Cash Discount vs. Surcharge for Credit Card Fees
Both programs shift processing costs off your margins — but a surcharge can only touch credit cards (debit surcharging is banned nationwide), while dual pricing covers everything. Same $30k/month business, 50% debit: surcharging recovers ~$5,400/year; dual pricing recovers ~$9,600. The 10-point comparison, the honest cases where surcharging wins, and the 5-question decision.
Cash Discount Programs Explained for Clover POS
A cash discount subtracts from the posted price; a surcharge adds to it — legally, they're opposites, and mixing them up is how businesses end up violating card-network rules. The three program types decoded, the Visa relabeling trap, the one-question compliance test, how Clover runs these programs natively, and the real math: ~$10,500/year in flat-rate fees vs. a $600–1,200 program fee.