Should you pass credit card fees to parents?

What it actually costs

Take a club with 400 registrations at $150 each. That is $60,000 collected. At a common card rate of 2.9% plus $0.30, processing costs about $1,860 across the season.

If you absorb that, it comes out of the money you budgeted for pitches, referees and kit. If families cover it, each one pays about $4.65 more and your budget is untouched.

The case for passing it on

• Your fee does what it was calculated to do. If you worked out $150 covers the season, absorbing processing means it does not — you are quietly running at $145.35.
• It scales with you. The cost grows with registrations. A fee structure that works at 200 athletes quietly breaks at 600.
• It is common and expected. Families encounter checkout fees constantly. It is not the imposition organizations fear it is.

The case for absorbing it

• Your advertised price is the real price. No surprise at the last step, which is where registrations get abandoned.
• It reads better on a flyer. “$150, all in” is cleaner than $150 plus a fee nobody can calculate in advance.
• It avoids a conversation with the parent who objects on principle — and there is always one.

The option most organizations miss

You do not have to pick one answer for everything. Absorb it on the programmes where price sensitivity is highest — an entry-level rec division, a scholarship place — and pass it on where families are already paying for a competitive travel programme. Most platforms, Ligue included, let you set this per programme rather than organization-wide.

How to tell families without a backlash

The backlash comes from surprise, not from the amount. Three things prevent it:

1. Say it before checkout, not at it. Put it on the registration page in plain words: “A card processing fee of about 3% is added at checkout.”
2. Explain where it goes. Families assume the club is taking it. Say plainly that it is the card processor’s charge and the club receives none of it.
3. Offer an alternative if you can. ACH usually costs less than card. If you accept it, say so — families who care about the fee will use it, and the ones who do not will keep paying by card.

How this works in Ligue

Your organization chooses whether to absorb processing or add it at checkout, and you can set it per programme. Either way it appears in your financial reporting, so you can see what the decision actually cost across a season rather than estimating it. Payments and plans has the detail.

Processing fees: common questions