It costs us money and our margins are so low that we can't afford to bear them. We charge them at actuals to you.

Why?

You probably don't think about this much, but if a merchant loses 2-5% per transaction, they must be making a lot more than that. We don't make that in profits even if ignore the transaction charges.

An outlet making more than 20% profit could easily afford the 2-5%. But then again, if you could get that as a discount wouldn't that be better? That's what we believe we are doing. We are aggressive with our pricing and process payment for free via UPI. And for that small percentage of transactions where our customers want to use the card, we charge them at actuals.

Why are the charges so high?

We are processing very low volumes via credit cards and don't have the bargaining power to demand a lower MDR/TDR.

When will this change?

Hopefully never. If we stop charging, you can be sure that we are making good money and we've stopped caring.

UPI

This may change in the future.

UPI is a zero-MDR service by rule. But folks at payment gateway companies are so smart that they often charge it as TDR/Forwarding charges. For now, companies like PayTM, OPEN & CCAvenue let us process UPI transactions at zero charges and as long as this remains the norm, we'll operate the same.

However, this is not sustainable and we know it too. They can't keep giving this for free and when the day comes when these services are chargeable, we will charge for it. But seeing how UPI has lower overheads, it's most likely to have the lowest MDR. So that will end up being our default zero point.

Why not use GPay for Business or PhonePe Business?

It's not scalable. It's labour-intensive and hard to track. Especially with all the privacy-focused redactions that these companies put into the app, like redacted upi addresses, shortened names etc.

And we refuse to cave into the pressure. We understand there is going to be a small segment of our customer base who might not pay online but we have no plans to cater to them.

How much?

Exactly what the payment gateway charges us. Links provided.

Razorpay

Can you do better/help us?

Please mail us at athul@ddpl.xyz and I'd be happy to connect.