Important: This page does not constitute legal advice or encompass all aspects of applicable regulations. It is your responsibility to ensure compliance with relevant rules in your region and seek legal counsel to confirm adherence.
What Are Surcharges?
Surcharges are a feature of Karbon Payments that allow you to pass on the costs of processing credit card payments to your clients. Instead of absorbing these fees, you can set a surcharge rate, which will apply to clients paying by credit card.
Please keep in mind: Surcharges only apply to card payments. Clients paying via direct debit will not incur any surcharges.
How Surcharges Work in Karbon
When clients receive a payment request, they’ll be presented with all available payment options. If they select card payment, a surcharge will be automatically applied and shown in a banner. Selecting direct debit will not incur this fee, and the due amount will be adjusted accordingly.
Surcharges in the US
In the US, card network rules prohibit applying surcharges to debit or prepaid cards. To ensure compliance, Karbon will automatically remove any surcharge if the client attempts to pay with one of these card types. Surcharges will only apply to credit card transactions.
How to Add a Surcharge
To add a surcharge, you’ll need to have the Manage Payments Account Permission under your Billing permissions. Follow the steps below to configure surcharges:
Navigate to:
Billing > Settings > Card Payment Surcharges
.Once you have a Karbon Payments account, the surcharge functionality will be available.
Enter your surcharge rate, ensuring it complies with your region's legal and regulatory requirements.
Client level overrides
You can set custom surcharge rates for individual clients or disable surcharges for specific clients altogether. Follow these steps:
Navigate to:
Contacts > Search > Find the Contact
.Select the client and go to the Details tab.
Under Payment Settings, you can:
Set a custom surcharge rate for the client.
Disable surcharges for the client entirely.
You can change or remove this setting at any time.
Disable Payments Surcharges
To remove surcharges across your entire account:
Navigate to:
Settings > Billing > Edit > Delete
.This will delete all surcharges, including any custom client-specific overrides.
Please keep in mind: If you decide to re-enable surcharges later, you will need to re-add any custom rates.