A gateway fee is the price a payment gateway charges a merchant for its service of capturing payment details at checkout, encrypting them and routing them to the acquirer or processor for authorisation. It is most often a fixed amount per transaction attempt, sometimes charged whether the payment is approved or declined, and may be accompanied by a gateway monthly fee and one-off setup fees.
Gateway fees are separate from the merchant discount rate, which covers interchange, scheme fees and the acquirer's margin. Many payment service providers bundle the gateway with acquiring and charge a single blended rate, so no separate gateway fee appears. Merchants using a standalone gateway with a different acquirer see both charges. Gateway fees form part of the merchant's total cost of acceptance, and add-on services, such as fraud tools or tokenisation, may carry extra charges.