With dual pricing, you post two prices upfront: a cash price and a card price. The price you charge today becomes the cash price, while the card price accounts for the cost of accepting cards. Your customer sees both before they pay, chooses how to pay, and nothing is added at checkout.
Both prices are posted instead of one. The price you charge today becomes the cash price. A card price sits beside it, set to cover what card acceptance costs you, and the price update runs across your catalogue in bulk rather than item by item.
Reads both numbers, the same way they read a price today, and picks. Customers who keep paying by card pay the posted card price. The ones who care about the difference pay cash or write a check.
On a cash sale, the cash price. On a card sale, the card price minus processing, which the card price was set to cover. The point is that the cost of card acceptance stops landing on your margin.
Three inputs, three answers. This is math on what you type in, not a quote. It shows what your customer pays as well as what you keep, because you should be able to see both before you decide anything.
Your team selects cash or card at checkout. The system does not guess how the customer is paying, and there is no extra math for your staff.
Wherever your prices are shown, before anyone reaches the counter.
They have already seen both numbers. Nothing is revealed at the register that was not visible earlier.
Cash or card. One button, in the same place every time, on the system we set you up on.
The posted price for that tender is what they are charged, and what prints. No line item is added.
Our standard posts a card price 4 percent above the cash price. That 4 percent is set to cover the cost of accepting cards, so the cost sits in the posted price rather than coming out of your margin.
What a customer reads before they pay.
| Cash price (your price today) | Card price | Difference | What the customer sees |
|---|---|---|---|
| $20.00 | $20.80 | $0.80 | Both prices, before paying |
| $75.00 | $78.00 | $3.00 | Both prices, before paying |
| $250.00 | $260.00 | $10.00 | Both prices, before paying |
| $1,000.00 | $1,040.00 | $40.00 | Both prices, before paying |
Scroll sideways to see every column.
Math on round numbers, not a quote. Four percent is our standard and it can be set lower, in which case part of the cost of processing stays with you. What you actually keep depends on your card mix, your ticket size, and the rate you are on today, which is why we work from a recent statement rather than from a table.
This is the biggest practical difference between dual pricing and the other ways of covering card costs, and almost nobody explains it to merchants.
Visa and Mastercard rules prohibit adding a fee to a debit transaction, and several states put it in statute as well. Every merchant agrees to those network rules through their processor. So a program built on adding a percentage at the register structurally cannot recover what debit costs you. On a business where debit is 40 percent of card volume, 40 percent of the problem is still yours.
The card brand debit rule is written about fees added to a sale, not about posted prices. Debit is a card, and a card pays the posted card price, the same as credit. There are two prices on the wall and the customer chose one of them. That is the whole reason dual pricing reaches volume the other approaches cannot.
| Dual pricing | Adding a percentage at the register | Absorbing it | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What the customer sees | Two prices, before they choose | One price, then a line added at the end | One price |
| Covers debit | Yes | Never, under card brand rules | No, you pay it |
| Cash customers | Pay today's price, unchanged | Pay today's price, unchanged | Pay today's price |
| State restrictions | Posted pricing, with display rules that vary by state | Prohibited in several states, capped in others | None |
| Surprise at the register | None | This is where the complaints come from | None |
| What it costs you | Aimed at zero, plus a monthly program cost | Whatever debit and the caps leave behind | Your full effective rate, every month |
Scroll sideways to see every column.
Dual pricing uses posted cash and card prices rather than adding a fee at checkout. State disclosure requirements still vary and continue to change, so we configure the price display around where your business operates. What has been moving over the last two years is mostly the rules around adding a percentage at the register.
Click your state on the map to see what it requires there, or pick it from the list.
All fifty states
Select a stateDual pricing posts a cash price and a card price rather than adding a fee at checkout. What varies by state is what you have to display and where. Tap a state to see what it asks you to post, what has changed there recently, and the statute it comes from.
Posted two price display can be set up in every state on this map, with the display built around local requirements.
