform advertises is never the percentage a small order pays, because the fixed fee does not scale down. Judge every processing quote at your own average order size. When you set up a storefront trial, run one real transaction and read the deposit, which settles the arithmetic in a way no pricing page can.
Because food orders are small and frequent, which is the worst combination for a fixed fee.
A furniture retailer with a $600 average order pays an effective 2.99% and can reasonably ignore the 30¢ entirely. A baker selling $9 loaves pays 6.2%, and the fixed fee is over half of it.
So generic advice about payment processing, most of which is written for larger baskets, systematically understates what small food vendors pay. The published rate is close to the truth at $200 and roughly half the truth at $10.
Two practical consequences:
Order value, and it is not close.
Compare two changes on a business doing $1,000 a month:
Switching to a 2.7% processor saves 0.2 points, which is $2 a month, or $24 a year. Realistically that means moving to a higher subscription tier to get it, which usually costs more than it saves.
Raising your average order from $25 to $40 on the same revenue means fewer, larger orders: 25 instead of 40. Your fee drops from $41 to $36.50 a month, saving $54 a year, and that is before counting the packaging, the messages, and the collection handovers you no longer do.
The second is worth more than twice the first, and it is entirely within your control. Ways to move average order value:
Our guide to minimum order values for food delivery covers where to set one, and our profit margin benchmarks cover the wider picture.
All from each company's own published pages in July 2026.
| Platform | Subscription | Free trial | Platform fee | Card processing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Homegrown | $10/mo billed annually · $12.50 monthly | 7-day free trial | $0, 0% commission | 2.9% + $0.30 |
| Bake.Shop | $19/mo · $149/yr | 14-day free trial | $0, commission-free | 2.9% + 30¢ via Stripe |
| Square Online Free | $0 | no trial needed, free forever | $0, no commission | 3.3% + 30¢ online |
| Square Online Plus | $49/mo per location | no trial needed on Free tier | $0, no commission | 2.9% + 30¢ online |
| Bakesy | $9.99/mo · $17.99 Premium | 30-day free trial | $0, no commission | 3.9% + $0.30, and it is optional |
| Cheddar Up Basic | $0 free forever | no trial needed, free forever | $0 platform fee | 3.95% + $0.95; eCheck not available |
| Cheddar Up Pro | $15/mo paid annually | no trial needed on Basic | $0 platform fee | 3.59% + $0.59; eCheck 1.59% (min $1) |
| Etsy | $0; Etsy Plus optional $10/mo | no free trial: listings are pay-per-item | $0.20/listing + 6.5% | processing 3% + $0.25 in the US via Etsy Payments |
| Wix Core | $29/mo on a yearly plan | no free trial; 14-day money-back guarantee instead | $0, no commission | 2.9% + $0.30; 3.7% + $0.30 on Amex |
Two things stand out. Cheddar Up's free plan is the most expensive card rate here, because the 95¢ fixed fee is brutal on small orders: $1.94 on a $25 order, or 7.8%. And Wix charges nearly a full point more on American Express, which nobody notices until they look.
A third is worth naming because it is not a card rate at all. Etsy's 6.5% transaction fee sits on top of its 3% processing, so a $25 order costs $2.83 all-in, or 11.3%. That is not a payments problem, it is a marketplace fee, and comparing it against a 2.9% card rate is comparing two different things. What Etsy's extra 7 points buy is search traffic, which no storefront on this list provides at any price.
Three different arrangements, and it changes what you can do about it.
The platform sets it. Square, Shopify Payments, Bakesy Secure Payments, Etsy. Your rate is whatever the platform charges and your only lever is your plan tier.
You bring your own processor. Big Cartel and LocallyGrown.net work this way. Your rate is between you and your provider, so a negotiated rate carries over and no platform marks it up.
A hybrid with a penalty. Shopify charges 2% per order if you use any processor other than Shopify Payments. At $18,000 in annual sales that is $360 for nothing you receive.
If you already have a processor relationship you like, that third row is the one to check before choosing a platform. It can cost more than the subscription.
The genuine saving, and almost nobody offers it.
Cheddar Up prices eCheck completely differently from cards: 1.59% with a $1 minimum on Pro, and a flat 95¢ on Team. On larger orders that is transformative:
Local Line publishes ACH at 1.0%, 0.8%, and 0.6% depending on tier, alongside card rates of 2.9%, 2.7%, and 2.5%.
