At the RightOnline Summit in Austin, Texas -- Slatecard co-founder Sendhil Panchadsaram announced that on August 1 we were reducing our credit card processing fees from 4.5% to 3.95%. That's the same fee as ActBlue -- a similar utility used by Democratic grassroots supporters.
From the beginning, we've been committed to providing the most honest, transparent, and cost-effective online processing system for Republican candidates and the Right kind of causes. Looking at the other guys' fees, we've clearly been doing just that.
But we had hoped that as we increased our volume, we'd be able to negotiate lower fees, and we are pleased that we've been able to do just that.
To be sure, there are likely other credit card processing solutions that appear lower, but when you start reading the fine print, you find out that there's always a per transaction fee, typically a monthly fee to use the system, a merchant account fee, and many other costs which are "hidden" from the casual observer. For example, even in our system every time someone enters a credit card for processing we're charged $0.35 and a percentage -- ranging from around 2% - 3.85% depending on the type of card being used, e.g., check card, credit card, visa, mc, amex, discover, etc.
Further, rather than having a confusing, shifting variable rate, we believe our community of activists and candidates has a right to know exactly how much of their donation will end up going to its intended destination. And by bundling multiple contributions using a Slatecard - we're only charged one transaction fee which helps save us money and has helped us reduce these fees. (Trust me, as volume increases it adds up.)
The bottom line is that there's no such thing as a "free" credit card
processing system but we're just about as close as you can get.
We're proud to be the most cost-effective processing solution for Republican candidates and the Right kind of causes. Our hope is that the community will recognize our good will and chip-in a few bucks every now and then to help us keep the system up and running and even provide some capital to help pay our bills and expand the platform. It's up to the community to help us stay viable and we're willing to work hard to make our supporters proud to have supported us.
Revolution.