As a SaaS platform, you might look at your payment reports each month and feel a gap between the volume you process and the revenue you actually keep.

Your processor gets paid, the card issuers get paid, and “interchange” sits on the statement as a cost you might not fully understand.

At some point, you ask yourself: “Are we overpaying here? Can we actually optimize this?”

You might start researching interchange optimization and run into dense tables and vague promises about how you can lower interchange fees, without a clear sense of what you can actually control.

This article is here to cut through that. We’ll explain how interchange optimization actually works for SaaS platforms: both where you can meaningfully optimize and where the limits are. We’ll also discuss how interchange optimization fits into a wider payment strategy.

Looking for a payment partner that will enable you to earn meaningful revenue from payments? Fiska is a SaaS-specific embedded payment solution that offers a true revenue-share model. Book a no-obligations discovery call to find out how we can help.

What you need to know about interchange

Before thinking about optimization, you need a clear understanding of what interchange actually is.

Interchange is the fee the issuing bank receives every time a card payment is processed. When a customer pays with Visa or Mastercard, the issuing bank assumes fraud risk, authorizes funds, maintains the cardholder’s account, and handles disputes. Interchange is the mechanism that compensates them for that work.

To see how this plays out in practice, imagine a SaaS merchant processing a $100 card payment:

• Merchant receives: about $97
• Network fee: a small amount paid to Visa or Mastercard for connecting issuers and acquirers
• Acquirer or PSP fee: paid to the provider handling the transaction (for example, Stripe)
• Interchange: paid to the issuing bank that supplied the customer’s card

Interchange is usually the most significant part of this cost structure, which is why it gets so much attention.

What affects interchange?

Although the card networks publish interchange tables, the actual rate applied to a transaction is determined by three main variables.

1. Card type: Issuers set higher interchange for cards that carry more risk or cost. Debit cards are the cheapest because there is no credit risk. Standard credit cards cost more. Premium and rewards cards cost the most because issuers fund the benefits offered to cardholders through interchange.
2. Payment channel: Interchange increases when the issuer has less certainty about the transaction. Card-present payments, like chip and PIN, are low risk and priced lower. Online and in-app payments provide fewer security signals, so they attract higher interchange by default.
3. Merchant Category Code (MCC): Your industry also affects your interchange fees. Each business is assigned an MCC, and some categories are seen as safer than others. Charities usually get lower rates because the risk profile is low. Digital goods merchants see higher rates because their transactions are card-not-present and more prone to fraud.

Payment pricing can be complex. Learn more here: What you need to know about pricing models in SaaS payments

How does interchange optimization work?

At its core, interchange optimization is about avoiding unnecessary overpayments by ensuring transactions qualify for the correct rate.

Here are three tactics to help you do this:

1. Improve card data quality to potentially qualify for lower interchange categories

Card networks sometimes apply lower interchange rates when a transaction includes richer, more accurate data. Extra detail reduces uncertainty for the issuer, which allows certain business card transactions to qualify for better pricing.

This matters primarily for SaaS platforms serving B2B merchants. Commercial, purchasing, and corporate cards can benefit from enhanced data categories. Most B2C merchants, however, process almost entirely consumer cards, which aren’t eligible for these categories, limiting the impact.

Enhanced data falls into two broad levels:

1. Level 2 data: Adds structured fields such as tax amount, invoice or order references, and customer identifiers. These fields help issuers verify business purchases more efficiently.
2. Level 3 data: Includes all Level 2 fields plus detailed line-item information such as product descriptions, quantities, unit prices, and SKUs. Level 3 can qualify eligible commercial card transactions for significantly lower interchange.

In practice, a SaaS platform already holds most of this information in its order or billing data. Optimization simply requires that this data is consistently passed to the payment processor, rather than being stripped down to basic Level 1 fields.

If your merchants frequently bill other businesses, ensuring that you’re providing this enhanced data can move a meaningful portion of transactions into lower interchange categories. If your merchants mainly take consumer payments, the benefit will naturally be smaller because consumer cards don’t qualify.

2. Prevent interchange downgrades that can push transactions into higher-cost categories

Even when a merchant can’t qualify for enhanced data categories, they can still avoid paying more than necessary. Interchange downgrades happen when a transaction doesn’t meet the data, authorization, or security requirements set by the networks. When that happens, the transaction is moved from its intended category into a more expensive one.

