Dual pricing and compliant surcharging in Long Beach

Dual pricing shows customers a cash price and a card price, and you keep the full cash price on every cash sale. Surcharging adds a disclosed fee to credit card transactions instead. Both shift some or all of the cost of card acceptance off your margin.

The catch is that both are heavily regulated. Card brand rules, state law, signage, receipt disclosure, and the debit card carve-out all have to be handled correctly, and getting it wrong exposes you to fines or card brand action. Debit cards cannot be surcharged, which is the detail most providers gloss over.

I will walk you through what is permitted for your business and your state, what your signage and receipts have to say, and how customers typically react. For some businesses it is a clear win. For others, particularly those with high average tickets or heavy card use, a sharper interchange-plus rate is the better answer. I will tell you which you are.