Flat-rate pricing keeps your card processing simple and predictable. Here is what your rate covers, and how fees apply to successful charges, refunds, and declined payments.
Your Flat Rate, Simply Put
Smile Advantage Payments uses flat-rate pricing, which means one consistent rate on every card transaction. For fixed-rate practices, that rate is 2.85% + $0.30 per transaction. There are no pricing tiers to decode and no interchange math that shifts from one month to the next.
Our processing partner, Tilled, has confirmed that flat-rate practices do not see the kind of additional per-transaction fees that practices on interchange pricing can.
What Your Rate Covers
Your flat rate is made up of two parts:
- The 2.85% is the processing fee applied to the transaction amount.
- The $0.30 is the per-transaction authorization fee.
Just as helpful is what the flat rate leaves out. Smile Advantage Payments does not layer on the add-on charges some processors do. With your account there are no:
- Refund fees
- Monthly statement fees
- Gateway fees
- Terminal fees (for practices that use terminals)
Refunds and Declined Payments
A common question is how the rate applies when a payment is refunded or does not go through. Here is the breakdown:
| Transaction | What the practice pays |
|---|---|
| Successful charge | 2.85% + $0.30 |
| Refund issued | $0.30 only. The 2.85% does not apply to refunds. |
| Declined or failed charge | $0.30 only. The 2.85% does not apply. |
Because the percentage only applies to money that actually moves, a refund or a declined payment never costs you the full processing rate.
The Bottom Line
Flat-rate pricing is built to be easy to understand, so you always know what a transaction costs. If you ever have a question about a specific fee on your statement, reach out to the Smile Advantage team and we will walk through it with you.