This affects every type of card, including consumer credit and debit. If the underlying interchange is already high, such as with rewards cards, a downgrade pushes the cost even higher.

Downgrades usually stem from three issues:

1. Missing or incomplete data: Required transaction fields aren’t passed correctly.
2. Weak authentication or authorization gaps: The issuer doesn’t receive enough signals to approve the transaction at the lowest rate.
3. Processing errors or routing issues: The payment isn’t submitted using the correct flow, entry mode, or network path.

SaaS platforms can potentially reduce downgrade rates by ensuring the right data and security checks accompany every transaction. Strong customer authentication, such as 3D Secure for relevant markets, helps issuers approve transactions accurately and reduces unnecessary downgrades.

3. Ensure merchants are classified under the correct MCC

Every merchant is assigned a Merchant Category Code (MCC) that tells the card networks what type of business they operate. Interchange rates are tied directly to these codes, and some categories qualify for much lower costs than others. When a merchant ends up in the wrong MCC, they can pay more than they should.

Misclassification isn’t uncommon. PSPs sometimes default to a generic MCC during onboarding or choose a “close enough” category rather than the most accurate one. For SaaS platforms onboarding many different types of merchants, this can lead to higher interchange across the portfolio.

Accuracy matters here because specific categories — such as charities, schools, and childcare services — qualify for significantly lower interchange than higher-risk digital categories. If a merchant legitimately belongs to one of these lower-cost categories, the difference can materially affect their processing costs.

A good payment provider should verify MCCs during onboarding, but SaaS platforms benefit from checking that merchants aren’t automatically assigned to a more expensive category.

The limitations of interchange optimization

Interchange optimization can prevent unnecessary overpayments, but it has a clear ceiling.

The structure of interchange is rigid, and once the fundamentals are set correctly, there’s only so much more you can influence. You can correct misclassifications, avoid downgrades, and ensure transactions qualify for the best category available, but you can’t materially change how the networks price card payments.

Because of these boundaries, it’s worth being cautious when a provider claims they can dramatically reduce your interchange costs.

Any platform promising significant reductions in interchange costs through “optimization” alone is either overstating what’s possible or solving a misconfiguration that shouldn’t have existed in the first place.

The goal isn’t to chase unrealistic savings. It’s to make sure nothing is being left on the table. A reliable payments partner can help you confirm your MCC is correct, prevent downgrades, and ensure transaction data is sent properly.

If you want clearer visibility into what’s driving costs, tools like Flexibl can help SaaS platforms unify payment reporting and pinpoint where margin is leaking across interchange, network fees, and processor markups.

How Fiska helps you optimize payments and increase profit

To actually grow your payment revenue, you need control over pricing, a seamless payment experience inside your product, and a trusted partner who understands software payments. This partner can effectively guide you through the commercial and operational decisions that SaaS platforms need to make in order to truly drive revenue growth.

Most SaaS companies either under-monetize payments or accept whatever pricing their processor gives them. Fiska is built to change that. We help you turn existing online and in-person payment volume into predictable, high-margin revenue, without becoming a PayFac or building a payments team in-house.

Here’s what you get when you partner with Fiska:

A transparent revenue share model that grows your margin

Fiska operates on a true revenue share model. Once interchange and network fees are deducted, the remaining margin is shared between you and Fiska.

Pricing is based on true interchange, so you know your real base cost and can set your own rates on top. There are no platform fees, minimums, or hidden surcharges.

This makes it easier to model unit economics, forecast payment revenue, and keep a larger share of the income as your volume grows.

Strategic support: we act as your fractional Head of Payments

Fiska helps you design how payments work inside your business, rather than handing you an API and stepping back.

We work with you on pricing structure, target margins, and how payments fit into your plans, tiers, and verticals. That includes reviewing performance together, highlighting where margin is leaking, and suggesting improvements.

We also advise on areas such as MCC setup, risk controls, disputes, and underwriting. The aim is to give you senior payments expertise without the cost and complexity of hiring a dedicated in-house team.

A fully white-label, omnichannel experience

With Fiska, you integrate an omnichannel API that supports online, in-app, and in-person card payments. This simplifies development, reduces integration overhead, and keeps customer data and payment behaviour visible inside your product.

Also, merchant onboarding flows, approval journeys, dashboards, and payment experiences are all fully white-labeled. Merchants see your brand at every step, not a third-party processor, which strengthens trust and keeps the relationship anchored to your platform.

As a result, payments feel like a natural extension of your software, rather than a separate system bolted on beside it.

A team you know and trust, with level 2 merchant support

When payment issues occur, merchants usually contact the SaaS platform first. Fiska helps you handle this without having to build a dedicated payments support team.

You work with the same small group of payments specialists who know your product, your merchants, and your roadmap. You can reach them directly via Slack, email, or phone, rather than being pushed into an anonymous ticket queue.

We provide real-time guidance for everyday questions and offer Level 2 merchant support when deeper investigation is required, speaking directly with your merchants where appropriate.

In practice, this gives you the resilience of a mature payments operation, without adding permanent headcount or distracting your team from building the core product.

Taken together, this gives you clearer economics, more control, and more revenue from the payment volume you already have.

Interchange optimization: one lever in a broader payments strategy

Interchange optimization is important, but it only gets you so far. Once the basics are set up correctly, the real gains come from how you price payments, how you embed them in your product, and who you partner with to execute that strategy.

With the right approach, payments can become a predictable, high-margin revenue stream, rather than a black box.

Ready to unlock the true revenue potential of payments? Book a call with our CEO, and we’ll walk you through how Fiska can help you build a scalable, profitable payments revenue stream that works from day one.

FAQs

How can SaaS platforms optimize interchange fees?

Interchange fees are primarily set by the card brands and the card issuer, but SaaS platforms can still avoid overpaying.

One of the most important levers is making sure your business is assigned the correct Merchant Category Code (MCC). An incorrect MCC can lead to higher interchange fees, unnecessary basis points added to every credit card transaction, and weaker authorization performance.

With Fiska, your MCC is reviewed and validated during onboarding and revisited as your product and verticals evolve. Beyond that, we help you look past interchange alone, with guidance on pricing models, revenue share, and margin control so you improve overall profitability, not just lower interchange rates by a small amount.

What is the best way for SaaS companies to earn more from payments?

Because most card processing costs are outside your control, the most reliable way to grow payments revenue is to own your pricing and margin.

That usually means:

• Setting your own processing rates rather than accepting a generic flat rate
• Working with a payment partner who shares revenue with you
• Deciding how payments fit into your commercial model, for example, whether they are bundled inside plans or priced separately
• Adjusting pricing by customer segment, market, or geography where it makes sense

Fiska is explicitly built for this. Our revenue share model, transparent cost base, and strategic support allow SaaS platforms to monetize every transaction and improve credit card processing fees without adding extra operational overhead, compliance work, or risk.

How do I know if my SaaS platform is assigned the correct MCC?

Your MCC directly affects the interchange rates and discount rate you pay. There are hundreds of codes across industries, and it is common for SaaS and business-to-business platforms to be classified incorrectly, especially when:

• The product offering has expanded into new verticals
• You now support more B2B or purchasing card use cases
• The original setup was handled automatically by a processor or payment gateway

Misclassification can lead to higher processing fees and poorer payment performance. During Fiska onboarding, we review and verify your MCC to ensure your platform is correctly categorized. If there is a better fit that can lower interchange fees or improve authorization, we will help you make the necessary updates.

Is switching payment providers complicated for SaaS platforms?

It doesn’t have to be. With Fiska, integration and go-live are designed to be fast and low impact.

Our unified API supports online, mobile, and in-person payment processing with a single technical integration. You do not need separate systems for card-present and card-not-present flows.

Most platforms go live within weeks and begin earning from payments without disrupting their existing product, customer experience, or current transaction amount flows.

Can I monetize payments without becoming a PayFac?

Yes. For most SaaS companies, becoming a PayFac is an unnecessary burden. It brings heavy obligations around compliance, underwriting, and fraud, just to unlock economics that can be reached more simply.

Fiska allows you to earn meaningful revenue from payments without operating as a PayFac. We provide:

• A fully white-labeled merchant experience under your brand
• A revenue share model that lets you keep more of the economic value from each transaction
• Level 1 and Level 2 support, risk management, and underwriting are handled for you

You benefit from better payment economics and improved profitability while avoiding the costs, liabilities, and complexity of running credit card processing as a standalone business.