Most hotel owners, when comparing payment options, focus on the processing rate — the percentage taken per transaction. That number matters, but it's usually not the largest fee you're paying.

The actual cost of taking card payments is spread across several different things, and they rarely appear on the same invoice.

The processing rate is the fee charged per transaction — typically somewhere between 1.5% and 3.5% depending on the platform, the card type, and the market. This is the number most platforms advertise, and it's also the number that gets negotiated most. What it doesn't include is everything else.

Monthly platform fees are common with bank-issued terminals and traditional payment gateways. These can run anywhere from $20 to $200 a month regardless of how much you process. For a property with seasonal occupancy, you're paying that fee in the quiet months too.

Hardware costs are one-time but significant. A card terminal from a bank or payment provider in most of South America, Asia, and Africa costs between $300 and $1,500. In some countries you can't buy one outright — you rent it, which adds another monthly line item. Tab's mobile app turns any phone into a payment terminal, so there's no hardware cost at all.

Payout fees are often invisible until you check your bank statement. Some providers charge a flat fee per payout transfer, others charge a percentage, and many apply an exchange rate margin when converting to your local currency. This margin can be 2% to 4% above the mid-market rate, applied to every payout you receive.

Currency conversion on the guest side is a separate thing. When an international guest pays in your local currency using their foreign card, their bank applies a conversion fee. When they pay in their own currency — which Tab supports — the conversion happens on Tab's side at a rate that is typically better than what the guest's bank would charge. The guest pays a 4% conversion fee, which Tab shows them transparently before they pay.

OTA commission is the fee that dwarfs everything else and gets discussed the least in the context of payment processing. Booking.com and Expedia take 15% to 25% of the booking value. That's not a payment processing fee — it's a distribution fee — but it comes out of the same revenue. A hotel paying 2.9% to process a direct booking and 20% to an OTA for the same booking is paying seven times more on the OTA booking, before any other fees are considered.

Virtual card processing is higher than standard card processing because of how OTA virtual cards work at the network level. Tab charges 5.9% to charge a virtual card from Booking.com, Expedia, or Agoda — more than the standard rate, but still a fraction of the OTA commission already paid on that booking.

Tab's full fee structure: 2.9% plus $1 for advance bookings sent via payment link, 2.9% for in-person payments, 5.9% for OTA virtual card charging. No monthly fees, no setup fees, no hardware costs, no payout fees. Refunds are free — Tab returns its fee to both the business and the guest. Payouts go out every Wednesday to any bank account in 140+ currencies.

The honest comparison to make when evaluating payment platforms is not just the processing rate. It's the total cost across all these categories, including hardware, monthly fees, payout fees, and the exchange rate you're actually getting. Most platforms make that comparison difficult by design.