I don't pass on CC fees yet, but I've considered it. I'm in CA and use Ignition with most of my clients. In CA, Ignition allows is to pass on only CC fees capped at 3% (I think).
My insurance broker and many attorneys I know will pass on CC fees. If they can do it, I'm fairly certain I can without too much push back, and I can still accept checks if people are uncomfortable with entering their bank info in Ignition.
When we first made the decision to start accepting credit cards, we decided to simply raise our prices across the board. We get questions from clients every year about whether there is a fee to use a card. With many of them, I explain that our business pays a fee every time someone uses a card, but we don't charge a specific fee for it. Our family firm still sees the majority of our clients for in-person appointments, and we still accept checks. Probably a third of our clients pay by check, even if the check to us is the only one they write each year. We have a lot of small business clients who appreciate my explanation, and can relate it back to their own business. Some of them choose to pass the fee on to their customer and some choose not to. Like you, I'm not going to tell anyone how to run their business, but conversations about business practices and the pros and cons of controversial choices are important to have, and are part of what my clients appreciate about our service.
I work for my family's hardware store. We are just getting ready to implement a 3% convenience fee after talking about it/putting it off for a long time. We are rural, but not terribly far (25-30 miles) from all of the big box stores (so we are already losing a few customers to the convenience of that proximity). We have some flexibility in setting our prices, but in order to stay competitive we stick pretty close to what our co-op recommends (which are largely compared to those box stores). That leaves the prices on many big ticket items at well under 10%, and those are paid almost exclusively by credit card. That's a big hit. At the same time we sell bolts & nuts by the piece, and have many, MANY less than $1 transactions each day paid by credit card. Between the time spent (payroll) with the customer searching for this 1 piece, paying for the piece itself and the fee, again, there's almost nothing to made. I hate hate hate the idea of passing this along at the risk of alienating our customers, but I don't know what else to do.
Back in the stone age (1990's), we weren't allowed to tack on a surcharge for credit card fees. As a new business owner with online sales, I had to pay 5.25% and a per transaction fee for the privilege of accepting credit cards, AND had to manually key each sale into my physical credit card processing machine since the internet didn't really have the ability to process the cards online yet. I was so excited when my fees finally dropped to 3% and the cards were processed automatically! Now I'm in a completely different field and accepting online payments is a million times easier. Still, I base my fees for my services on how I feel as a customer of other businesses. If my attorney or doctor or even my plumber charges me a surcharge to use my credit/debit card, I feel a little annoyed. My annoyance goes up significantly when I'm paying more than a dollar or two. So I've decided to ensure the fees for the services I provide include the merchant services fees, and I often give a little discount to my cash/ACH clients--but not always! Honestly, if you can simply look at these fees as a cost of doing business like paying for internet or software, it gets a little easier to ignore. If it isn't, you aren't charging enough!
I don't pass on CC fees yet, but I've considered it. I'm in CA and use Ignition with most of my clients. In CA, Ignition allows is to pass on only CC fees capped at 3% (I think).
My insurance broker and many attorneys I know will pass on CC fees. If they can do it, I'm fairly certain I can without too much push back, and I can still accept checks if people are uncomfortable with entering their bank info in Ignition.
When we first made the decision to start accepting credit cards, we decided to simply raise our prices across the board. We get questions from clients every year about whether there is a fee to use a card. With many of them, I explain that our business pays a fee every time someone uses a card, but we don't charge a specific fee for it. Our family firm still sees the majority of our clients for in-person appointments, and we still accept checks. Probably a third of our clients pay by check, even if the check to us is the only one they write each year. We have a lot of small business clients who appreciate my explanation, and can relate it back to their own business. Some of them choose to pass the fee on to their customer and some choose not to. Like you, I'm not going to tell anyone how to run their business, but conversations about business practices and the pros and cons of controversial choices are important to have, and are part of what my clients appreciate about our service.
I work for my family's hardware store. We are just getting ready to implement a 3% convenience fee after talking about it/putting it off for a long time. We are rural, but not terribly far (25-30 miles) from all of the big box stores (so we are already losing a few customers to the convenience of that proximity). We have some flexibility in setting our prices, but in order to stay competitive we stick pretty close to what our co-op recommends (which are largely compared to those box stores). That leaves the prices on many big ticket items at well under 10%, and those are paid almost exclusively by credit card. That's a big hit. At the same time we sell bolts & nuts by the piece, and have many, MANY less than $1 transactions each day paid by credit card. Between the time spent (payroll) with the customer searching for this 1 piece, paying for the piece itself and the fee, again, there's almost nothing to made. I hate hate hate the idea of passing this along at the risk of alienating our customers, but I don't know what else to do.
Back in the stone age (1990's), we weren't allowed to tack on a surcharge for credit card fees. As a new business owner with online sales, I had to pay 5.25% and a per transaction fee for the privilege of accepting credit cards, AND had to manually key each sale into my physical credit card processing machine since the internet didn't really have the ability to process the cards online yet. I was so excited when my fees finally dropped to 3% and the cards were processed automatically! Now I'm in a completely different field and accepting online payments is a million times easier. Still, I base my fees for my services on how I feel as a customer of other businesses. If my attorney or doctor or even my plumber charges me a surcharge to use my credit/debit card, I feel a little annoyed. My annoyance goes up significantly when I'm paying more than a dollar or two. So I've decided to ensure the fees for the services I provide include the merchant services fees, and I often give a little discount to my cash/ACH clients--but not always! Honestly, if you can simply look at these fees as a cost of doing business like paying for internet or software, it gets a little easier to ignore. If it isn't, you aren't charging enough!