Card vs Bitcoin Payment Fee Calculator
Compare your monthly card-processing cost to a bitcoin processor's cut, based on your own volume and fee rates.
Difference: $175.00/mo, or $2,100.00/year.
This assumes a processor that auto-converts to CAD on your behalf. Holding the bitcoin yourself instead adds price volatility and capital-gains bookkeeping, since the CRA treats crypto as a commodity, not currency. That trade-off isn't modelled here.
How it works
Card processing has two costs stacked on top of each other: a percentage of the sale and a flat fee per transaction. A typical Canadian credit-card blend runs around 2.65% plus 10 cents a swipe once you account for interchange, assessment fees, and your processor's markup. Bitcoin payment processors usually charge a single flat percentage and skip the per-transaction fee entirely, since there's no card network in the middle taking a cut.
Worked example with the defaults loaded above: $10,000 in monthly volume over 100 transactions. Card processing costs $275 a month (2.65% of $10,000 is $265, plus 100 transactions at 10 cents each is $10). A bitcoin processor charging 1% costs $100 a month on the same volume. That's a $175 monthly difference, or $2,100 over a year, before accounting for anything else. Change the transaction count, average sale size, or either fee rate to match your own numbers, since a business with fewer, larger sales sees less benefit from skipping the per-transaction fee than one with lots of small ones.
FAQ
Is the bitcoin processor fee really that much lower across the board?
It depends on the processor and your card mix. Some Canadian bitcoin processors charge under 1%, others closer to 1.5%, and a few offer volume discounts. Card fees also vary a lot by industry and card type, since premium rewards cards and business cards carry higher interchange than basic debit or standard consumer cards. Pull your actual processor statement and use the real blended rate rather than a rough estimate.
What isn't this calculator accounting for?
Two things worth knowing before you decide. First, bitcoin's price moves, so if you hold any of it instead of auto-converting to CAD immediately, your effective cost basis can swing well past whatever you saved on fees. Second, the CRA treats cryptocurrency as a commodity, which means you need to track and report capital gains or business income on bitcoin you receive, adding a bookkeeping step that card payments don't have.
Do chargebacks change this comparison?
Yes, and in bitcoin's favour for cost, though it cuts both ways operationally. Card payments carry chargeback risk and the fees that come with disputing one; confirmed bitcoin transactions can't be reversed by the customer or their bank the way a card payment can. That protects you from fraud-driven chargebacks, but it also means you can't issue a card-style reversal if you need to refund a mistaken payment; you have to send bitcoin back manually.
Should a small business switch entirely to bitcoin to save on fees?
Fee savings alone rarely justify dropping card payments, since most customers still expect to pay by card or debit. The more common approach is offering bitcoin as an additional option, which lets price-sensitive or crypto-native customers pay with lower fees while everyone else keeps using what they already have.
For more on choosing between processors and weighing the trade-offs, see the best bitcoin payment processors for Canadian businesses, bitcoin payment gateways vs. direct wallet payments, and managing bitcoin price volatility as a merchant.