Editorial policy

Who this is for

Everything on RateCheckrr is written for a busy owner who has ten minutes and a statement they do not understand. Not for people who already work in payments.

Our rules for writing

• Answer first. The first line of a page answers the question in the title. Explanation comes after.
• Plain words. Short sentences. We aim for the reading level of a newspaper, not a contract.
• Define the jargon. Every industry term gets explained the first time it appears.
• Real examples. "If you sell $20,000 a month" beats an abstract formula.
• No invented numbers. Every rate, fee or rule has a source, or it carries a visible marker saying it still needs one. We would rather show you a gap than fill it with a guess.
• Neutral about providers. We explain how each company prices, bills and cancels. We do not publish rankings or "best" claims we cannot back up, and we do not trash anybody.
• A useful ending. Every page finishes with something you can actually do.

How a page gets made

1. Question first. We start from something merchants actually ask, not from a keyword.
2. Research. We work from primary sources: card network rules, regulator publications, and providers' own published pricing.
3. Draft. Written to the rules above. Anything we cannot source gets a marker rather than a number.
4. Review. A second person checks the facts against the sources and the reading level.
5. Publish. With the author's name, the reviewer's name and the date it was last checked at the top.

Dates on our pages

"Last reviewed" means somebody read the whole page against its sources on that date and confirmed it still held. It is not the date we changed a comma. If a page is old, the date will say so rather than being quietly refreshed.

When rules change

Card network rules, interchange rates and surcharging law all change. When something we have written about changes, we update the page and move the review date. If a change is significant, we say what changed rather than silently editing.

Corrections

We will get things wrong. When we do, we fix the page and note the correction on it. We do not delete a page to make an error disappear.

Found a mistake? Please tell us: hello@ratecheckrr.com. Corrections from people in the industry are welcome, including from providers we have written about.

Provider pages

We write about providers without asking their permission and without taking payment for the page. If a provider thinks we have described their pricing incorrectly, email us with a link to their published terms and we will check it.

What we do not do

• We do not publish sponsored articles.
• We do not accept payment to change what a page says.
• We do not use AI to generate pages and publish them unread.
• We do not quote a rate we cannot point to a source for.

How we are paid

Separately and openly: see how we make money.