Almost nobody can tell you the total they paid last month without looking it up. And when they do look it up, the number is usually higher than they expected.
This isn’t an accident, it’s all by design. Processing fees are structured to be hard to track as a single number. They appear across transaction lines and are split by card type. The monthly statement shows the detail but makes the total invisible.
The shortcut: multiply your monthly card turnover by 0.025. That’s your approximate monthly card processing cost. For R50,000 in card revenue, that’s R1,250. For R100,000, it’s R2,500.
Now multiply that by 12.
When your card revenue is R100,000/month, you’re paying approximately R30,000 a year in card fees. Just to receive payment for what you already sold. That’s not a transaction cost. That’s a margin line.
There are four companies in the chain taking a cut of your 2.5%: the card network, the issuing bank, the acquiring bank, and the payment processor. None of them is doing R30,000 worth of work per merchant per year.
QR payments cut most of that chain. TappiPay’s infrastructure is direct — not routed through card networks. TappiPay’s total fee is 0.3–0.6%. On R100,000/month, that’s R300–R600. The difference — roughly R1,900–R2,200/month — stays in the business.
We’re launching in 2026 and we’re already getting merchants signed up. Pre-sign up is open on the TappiPay website. It takes 2 minutes.
#TappiPay #CardFees #SouthAfrica #Fintech #SmallBusiness #JustLikeThat