The catch is adoption. Most customers default to a card, and bank details feel like more commitment. Where it works is wholesale, institutional, and large recurring orders, where the buyer is used to it and the saving is meaningful. Our guide to wholesale price sheets covers that side of the business.
Treasury's ACH guidance explains how those transfers actually move, which is worth understanding before offering it as an option.
It depends who your customers are, and it is more common than people realise.
Hotplate adds its 5% plus 55¢ to the customer's total by default. Cheddar Up lets you configure who pays. Others do not offer it at all.
Where passing fees works:
Where it does not:
The honest test is to try it. Run one week each way with the same products and compare completed orders, rather than deciding from instinct. Our piece on why charging what you are worth feels wrong covers the psychology, which is usually the real obstacle.
Still relevant, and worth thinking about properly rather than romantically.
Cash has no processing fee, which is genuinely $1.03 saved on a $25 order. It also has counting, banking, change, reconciliation, and the risk of being wrong. Our guides to payment options at a farm stand and accepting payments at a farmers market cover the practical trade-offs.
The mistake is going cash-only to avoid fees. A 4% fee on orders you take beats 0% on orders you turn away, and the share of customers carrying cash keeps falling. Our guide to the best payment methods for farmers market vendors covers the mix that actually works.
The CFPB's guidance on prepaid and stored-value products is a useful plain-language reference for how money behaves in the various apps vendors end up using alongside cards.
Five things, in order of return.
Step one is the one nobody does. The advertised rate is the floor; your effective rate is the truth, and the gap between them is your average order value.
It is worth doing that calculation on a real month rather than a good one, too. Fees are proportionally worst in your quietest weeks, when the small orders are a larger share of the total, and a rate calculated from December will flatter you. Running a normal week through a trial and dividing total fees by total sales gives you the number that actually describes your business.
If you want a platform with the rate published up front rather than discovered later, Homegrown is $10 a month billed annually with 0% commission and 2.9% plus $0.30 stated on the pricing page, and it handles pickup at each place you sell with its own schedule and cutoff, local delivery with a radius and a route, and sales tax calculated, filed, and remitted in all 50 states. The honest bounds: there is no eCheck or ACH option, no point-of-sale for card payments at a stall, and no fee-passing configuration, so if bank transfer on large wholesale orders is your saving, Cheddar Up or Local Line publish rates for that and this does not. You can run one real week of orders through a trial and calculate your own effective rate rather than taking any advertised number at face value.
2.9% plus 30¢ is the common standard. Square Online's free plan charges 3.3% plus 30¢, Bakesy's optional payments are 3.9% plus 30¢, and Cheddar Up's free plan is 3.95% plus 95¢.
Because of the fixed fee. At 2.9% plus 30¢, a $10 order costs 5.9% and a $25 order costs 4.1%. The advertised percentage is only close to the truth on large orders.
Raise your average order value. Moving from a $25 average to $40 cuts your effective rate by 0.45 points, which is more than twice what switching to a 2.7% processor would save.
Rarely. The spread between credible platforms is 0.2 to 0.4 points, worth $24 to $48 a year at $1,000 a month. Check for penalty clauses instead, since Shopify's 2% own-processor fee is $360 at $18,000 in sales.
A direct bank debit. Cheddar Up charges 1.59% with a $1 minimum on Pro and a flat 95¢ on Team, against 3.59% plus 59¢ on cards. On a $200 order that saves up to $6.82.
Some platforms allow it. Hotplate adds its fee to the customer's total by default and Cheddar Up lets you configure it. It works for group collections and wholesale, and poorly for everyday retail.
No. A 4% fee on orders you take beats 0% on orders you turn away, and fewer customers carry cash every year. Take cash as one option among several rather than as the only one.
The number to know is your effective rate, not the advertised one. At 2.9% plus 30¢ that is 5.9% on a $10 order and 3.2% on a $100 one, because the fixed fee does not scale and food orders are small.
Which means the lever is order value, not rate shopping. Going from a $25 average to $40 saves more than twice what moving to a 2.7% processor would, and it is entirely under your control through bundles, minimums, and multi-buy pricing.
Two things worth checking rather than assuming: whether your platform charges a penalty for bringing your own processor, which at Shopify is 2% and $360 a year at modest volume, and whether bank transfer is available if you take large or wholesale orders, where a flat 95¢ against $7.77 on a card is the one genuinely large saving in this whole category.
