counting down…

Card surcharges are banned from 1 October.

See what the ban costs your business — and exactly what to raise prices by to break even. Free, takes 30 seconds.

1Your numbers
85% is the RBA's 2025 national average card-payment share — change it if you know your own split.
From 1 October you lose
$0
per month ($0 a year) in surcharge revenue
The fix: raise all prices by
0%
and you break even — customers pay the same total they do now. This is the worst case: if your provider cuts its rate after 1 Oct (the RBA is capping fees too), re-run with the lower % and your rise shrinks.
Wait — why does the ban cost me money? I never kept the surcharge.

The surcharge just covered the fee you pay your provider. The ban removes the surcharge — not the fee.

Today Customer pays $101.50 → provider takes $1.50 → you keep $100
1 Oct Customer pays $100 → provider still takes $1.50 → you keep $98.50

That missing $1.50 per $100, all year, is your number above. A small price rise gets it back.

Isn't the RBA cutting card fees too? Maybe I won't need to raise prices.

Partly true — the RBA caps interchange fees from the same date (credit 0.8% → 0.3%). But interchange is only one slice of what you pay: your provider adds scheme fees and their own margin on top, and they decide how much of the cut reaches you.

If you're on a flat-rate provider (Square, Zeller and co.), your cost only drops when they cut their headline rate — and they haven't committed to that. Big retailers with negotiating power will capture the savings first; small merchants are the "wait and see".

So treat this calculator as your worst case. When your provider announces its post-October rate, come back and re-run the numbers with the lower % — your break-even rise shrinks. Raising a touch less later is an easy win; being short $500 a month from October isn't.

What about my customers who pay cash?

The calculator already accounts for them — it's why your rise is smaller than your surcharge. You only lose surcharge revenue on card sales, but you recover it across all sales, so the rise is spread thinner.

On a $10 item with a 1.5% surcharge: a card payer used to pay $10.15 and now pays about $10.13 — slightly better off. A cash payer used to pay $10.00 and now pays about $10.13.

So yes — cash customers chip in a little toward card costs. That's built into the ban itself, not this tool; every business in Australia faces the same shift. If it matters to you (especially on big invoices), cash discounts are still legal — the ban stops you surcharging cards, not discounting cash. Raise prices by your full surcharge rate instead, then offer that % off for cash, and you've recreated the old setup.

2Reprice your menu / price list
3Before 1 October — checklist
  • Update POS surcharge settings (turn card surcharging off)
  • Reprint menus / price lists with new prices
  • Update prices on your website / online ordering
  • Brief staff on the change before it goes live
4Staff script — "why did prices go up?"
"From 1 October, the government banned card surcharges — so instead of adding a fee at checkout, we've built that cost into our prices. You're not paying more overall, we've just made it simpler and more transparent."

Unlock the repricer, checklist & staff script

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