How Credit Card Surcharges Reshape Small Business Cash Flow

Episode 25 of Cash Flow Conversations examines how credit card processing fees — typically 1.5 to 3.5 percent per transaction — silently drain working capital for small businesses. Lucas and Luna unpack the mechanics behind interchange fees, the rise of surcharging since the 2013 Visa/Mastercard settlement, and why a coffee shop earning $500,000 in card sales might lose $15,000 a year to fees alone. They explore real-world tactics: how a bakery in Portland switched to a surcharge model and saw net margins improve by 2 percentage points, how net-30 trade credit interacts with credit card rewards programs, and why more B2B suppliers are adding a 2.9 percent surcharge to overdue invoices. The conversation also touches on state-level regulations (10 states still ban surcharging) and the emergence of level-cost processing alternatives like interchange-plus and flat-rate models. Specific, actionable, and grounded in numbers — no theory, just cash flow math. #CreditCardSurcharges #InterchangeFees #WorkingCapital #SmallBusinessFinance #CashFlow #PaymentProcessing #Visa #Mastercard #SurchargeLaws #MerchantFees #B2BPayments #TradeCredit #Net30 #Business #FexingoBusiness #BusinessPodcast #CashFlowConversations #LucasAndLuna Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo