Know what providers charge for each payment method, before you sign
The 101 payment methods a retailer chooses between, in Europe and in the markets European retail sells into, and what the providers that offer them publish about each one: 4,632 published prices and 392 published performance claims, confirmed at source.
What providers charge for a payment method, as they publish it
Choose where you sell from, where you sell to, a channel and a payment method. The table shows the price each provider in the index publishes for that method, exactly as printed, with a link to the page it comes from. Where a provider offers the method but publishes no price, the row says so. The index covers a panel of providers, not every provider in a market. Show method details, above the table, sets out how the method behaves: where it reaches shoppers, who carries the disputes and why a payment could fail.
Required to show the table
Choose where your business is established and where your shoppers are, and the index shows which providers offer the method there and the price they publish. Merchants established in the EU, Norway, the United Kingdom and Switzerland are covered, Cyprus and Malta excepted. It covers a panel of providers that actively serve retailers and brands, not every provider active in these countries, so a method can be available from more providers than the table shows. A provider that should be listed and is not can send its published price list to index@ecomstream.nl. A provider or scheme owner that believes a row about it is wrong can write to the same address. Every reported correction is checked at the source and, where it holds, carried into the dataset and recorded in the change log of the dataset.
Loading the price record
| Provider | Price applies to | Per transaction | Model |
|---|
Put a euro figure on your own payment set-up
The table shows published rates; your quoted rate determines what you actually pay. The payment set-up check sets your checkout against what shoppers in each market expect, and shows what the gaps cost you in euros.
Source: EcomStream, Retail Payment Methods Transparency Index, ecomstream.eu/payment-methods-transparency-index. A published rate is a list rate: what a merchant actually pays is stated in his contract.
What the market publishes, and what it leaves out
The index answers one question at a time. The report reads the whole market at once: the 101 methods in the index, as their owners and providers publish them.
providers publish no price for any method, in any market.
methods have no published price from any provider.
methods leave the merchant exposed to chargebacks.
32 carry none. For 9 a third party carries the dispute; for 18 nobody states who does.
published performance figures state no baseline.
22 state everything a reader needs to check them.
What it shows a retailer: how much of a payment set-up can be judged from what providers publish, and how much only surfaces in a quoted rate and a contract.
How the evidence is held
Every row carries the URL it was read from, the locale of the page, the date of reading and a verbatim quote of the decisive wording. A row counts as verified only where two independent readings agree or the author re-read it at source; a row read once is left out of every headline figure. Every figure in the report is generated from the dataset, so text and graphics cannot drift apart.
The index is kept current. Published prices are re-read at source on a rolling basis, and every change is recorded in the change log. The report is an analysis of the index on its date; a new analysis is published when the figures have moved.
The report is a census of what providers publish. It is not a price comparison, not a ranking and not an assessment of value.
