Somebody tells you they pay 1.8 per cent. Somebody else says their café is closer to 3. A supplier mentions a figure that sounds impossible. None of them are lying, and none of those numbers tell you anything useful about your own business.
Card processing is not priced like a phone plan. It is priced per transaction, and the price of a transaction depends on the card in your customer's hand, where that card was issued, whether it was tapped or typed, and how much the sale was worth. Two shops on the same street with the same takings can pay meaningfully different amounts and both be on perfectly normal terms.
Which makes the honest version of this question harder than it looks. Not what does card processing cost, but what should it cost for a business that sells the way you sell.
Here is what Singapore providers publish today, what drives the differences, and how to work out whether your own number is where it ought to be.
The short answer
If you only read one part
Card acceptance in Singapore generally costs between about 1 and 4 per cent of each sale, depending entirely on how the customer pays. PayNow sits at the bottom of that range because it does not touch the card networks. Overseas issued and premium credit cards sit at the top. Local cards tapped in person sit in the middle, and most Singapore small businesses land somewhere between 2 and 3 per cent once everything is blended together.
Your own figure is not a rate you were quoted. It is the total of everything deducted last month divided by everything your customers paid by card.
Lowest cost
PayNow, domestic rails
Local cards in person
Online and e-wallets
Highest cost
Overseas and premium
Cost by payment method, lowest to highest.
What providers publish today
Rates by payment method, drawn from what Singapore providers state openly on their own pricing pages. Sources and dates are listed at the foot of this article.
| Payment method | In person | Online | What drives it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Local Visa and Mastercard | From around 2.5 per cent, plus a small fixed fee per transaction | Commonly 2.8 to 3.4 per cent plus a fixed amount of about 50 cents | Interchange on the customer's card, plus the scheme fee, plus your provider's own fee. |
| Overseas issued cards | A surcharge on top of the domestic rate | Published at around 3.65 per cent plus a fixed amount by one provider. Others apply a surcharge whose published size varies between sources | Cross-border interchange is materially higher than domestic, and Singapore has no interchange cap. |
| AMEX | Commonly priced above Visa and Mastercard | Commonly priced above Visa and Mastercard | AMEX runs its own network and sets its own economics rather than following the Visa and Mastercard model. |
| PayNow | From around 0.4 per cent, with a small minimum per transaction | From around 0.65 per cent plus a fixed amount, up to about 1.3 per cent depending on provider | It moves money bank to bank rather than over the card rails, so no interchange applies at all. |
| E-wallets such as GrabPay and ShopeePay | Broadly 2 to 3 per cent | Broadly 2 to 3 per cent | Set by the wallet operator rather than by the card networks. |
| Buy now pay later | Typically the most expensive method on any schedule | Typically the most expensive method on any schedule | The provider is funding the customer's instalments and pricing that risk into your rate. |
How to read this table
Read this as a range, not a quote. These figures come from published pricing pages and are accurate as at the dates listed in the methodology block below. Providers change rates, and most will price a specific business differently from their published card once volume, industry and risk are assessed. Where a provider's own page disagreed with a third party summary, we used the provider's own page. Where published figures for the same charge differed between reputable sources, we have said so rather than picked one.
Why two businesses on the same terms pay different amounts
Your effective cost is decided less by the deal you signed than by who walks through your door. These are the factors that move it.
Pushes your cost up
- Your customer paid with a premium or rewards credit card rather than a basic debit card.
- The card was issued outside Singapore, which carries cross-border interchange.
- The card belonged to a company rather than a person, since corporate cards price higher.
- The sale happened online or was keyed in manually rather than tapped in person.
- Your average sale value is low, so fixed per transaction charges weigh heavily against it.
Pulls your cost down
- A large share of your sales run on local debit cards.
- Your customers use domestic rails such as PayNow rather than the card networks.
- Your average sale value is high, so fixed charges per transaction barely register.
- Your transactions are tapped in person, which is the cheapest channel to process.
- Your merchant category is treated as lower risk by the card networks.
Notice how few of those you control directly. You cannot choose which card a customer pulls out, and you should not try. What you can influence is the payment mix you make easy, the channel you sell through, and the pricing model you are on, which is the subject of most of the rest of this series.
The cheapest way to take money in Singapore is not a card at all
PayNow moves money directly between bank accounts. It never touches the Visa or Mastercard rails, so no interchange applies, and every provider that publishes both rates prices it far below cards.
This is not a fringe observation. In a 2026 parliamentary reply, MAS noted that domestic schemes such as PayNow, NETS and SGQR carry lower costs than the international card schemes. For a business where even a third of sales shift to a domestic rail, that difference compounds quietly across a year.
None of which means turning card customers away. It means making the cheaper option visible and easy, then letting people choose. A prominent QR at the counter costs you nothing and changes behaviour more than most merchants expect.
One thing Singapore does differently
Some markets cap interchange by regulation. The European Economic Area caps consumer debit at 0.2 per cent and consumer credit at 0.3 per cent. Australia is mid-reform: until 30 September 2026 it runs a weighted-average benchmark on credit, and from 1 October 2026 that is replaced by hard caps of 0.3 per cent on consumer credit and 0.8 per cent on commercial credit. Singapore does neither, so rates here are set commercially by the card networks. If a large share of your customers are visitors or corporate cardholders, that structural difference lands on your statement every month.
