Hidden Fee Finder for Auto Repair Shops
Auto repair shops run big tickets, a mix of fleet, rewards, and keyed-in phone payments, and a lot of fixed fees that hit hardest in slow months. Enter one month of your statement to see what you actually paid per dollar and per repair order, and which charges are worth a call to your processor.
Your statement check
Estimates are based on published industry averages and are not a quote. Actual rates depend on card mix, ticket size, industry, and underwriting.
The fees you ticked
Estimates are based on published industry averages and are not a quote. Actual rates depend on card mix, ticket size, industry, and underwriting.
About your pricing model
Bring this statement. A payments specialist can walk through it line by line with you. Estimates are based on published industry averages and are not a quote. Actual rates depend on card mix, ticket size, industry, and underwriting.
How this works: the assumptions behind your numbers
Every number above comes from the totals you enter plus the assumptions below. Assumptions are estimates, not verified rates.
- Industry average effective rate by segment: retail 2.55%, restaurant 2.75%, ecommerce 3.15%, services 2.90%, healthcare 2.65%, b2b 2.80%, high_risk 4.25%. Source: TouchSuite pricing assumptions file (estimates only; replace with verified figures before launch).
- Comparison tolerance band: ±0.25 percentage points counts as 'close to average'. Source: Tool design assumption to avoid flagging trivial differences.
- Last month is representative: Monthly fee amounts are multiplied by 12 to annualize. Source: Tool design assumption; seasonal businesses should treat annual figures as rough.
- Annual fee frequency: Annual fee entered as a once-a-year amount, multiplied by 1. Source: Tool design assumption.
- Early termination fee: Treated as a one-time cost, not annualized. Source: Tool design assumption.
- Fee classification tags: Interchange and card brand fees tagged 'typically pass-through'; listed account-level fees tagged 'typically processor-set'. Source: General industry structure; actual billing varies by processor and contract, so tags read 'typically'.
- Sanity check bounds: Warn if effective rate is above 15% or below 0.5%. Source: Tool design assumption to catch data-entry mistakes.
Estimates are based on published industry averages and are not a quote. Actual rates depend on card mix, ticket size, industry, and underwriting.
Why auto repair shop statements are harder to read than they look
A typical auto repair shop takes fewer, larger payments than a retail store. A brake job, timing belt, or transmission repair can be a single card swipe for hundreds or thousands of dollars. That means every percentage point on your statement translates into real money per repair order, and a small rate difference compounds quickly.
Your card mix also pushes costs around. Customers paying a large repair bill often reach for a rewards credit card, fleet and business accounts pay with commercial cards, and many customers call in a card number when they hear the car is ready. Rewards, commercial, and keyed-in card-not-present transactions typically land in higher interchange categories than a dipped consumer debit card. On a tiered statement, those are the transactions most likely to show up as Mid-Qualified or Non-Qualified surcharges.
Because of all this, the rate your sales rep quoted rarely matches what you actually pay. The effective rate the tool calculates (total fees divided by total volume) is the number that cuts through the line items.
Which business type should an auto repair shop choose in the tool?
The tool does not have a dedicated auto repair category, so pick the closest match. If most of your revenue is parts and counter sales, Retail (which includes auto parts) is the closest fit. If your tickets are mostly labor and you bill fleet or commercial accounts on invoice, Services may be closer.
The two choices use different industry average assumptions: 2.55% for Retail and 2.90% for Services. These are assumptions from published industry averages, not benchmarks specific to auto repair. If you are unsure, run the tool once with each and see whether your result changes from Above to Close or Below. If you are above both, that is a clear signal to dig in.
Estimates are based on published industry averages and are not a quote. Actual rates depend on card mix, ticket size, industry, and underwriting.
