the two types of payment fee
Every payment operation involves two categories of fee, regardless of which providers or platforms are in use.
Fixed fees are charged as a set amount per account period, typically monthly or annually. They cover the cost of maintaining the account, the technical infrastructure, and the commercial relationship, independent of how many transactions are processed. Gateway fees, platform subscription fees, and minimum monthly charges are all examples of fixed fees.
Variable fees are tied to transaction volume or value. They include interchange fees (charged by the card scheme and passed through by the acquirer), acquiring fees (the acquirer's margin), processing fees, and currency conversion fees. Variable fees compound across payment providers, currencies and regions, and are the primary driver of total payment cost for high volume merchants.
how payment sponsor billing works
When a merchant uses CoralCommerce as part of their payment orchestration, they maintain a direct commercial agreement with each upstream payment sponsor they activate. Under these agreements, the payment sponsor bills the merchant directly, for interchange pass through, acquiring fees, currency conversion, and any fixed account charges the sponsor applies. These costs flow directly between the merchant and their sponsor, without CoralCommerce taking a margin or acting as an intermediary in the commercial relationship.
coralcommerce charges one single platform fee, billed monthly in arrears. this covers the full orchestration service, api access, channel management, connector maintenance, reporting, technical support, and the coralcommerce team embedded in yours. there are no setup fees, no per connector charges, and no fees tied to transaction volume. our fee is independent of your payment commercials.
the commercial advantage of direct agreements
The most significant commercial benefit of the CoralCommerce model is that merchants negotiate and own their payment sponsor agreements directly. This means:
- Full cost visibility — the merchant sees exactly what each payment sponsor charges, with no intermediary margin obscuring the true cost of acceptance.
- Negotiating leverage — as transaction volume grows, the merchant can renegotiate rates directly with each sponsor. No volume benefit is captured by an intermediary.
- Portability — because the commercial agreements are owned by the merchant, not by CoralCommerce, the merchant retains those relationships independently of their platform choice.
- Multi-sponsor optimisation — with direct agreements across multiple sponsors, merchants can route transactions to the most cost-effective channel for each payment type, currency and region.
what happens if a merchant does not go live?
If a merchant signed with CoralCommerce does not reach production trading, due to delays in their own business, changes in strategy, or extended integration timelines, CoralCommerce manages its own costs through that period without billing the merchant for services not yet consumed. The commercial relationship is structured around live trading, not around billing for potential.
This shared-risk approach reflects the CoralCommerce philosophy: our commercial incentive is aligned with your commercial success. When you process more, the relationship is mutually beneficial. When you are not yet processing, we carry the cost alongside you.