Regulatory position as at August 2026How to tell whether your own number is normal
Comparing yourself to a national average is close to useless, because the average includes businesses that sell nothing like you do. Compare against your own mix instead.
Work out your effective rate first: total card costs for the month divided by total card volume. Our guide to reading a merchant statement walks through where those two figures sit and which lines people usually miss. Then look at your payment mix. If most of your sales are local cards tapped in person and your effective rate is sitting well above 3 per cent, something is either being charged that you have not noticed or your provider's margin is wider than it needs to be. If half your customers are visitors paying with premium overseas credit cards, a higher number may be entirely reasonable.
The point is not to arrive at a verdict from a table on the internet. It is to know your own number well enough to have a real conversation about it.
Not the average. Your average.
Why our own rates are not in that table
A benchmark written by a provider that stars in it is not a benchmark. Our published rates are on our own pricing page where they belong, and we have deliberately kept them out of a comparison we compiled ourselves.
There is a wider point buried in that table, though, and it is worth saying plainly. Published rates are averaged rates. They exist because averaging is how the industry has always sold payments to small businesses, while larger merchants were shown the components and priced on them individually. That split was never about what small businesses could understand. It was about who was worth the effort of itemising.
That is changing, and the rest of this series is about what it changes for you.
Work out what your rate should be
Tell us what you sell and roughly how your customers pay, and we will tell you where your costs ought to sit for a business like yours. No documents required, and you will get an answer whether or not you ever move to Qashier.
Benchmark your rate against your own card mixFrequently asked questions
How much does card processing cost a small business in Singapore?
Published rates in Singapore generally sit between about 1 and 4 per cent depending on how the customer pays. Local debit and credit cards taken in person commonly start around 2.5 per cent, online card rates run higher and usually add a fixed amount per transaction, and PayNow sits far below both because it does not use the card networks. Your own cost is a blend of all the methods your customers actually use.
What is a good MDR for a small business in Singapore?
There is no single good number, because the rate that suits a business taking small local debit payments is not the rate that suits one serving visitors with premium cards. A more useful test is your effective rate, which is your total card costs for the month divided by your total card volume. Compare that against published rates for your own payment mix rather than against a national average.
Why do online card payments cost more than in person payments?
Card networks price by risk, and a card that is physically present and tapped carries less fraud risk than one entered on a website. That difference shows up in interchange, which is the largest component of your rate. Online rates also tend to carry a fixed amount per transaction, which raises the effective cost sharply on small baskets.
Is PayNow cheaper than accepting cards in Singapore?
Yes, and by a wide margin at every provider that publishes both. PayNow moves money directly between bank accounts rather than across the Visa or Mastercard networks, so no interchange applies. In a 2026 parliamentary reply, MAS noted that domestic rails such as PayNow, NETS and SGQR carry lower costs than the international card schemes.
Why is AMEX more expensive to accept than Visa or Mastercard?
AMEX operates its own network and issues many of its own cards rather than splitting the transaction between an issuing bank and a separate network. That structure, combined with richer cardholder rewards, generally produces a higher cost of acceptance. Most Singapore providers price AMEX as a separate line for this reason.
Which payment methods does QashierPay accept in Singapore?
QashierPay accepts Visa, Mastercard and AMEX, along with PayNow, GrabPay, ShopeePay, Atome and Alipay+ and other international e-wallets. In store card payments settle T+1. Qashier holds a Major Payment Institution licence from the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
Do I need to install an app to track my payment costs?
No. QashierHQ runs in a web browser on any device, so your sales, fees and settlement records are available wherever you are. There is nothing to download and nothing to install.
How we compiled this
Every figure above comes from a published source we can point at. Where sources disagreed, we said so rather than choosing the more convenient number. This page is reviewed quarterly, and the dates below tell you how fresh it is.
| Source | Where | What we took from it |
|---|---|---|
| HitPay Singapore pricing page | hitpayapp.com/sg/pricing | Published rates by payment method for online and in person |
| Stripe Singapore pricing page | stripe.com/sg/pricing | Stripe's own published Singapore rates, taken from Stripe rather than from a competitor's summary of them |
| Xendit Singapore, gateway comparison | xendit.co/en-sg | PayNow pricing across providers, published early 2026 |
| MAS written reply to a parliamentary question | mas.gov.sg/news/parliamentary-replies | The point that domestic rails carry lower costs than the international card schemes |
| RBA conclusions paper and Regulation (EU) 2015/751 | rba.gov.au · eur-lex.europa.eu | Interchange caps by market, including the Australian reform concluded 31 March 2026 and in force from 1 October 2026 |
| Oddle, card terminals guide | oddle.me/sg | Typical blended in store rates for Singapore restaurants, May 2026 |
| SingSaver, processing fee guide | singsaver.com.sg | General range for card processing fees in Singapore, June 2026 |
Freshness
Last reviewed August 2026. Next scheduled review November 2026. Rates change without notice, so treat every figure as a starting point for your own check rather than a quote you can rely on.
Disclaimer
This article is general information about card payment costs and is not financial advice. All rates cited are published figures from third party sources as at the dates shown and are not offers, quotes or guarantees. Providers price individual businesses on volume, industry and risk. Qashier is a Major Payment Institution licensed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.