Who Pays the Processing Fee
Passing card costs to clients, keeping inside surcharge law, and deciding what the stylist absorbs.
Card payments cost money. Someone absorbs that cost: the business, the stylist, or the client. Perceny lets you choose, separately for online and in-person payments, and it will help you stay inside the rules while you do it.
The four core switches
Features Configuration → Payment Settings.
- Client Pays Online Processing Fees — adds online card fees to the client's total. When off, the business or the stylist absorbs them.
- Online Payment Surcharge (Fixed) / (Percentage) — the amount added.
- Client Pays In-Person Processing Fees — the same decision for in-person payments.
- In-Person Payment Surcharge (Fixed) / (Percentage).
Online and in-person are separate for a reason. Card-not-present costs more, and the rules that govern surcharging differ.
The stylist's share
Stylist Share of Online Surcharge and Stylist Share of In-Person Surcharge decide how much of the surcharge is paid to the stylist as commission.
At zero, the surcharge is purely the business's. If your stylists are on commission and the surcharge inflates the ticket, giving them zero of it is the honest position — they did not earn it, and it is not revenue.
Staying legal
Card surcharging is regulated, and the rules differ by state and by card network. Perceny gives you the controls to comply:
Enforce State Surcharge Rules — applies your state's rules, including credit-only restrictions and percentage caps.
Processing Fee Cap (%) — the highest percentage you will ever pass on. Leave it empty to use the state or network default.
Apply Processing Fee on Credit Cards / on Debit Cards / on Prepaid Cards — per card type. In many jurisdictions debit surcharging is prohibited outright. Leave these unset to use the defaults.
Apply Processing Fee Limitations to Online Payments — extends those caps and card-type rules to online payments, including card entry, Klarna, Affirm and Afterpay.
None of this is legal advice. It is the set of levers you need once you have taken advice.
Disclosure
Two switches keep you on the right side of the disclosure requirements, and of your clients:
Require Separate Line Item for Fee — the fee always appears as its own line on receipts and summaries, rather than being folded into the total.
Require Pre-Charge Disclosure — the client is shown a disclosure about the fee before the charge runs.
Convenience Fee Enabled relabels every "fee" shown to clients as "convenience fee" throughout the product. Whether that label is available to you depends on how you are structured; it is a naming choice, not a legal one.
Tips and fees
Are Tips Subject to Fees? — when on, processing fees apply to tips, because the stylist is paid after the ticket. When off, tips are paid first and avoid the fee.
Deduct Processing Fee from Terminal Tips — subtracts the card fee from tips added on the terminal before paying the stylist.
Most shops leave tips out of fees. A stylist watching 3% shaved off every tip notices quickly.
Other payment methods
Add Fees to External Payments applies your fees to methods like Cash App and Zelle.
Deduct Unpaid Processing Fee from Balance takes the fee out of the business balance when the client did not cover it — which is what happens whenever you have fees configured but the client-pays switch off.
The practical advice
Whatever you decide, decide it once and put it on the receipt. Clients tolerate a disclosed fee far better than a surprise, and a fee that appears without explanation is a chargeback waiting to happen.