A worked example for a hypothetical auto repair shop
These numbers are made up for illustration. Say a two-bay shop processed $60,000 in card volume last month across 150 transactions and paid $1,980 in total fees. Effective rate: $1,980 / $60,000 = 3.30%. Average ticket: $400.00. Cost per transaction: $13.20. Against the Retail assumption of 2.55%, that is 0.75 percentage points above average, which works out to roughly $5,400 a year above the assumed average (0.0075 x $60,000 x 12). Against the Services assumption of 2.90%, the gap is 0.40 points, or about $2,880 a year.
Now say the owner ticked three fees: a $40 PCI non-compliance fee, a $15 statement fee, and a $69 terminal lease. That is two processor-set fees plus one lease, so three fees worth a question. Annualized in the full breakdown, those three alone come to $1,488 a year ($480 + $180 + $828), against $23,760 in total annual fees.
If the owner also entered $1,260 in interchange and $90 in card brand fees, the estimated markup would be $630 for the month: a 1.05% markup rate and about 32% of total fees. That split is what tells you how much of your bill is negotiable and how much is card-network cost.
Estimates are based on published industry averages and are not a quote. Actual rates depend on card mix, ticket size, industry, and underwriting.
Fees auto repair shops should check first
PCI non-compliance fees are common on shop accounts because the annual security questionnaire gets buried under parts invoices and warranty paperwork. If you see one every month, it is often fixable by completing the questionnaire, so ask your processor what is outstanding. Terminal leases deserve a look too: shops that signed a multi-year lease years ago may still be paying monthly for a terminal they could own outright for less.
Monthly minimum fees and flat monthly charges hurt most in slow stretches. Many shops have uneven months, with busier periods around seasonal work like tire changeovers or air conditioning repairs and quieter ones in between. Fixed fees take a larger share of a slow month, so if you run the tool on a quiet month, your effective rate will look higher than your annual average. Running a busy month and a slow month gives you a more honest picture.
Chargeback and retrieval fees matter for repair shops because disputes tend to involve large amounts and arguments over whether work was authorized or done correctly. Signed repair orders and written approval for added work are your best evidence. If you take deposits for special-order parts or bill fleet accounts on invoice, ask whether those transactions are being keyed in and charged at a higher rate than they need to be.
Frequently asked questions
Customers often call in their card when the car is ready. Does that raise my fees?
It can. Keyed-in phone payments are card-not-present transactions, which typically fall into higher interchange categories than a card dipped at your counter, and on tiered pricing they often get pushed into Mid-Qualified or Non-Qualified buckets. If phone payments are a big share of your volume, tick the non-qualified box in the tool if you see those lines, and ask your processor whether a text-to-pay link or virtual terminal with address verification would change how those payments are categorized.
A lot of our customers pay with fleet or business cards. Why do those seem to cost more?
Commercial and fleet cards typically carry higher interchange than consumer debit cards. Some processors and gateways can pass extra invoice details on business cards (often called Level 2 or Level 3 data), which may qualify those transactions for different interchange categories. Ask your processor whether your terminal or gateway supports it and whether it is turned on. The tool's pass-through versus markup split will help you see whether the higher cost is coming from interchange or from your processor's markup.
Can I add a card fee or surcharge to repair orders to cover processing costs?
Rules for surcharging and cash discount programs vary by card brand and by state, and they change. This tool does not evaluate whether any practice is allowed where you operate. Before adding a fee to repair orders, confirm the current requirements with the card brands and your state, and get any program terms from your processor in writing.
Our volume swings a lot between busy and slow months. Which statement should I use?
Use any single month where you can pull volume, fees, and transaction count from the same statement. Just know that fixed monthly fees make slow months look more expensive on an effective-rate basis. For a fuller picture, run the tool on one busy month and one slow month. If both come out above the industry average assumption, the issue is likely your pricing rather than seasonality.
We are stuck in a contract with an early termination fee. Is it still worth checking our statement?
Yes. The full breakdown shows your early termination fee separately as a one-time exit cost and compares it with the annualized cost of the fees worth questioning. Sometimes the yearly overage is larger than the exit cost; sometimes it is not. Either way, knowing your numbers gives you something concrete to bring to your current processor before your renewal date.