Hidden Fee Finder for Nutraceutical and Supplement Sellers
Nutraceutical and supplement sellers usually pay high-risk pricing, mostly on card-not-present sales with auto-ship billing and chargeback exposure, so a statement can hide more line items than a typical retailer's. Tick the fees on last month's statement to see your real effective rate, how it compares with a high-risk industry average, and which charges to question.
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 nutraceutical and supplement sellers see more fees than most merchants
Most supplement brands sell online, through a store on a platform like Shopify or WooCommerce, a subscription checkout, or phone orders taken through a virtual terminal. Online and keyed-in sales are card-not-present, and card-not-present interchange is generally higher than tapped or dipped in-person sales. If you also sell at a retail counter, gym, or expo booth, those swiped sales may price differently, so a mixed statement can look inconsistent from month to month.
Processors classify nutraceuticals as high risk because of auto-ship programs, trial offers, and the chargebacks that can follow. That classification often brings extra lines: a per-chargeback fee, a higher monthly service or risk fee, a gateway fee, and sometimes per-authorization charges that add up when your billing system retries declined auto-ship cards. When you use this tool, the Industry average (assumption) for this business type is 4.25%, the high-risk figure from our assumptions file. It is a planning benchmark, not a published standard.
Estimates are based on published industry averages and are not a quote. Actual rates depend on card mix, ticket size, industry, and underwriting.
What to enter (and leave out) as a supplement seller
Rolling reserves are not fees. If your processor holds a percentage of each deposit, that money is held, not charged. Do not add reserve holds to total fees, or your effective rate will look far worse than it is. Do include every fee section of the statement, including chargeback fees, which are often listed on a separate page or a separate monthly notice.
Use the same month for volume, fees, and transaction count. If January resolution traffic or a product launch pushed volume well above normal, check a typical month too, because fixed fees such as gateway, PCI, and monthly service charges look smaller as a percentage in a big month and larger in a slow one.
For auto-ship businesses, transaction count should include renewals that went through. If your statement also lists authorization counts, a large gap between authorizations and settled sales usually means retries on declined cards, which is worth asking about in its own right.
A worked example for a nutraceutical and supplement seller (hypothetical numbers)
Imagine a supplement brand that processed $60,000 last month across 1,200 transactions, mostly auto-ship renewals, with $3,000 in total fees. Effective rate: 5.00%. Cost per transaction: $2.50. Average ticket: $50.00. Against the 4.25% Industry average (assumption), the gap is 0.75 percentage points, so the status is Above the industry average. Annualized, that gap is about $5,400 a year (0.0075 x $60,000 x 12), and annual total fees are about $36,000.
Now suppose the statement shows $1,250 in interchange and $150 in card brand fees. That leaves an estimated $1,600 a month in processor markup and fees: a markup rate of about 2.67% and roughly 53% of total fees. If the brand also ticked a $45 monthly gateway fee and $200 in chargeback fees, those annualize to $540 and $2,400 under the tool's assumption that last month is representative. All figures here are invented for illustration.
Estimates are based on published industry averages and are not a quote. Actual rates depend on card mix, ticket size, industry, and underwriting.
What a good result looks like for nutraceutical and supplement sellers
A good result is not simply a low number. For a high-risk merchant, Close to the industry average with mostly pass-through costs and few processor-set lines is a healthy sign. A rate well above average, a tiered statement with large Non-Qualified lines, or two or more processor-set fees you cannot explain are the signals to dig in.
Watch chargeback fees most closely. They scale with disputes, not sales, so a bad month can push your effective rate up quickly. If they show up every month, review cancellation flows, billing descriptors, and renewal reminders alongside your pricing. The free results show your rate and fee tags; the full breakdown adds annualized costs, markup split, and the questions to send your processor. For a second opinion, talk to a payments specialist at touchsuite.com/contact.
Frequently asked questions
My processor holds a rolling reserve. Should I count it as a fee?
No. A reserve is your money held for a period, not a charge. Leave it out of total fees. If you count it, your effective rate will be overstated. Ask your processor separately how the reserve percentage and release schedule were set and when they will be reviewed.
Why does my effective rate jump in months with more chargebacks?
Chargeback and retrieval fees are charged per dispute regardless of sale size, so a few extra disputes on $40 or $60 orders can move your rate noticeably. Tick the chargeback fee box and enter the amount; the tool will tag it as processor-set and, in the full breakdown, annualize it so you can see what disputes cost over a year.
Is 4.25% the rate I should expect as a supplement seller?
Not necessarily. 4.25% is the high-risk industry average from our assumptions file, used only as a benchmark. Your actual rate depends on card mix, ticket size, chargeback history, and underwriting. Use the comparison as a prompt for questions, not as a target or a quote.
Our auto-ship retries declined cards several times. Could that show up as fees?
It can. Some statements charge per authorization attempt, not just per completed sale, and those charges may sit under gateway or transaction fee lines. Compare authorization counts to settled transactions; if retries are driving costs, ask your processor and gateway how each attempt is billed.
We sell online and at expos. Should I run the tool on both?
If both run through one merchant account, enter the combined totals from that statement. If they are on separate accounts, run each one separately, because in-person and online sales usually carry different interchange, and blending two statements can hide which account is costing more.