StatuteEvery flagged state links to its own statute or state agency.
| Where | Since | What changed | What it means for posted pricing |
|---|---|---|---|
| New YorkN.Y. Gen. Bus. Law § 518 | Feb 2024 | The total price for paying by card has to be posted in dollars and cents. A sign saying a percentage will be applied is not enough. Posting two prices side by side is expressly permitted. | Dual pricing is written into the statute as an accepted way to comply. |
| FloridaFla. Stat. § 509.214 | Jul 2026 | A restaurant that adds an automatic charge to the bill has to disclose it on the menu, in any contract and wherever orders are placed, and itemise it on the receipt. | A posted card price is not an added charge, so a menu showing both prices clears it by design. |
| LouisianaLa. R.S. 51:3081 | Aug 2026 | Adding a fee to a debit transaction is prohibited outright, enforced by the Attorney General with a private right of action after a 30 day cure window. Credit only versions survive. | Nothing is added to a debit sale under dual pricing, so there is nothing to separate. |
| Three statesConn. Gen. Stat. § 42-133ffMass. Gen. Laws ch. 140D § 28AMe. Rev. Stat. tit. 9-A § 8-509 | In force | Connecticut, Massachusetts and Maine prohibit adding a percentage to a card sale at the register. Maine’s ban reaches debit as well as credit, and Massachusetts treats a violation as an unfair and deceptive act. All three expressly carve out discounts from the regular price. | Dual pricing remains available in all three with proper posting. |
Scroll sideways to see every column.
Every state on the map links to the statute or the state agency it comes from, so you can read the source rather than take our word for it. We set the program up to fit the rules in the states you operate in, we keep the signage and price display current, and we tell you when something changes. We are payment people, not your attorney, so if your situation is unusual, a multi state operation or a regulated category for example, get your own advice as well and we will give your counsel whatever they need from our side.
A discount from the regular price is protected federally under the Truth in Lending Act, 15 U.S.C. 1666f, and card networks may not stop a business offering a discount for cash, check or debit under 15 U.S.C. 1693o-2. There is no federal statute banning a fee added to a debit sale. That prohibition comes from Visa and Mastercard operating rules, which you agree to through your processor, and from statute in a handful of states.
What people think
It is a fee added at the end.What is true
Nothing is added at checkout. Both prices are posted before the customer decides how to pay, and the one that matches their choice is what they are charged. There is no separate line on the receipt because there is no extra line to add.
What people think
It is restricted by state.What is true
That is the other methods. Adding a percentage to a card sale at the register is limited by state law and by card brand rules. Dual pricing is posted pricing, and it works in all fifty states. Even the states that regulate the other approaches most tightly require both prices to be displayed, which is exactly what dual pricing does by design.
What people think
Debit customers get the cash price.What is true
They do not. Debit is a card. Credit and debit are both charged the posted card price, and that is the reason this reaches volume the other approaches cannot.
What people think
It is the same as raising my prices.What is true
Raising your prices charges everyone the same, whether they cost you more to serve or not. Dual pricing leaves your cash price where it is and puts the cost of card acceptance on the sales that create it.
Worth taking seriously, because the research on people disliking card fees is real. Read it closely though and it is all measuring one moment: a charge appearing at the end of a sale, when the customer feels caught out. Posted pricing removes that moment, because both numbers are visible before anyone decides how to pay. We will not pretend a survey proves posted pricing is frictionless, because there is not one. What we can tell you is that the complaints we see are tied to the moment of surprise, and we would not claim that is the only thing behind them.
Both prices are posted, so most of the explaining happens before anyone reaches the counter. At the register your team taps cash or card, the same key every time. If someone does ask, one line covers it: we post two prices, whichever suits you.
It is set to cover what card acceptance costs, not to add margin. Move the slider above and you can see the exact point where the difference stops covering your rate and starts sitting above it. Some merchants set it lower on purpose, which means part of the processing cost stays with them. That is a legitimate choice and we will set it up either way.
It is a paperwork change. We set the pricing in your system back, there is no re-application, and your prices go back the way they were. We would rather tell you that plainly than have you feel locked into a decision about how your customers see your prices.
Dual pricing is not right for every business, and finding that out three months in is expensive for you and worse for us. Four situations where we would point you at traditional processing or interchange plus instead.
There is not much to it. You apply, your point of sale arrives, you load your prices, and you are running.